Whats new in the custom world  

Why, dluu, it's just busting with creativity and fantastic new ideas! Comon' the custom bike world is in the dumper right now - ask anyone who builds bikes for a living and they'll tell you that people who couldn't churn out $70,000 bikes fast enough five years ago can't give them away for $20 grand.

Why?

Overstaturation of the market. The Discovery Channel caused a boom in chopper sales and all the monkeys who used to buy Porsches all of a sudden had an urge to be "born to be wild". This brought back Street Chopper magazine and absolutely anything that had the word "chopper" on it was suddenly big news. But, alas, as with all yuppie trends, it began to die down. The rich kids who bought them to be cool realized that you actually had to have skills to ride them, skills to wrench on them and MAD skills to keep those big-inch custom jobs running. All of a sudden this wasn't just like taking the car down to the dealer for an oil change - you had to get dirty, you had to get funky and you had to get down with your bad wet-weather self from time to time. So what did these bad-ass, hardcore, butt-kickin' riders do with their $50k machines?

Well, tried to sell them, of course.

Along with every other rich kid playing with dads money who had never turned a wrench, never ridden through a hailstorm or shouted at the devil coming down a hill outside of Red River in a blinding rainstorm with lightening crashing all around you while you slowly reqalized your brakes did not have enough pad to make it down the mountain. Yup, this here chopper stuff could get downright dangerous.

But this is really good news for us old time guys who really like to ride and build bikes because prices on harley stuff have just dropped through the floor. You can buy a 6 speed transmission on eBay for $600 - but better yet, you can buy the 5 speed gears that used to be on this rich dudes Road Toad for $200 because he doesn't have a clue what to do with them and damn...they get grease all over everything.

So it's time for the rightful owners of the two lane blacktop to reclaim their righful place as rulers of the two-wheeled road. The wanna-be's and their buddies will turn their attention to powerboat racing or something else and leave the road back to those who know what it's really there for. To those who know the magic of a moonlit night as you come down out of the Rockies with a belly full of green chili, a sunburnt redhead on the back and memories of a fine "rest stop" taken on a grassy knoll that overlooked a 20 thousand foot drop (but who was looking at the scenery?)rolling around your head as the weary but steady pug pug pug of the shovel echos off the canyon walls - to those of you who know that a rainstorm can be ugly or opportunity depending upon where you hole up, to those who know that 20 minutes of tracing down that short that had you both laughing when you began to tickle her with ignition wire (oops, still hot!), to those that know that the memories you make with a bike are unlike anything anywhere - well, it really doesn't matter about what's new or cool. It matters that you're out there with your gray moustache flapping in the breeze while a set of 40+ year old red finger nails drape lazily across your shoulders. That's what's cool, that's what's new and brother, that's all that matters.

Hope this helps a bit. Oh yeah, it's fun to build bikes, too.  

I am so glad to finally find someone else who feels the same way about all those yuppie *** and isnt to scared or politically correct to say it!!!