Go to almost any shop around and there will be someone with a chopper, and most likely, it will still be the coolest thing on the lot. I was digging through an old box of childhood memories that I haven't looked at since I packed it up more than 13 years ago when I moved from Philadelphia to California. In that box I had packed some of my best motorcycle memories from when I first started riding at the age of 8 -- that was 1970 -- up until I moved West.
The box consists mostly of photos I had taken over the years, magazines and motorcycle brochures I squirreled away, and a few broken parts that reminded me of dumb or extremely fun things I had experienced on a bike. If you looked through it, I am pretty sure it would bore you, but to me it is a treasure more valuable than anything else I own. One of the first things I found when I opened up the box was a photo I took of a building outside of Mt. Morris, Pennsylvania, in 1971. In the distance, you can see the hill, but in the foreground is a perfect period chopper: shovelhead motor, 16-inch-over Springer, Mustang tank molded to the frame, cosmic graphics, and a king and queen seat. Looking at the grainy photo, I am taken back in time to that parking lot off to the side of the hill and I can almost remember standing there looking at the bike.
It is kind of funny to me that as a youngster I was so into dirt bikes but whenever I thought of a street bike, it was always a chopper. Actually, all the kids I rode with then were the same: We all wanted street choppers to go with our dirt bikes. A long, lean bike that simply sparkled in the sun and turned heads as it went by in my mind. As I dug through the box, I found a few old STREET CHOPPER magazines that I had saved with the pages marked for exactly the bike I would want. It still blows me away to think I read this magazine 30 years ago.
The more I dug through the box, the more I was reminded of how strong the chopper world was back then. Way back then, it seemed that the only truly cool bike was a chopper -- stock just didn't cut it. No matter where I went back then, choppers ruled the city. Any dealership, no matter what brand, always had someone who worked there with a chopper, and no matter what type of bike that was sold at the shop, the chopper was always the coolest bike on the lot.Fast-forward to today and what we see now rings as true as way back then. Go to almost any shop around and there will be someone with a chopper, and most likely, it will still be the coolest thing on the lot.
The difference is, a lot of shops that had started out building choppers and continued to make their name in the low, fat performance Harley world are delving back into the chopper-building business. Some are so deep into it that a visit to their shop is much like a visit to a bike show -- choppers everywhere.What is so cool about these second-generation chopper builders is that they know what a chopper should be, and they have had 30-plus years to develop their technological skills to build even better bikes. Where a shop may have specialized in short, skinny, almost spindly looking chops back in 1970, today they probably build bikes with frames that are massive and thick with forks that jump all the way up to 60 or 70 mm. Tires that were one or two sizes bigger than stock have made way for tires far more than 8 inches wide.
Now back to the dirt bike connection. With the growing popularity of the X-Games and Gravity Games, extreme motocross jumping is a huge hit. Those young guys who hop on a 125- or 250cc dirt bike and jump 40 feet in the air while holding on their rear fender with one hand, guess what a lot of them ride on the street?
Choppers. More and more of the information that is brought out about these show-men reveals that when they are not flying off a ramp, they are riding choppers. Why? Let's face it, when your job has you risking your neck in front of 60,000 screaming fans, you need a little attention as you roll down the boulevard. And nothing gets you attention like a chopper -- especially one of today's massive tire machines. Everything in life goes in cycles: Today, just like way back, when stock just isn't cool, choppers are.