Archive for November, 2009

Old School Choppers

When it comes to choppers no phrase is more incorrectly tossed around more than ‘Old School Choppers”. So what exactly is an “old school chopper”?

When I think of “old school”, or “old skool” as some hip guys like to say; I think of bike builders like the late Denver Mullins or Sugar Bear. To me these bikes have been captured by the late artist Dave Mann better than anyone. To guys who were building choppers long before they became fashionable, the term means one thing, and to those who have jumped on the band wagon since OCC it means something a little bit different.

Springer front end at least 6 ” over stock, a hand forged sissy bar, a two up king and queen seat and set of fishtail mufflers that reach up past the passenger seat. Built by one or two guys in one of their garages or maybe their backyards. This is true old school. The front end might be a few pieces welded together, the tank is small to cut down on the weight, and the front fender is long gone. 

The frame has been stretched so the rider is just barely looking over the handle bars, and the whole bike looks about 12 feet long even though its really only about 9. The frame is rigid and the rear fender barely clears the tire. The headlights (two stacked) are square and the bike looks like death waiting to happen. That, my friends, is an Old School Chopper. If it comes out of factory it is a production chopper.

I think what gets my goat more than anything right now is the number of builders who claim to be building choppers when in fact they are building “bobbers’. How can you build bikes and not know the freakin’ difference? Since when did every stripped down custom become a chopper? C’mon guys, you have to have added some stretch or rake to be calling these choppers. You are building bobbers.

Am I wrong about this? Is my definition of Old School Chopper wrong? Is anyone other than Mondo still actually building them now that Billy lane’s off to jail? I did a search on Google for “old school choppers’ and on the first page of results I could only find one shop that actually was building them. That was very discouraging.

Now of course, I know plenty of guys are still building them, but the point of this post is that the term has almost completely lost it’s meaning. Which means the next inevitable step is that true old school choppers will be lost forever except for faded photos and in the memories of those lucky enough to have ridden them. Or maybe Mondo and Sugar Bear will live forever. Man, that’d be nice.

Big Dog Choppers

Big Dog had the first production choppers that I ever recall seeing on the streets, and at first I wasn’t impressed. At the time I was big into heavy chrome and all kinds of nonsense on bikes, and really didn’t get what a chopper was. It was a Ridgeback, I believe and at that time I didn’t even know that Big Dog had been making custom cruisers for 10 years. The cruiser certainly were not choppers, in spite of their common street name and the company in my humble opinion didn’t get it right until they introduced the model called the “Chopper” and then of course, the Ridgeback.

The Big Dog K-9

Big Dog Motorcycles, as far as I know, never claimed to build choppers until they introduced the model of the same name , but people have been calling all of their bikes that for as long as they’ve been in the public eye. So let’s just talk about the Big Dog choppers then, OK, and not about the other models. Basically as of this writing Big Dog only makes two chopper models: the Ridgeback and the K-9.

Big Dog Ridgeback Chopper

These bikes in my mind epitomize what the modern chopper is: stretched up and out as far as you dare go and raked just enough to matter. Real choppers actually look much more raked then they are. While most ProStreet bikes go 45 degrees or more a real chopper may only be raked 38-42 degrees. That long front end mainly comes from being stretched  in the downtubes.

Why the K-9 provides a smoother ride through a hidden shock, the Ridgeback looks just a little meaner and appears to have more downtube stretch because of the tire hugging fender, even though that spec on both bikes is the same. These are true American made production choppers, that are as simple as a DOT approved bike could be and if you want an instant custom, at least this company is still in business. 

I go to a  lot of motorcycle rallies and I notice that Big Dog bikes blend right in with hand built custom choppers that are parked right beside them. If you removed the logo it would be hard to tell a production Big Dog from a one off build and I think that’s a major boost to the company’s street cred. Honda is trying that with their K-9 clone, the Fury, but it just isn’t flying. It still reeks of Honda, while the Big Dog bikes continue to say “one of kind custom” even though we all know they’re not.

OCC Choppers

I’ve been watching “American Chopper” since it first went on the air. I was fascinated by Paul Teutul and his crew and what they were able to do building choppers by hand. Paul Jr’s design work was phenomenal. The them bikes were incredibly innovative and the family drama was mesmerizing.

American Chopper and Orange County Choppers made a lot of people yearn to ride a motorcycle even if they couldn’t afford a custom chopper. Paulie and Vinnie also inspired a lot of bike owners, myself included, to take our stock bikes and make choppers out of them. Where a look at Jesse James choppers may have given us a slight inkling, the new program from Discovery put us over the edge.

OCC Splitback Chopper

Like it or not, the show changed the way custom choppers were built in this country. The theme bikes from OCC, once very unique items, were now popping up in chopper shops all over the country. Every one was doing some sort of tribute chopper and putting it out there for all the world to see. It not only changed the way bike builders built choppers it also led the way for the huge, if not temporary in some cases, success of companies like Big Bear Choppers, Big Dog Choppers, and American Ironhorse who all were pumping out production custom bikes as fast as they could sell them.

What had once been a bunch of guys taking  Harley Davidson motorcycles and putting a grinder and a welder to them to produce one of a kind choppers was now an assembly line process turning out custom choppers the way Henry Ford turned out the Model A. I believe this may have ruined the cutsom motorcycle industry and custom choppers in general. In fact I actually created a single page blog, just to discuss it: Custom Motorcycles.

As everyone now knows, Vinnie and Cody have left the business to form their own company V-Force Customs. It appeared from that episode that Vinne had finally had enough of Paulie and OCC taking all the credit for all his work. And you guys may remember Mike Campo from the early shows. I actually talked with him in person a few years back and he basically told me that he left because he was sick of Paulie and couldn’t work with him any more. Remember the Statue of Liberty Chopper?

OCC Gillette Chopper

Anyway, Paul Teutul Sr has built an empire with OCC and I have had the pleasure of personally viewing many of these bikes in person and can tell you that the detail is incredible, just like everyone says on the show, and after comparing their choppers against other famous custom bike builders I can assure you that as far as quality goes no builder’s bikes that I have seen in person come close to Orange County’s bikes. In fact I’ve seen a lot of bikes built on Biker Buildoff that are literally falling apart now.

We all know that OCC had lost both Paulie and Mikey because of conflicts with Paul Sr and from what I’m seeing on the show, Rick and the remaining Mike need a freaking raise. I believe some of the last few bikes they have built have been some of their best. They’re getting back to what choppers are and away from the whole “cartoon” look of some of the last theme bikes that were done when Paul Jr was still with them. Is it possible that the shop that ruined custom choppers might actually be the one that brings them back? Time will tell.

Modern Choppers

When you think about  modern choppers 3 companies come to mind: West Coast Choppers , Orange County Choppers and Choppers Inc.  Jesse James has been busy building his non-motorcycle TV persona, Billy Lane is looking at 6 years for manslaughter, and the Teutul family seems to have irreconcilable differences.  What is the future of choppers?

Old School Chopper

It’s important when you’re on this site that we distinguish the phrase “custom motorcycles” from “choppers” and “bobbers”. The original choppers were stripped of every unnecessary part and usually had the addition of a longer front end, whereas bobbers were a stock bike with the factory rake stripped of every unneeded part. I’m not sure if the word bobbers or choppers came first, and in the beginning I’m pretty sure they were interchangeable, but the subtle difference in the two words hold true.

When all 3 of the modern choppers companies started building bikes, they rarely had anything unnecessary on them: no turn signals, windshields, usually one mirror, maybe no front brake. A big sissy bar was a must in the old days even though that really didn’t fall under the description of being “chopped” but modern builders aren’t as keen on them as they once were.

OCC now puts DOT approved turn signals on every bike they build, which almost disqualifies them as being choppers, but I’ll give them a pass for extra rake and stretch. Even though the general public stills gives them their props; true bikers shy away from them more and more especially since they’ve gone into things like Marvel comics T-shirts, their own line of insurance, and any other numerous merchandising deals that just don’t ring true to bikers. I also think a lot of biker’s are pissed that Rick name isn’t even mentioned anywhere on the OCC site. Must be in the Fan Club area, but of course you need to pay $50 a year for entry into that.

Chopper

Since hard core biker Lane is headed for the jail, there’s really no way to say if Choppers Inc will even survive the next six years. While Billy may have stayed true to his biker roots while some of his fellow builder traded their “choppers rule” mantra for every dollar they could get their hands old at least they didn’t try to get away with killing a guy, and the general public surely will not be waiting for him when he gets released.

So does that leave Jesse James as the last universally known builder of real choppers? I guess so until Rick Petko decides to start up his own company. At least we know Jesse hasn’t changed. He’s still building tanks and fenders by hand, and actually canceled his first TV show just to get back into building bikes himself again. I’m glad Jesse’s still Jesse and the West Coast still builds choppers. Somebody has to.

Don’t worry, there are still plenty of guys building real choppers out there and eventually this site will cover them all.