2004 Hetrick Design And Machine

It's ironic how on the road of life, you can sometimes end up right back where you started. Case in point: Gary Hetrick and his '04 special construction chopper. This is not a bike that was created out of the need to build a show-winner cashing in on all the latest trends, rather it is a bike that is firmly rooted in Gary's past, and one that starts a progression to the future. His rejection of all that is trendy and his dedication to his own path are reflected in the bike's name, "Black Sheep."

The background portion of this story comes in the form of a bike called "Satisfaction." Satisfaction was built by Gary out of a sincere passion to design and create. It was also was featured on the cover of Street Chopper in 1973. At the time, Gary was part owner of a tool and die shop where he did a lot of engineering and machining. The valuable knowledge gained at the tool and die shop allowed Gary to build his custom at night after everybody had gone home. Back then, Gary did all the work on the bikes himself, everything from fabrication to final paint and bodywork. This was also around the time that he developed his second love, hand-painting signs and pinstriping. The skills Gary developed with a brush became his professional mainstay and still are to this day.

Fast-forward to 2002. With nearly thirty years of striping under his belt, Gary was looking for a change, not necessarily an entire career change, but something to spice things up a bit. While Gary was looking for that extra something, "chopper mania" was sweeping the nation and got Gary reminiscing about the seventies and his Street Chopper cover bike "Satisfaction." As much as he wanted to, the whole idea of building another bike seemed like a pipe dream. But then, life seemed to give Gary an ironic form of motivation. On the tail end of his wife's breast cancer recovery, Gary himself was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Luckily he was able to beat it, and his wife continued to recover. But in the wake of both of their serious illnesses, Gary found a deep drive to create a new bike.

His plans called for an updated version of the aforementioned Street Chopper feature bike. Only this time the bike wouldn't be the chopped police bike bought at auction with numerous one-off pieces. This time it was a clean-sheet-of-paper approach with an underlying theme of "what-would-the-old-bike-look-like-morphed-into-a-modern-day-bike?" interpretation.

The updated version would have a 113-inch Patrick motor, a BDL primary, a Baker RSD tranny, and 18-inch wheels front and back with a 280-series tire to round things out. Every inch of the bike was meticulously planned out, and it shows in the overall flow of the bike as well as the fit and finish of all the parts and their relationship to one another. Once all the geometry was calculated and the engineering planning completed, construction began. But the build of the bike didn't start with the bike parts themselves, rather it started with the fabrication of all the necessary frame jigs and forms that would be used to create said parts.

Having built both springer and girders on past projects, Gary preferred the form and function of the Girder-style front end, so a one-off was constructed utilizing a single Works coilover shock and brake-fluid-pressurized lower legs that eliminate the need for brake lines to feed the twin Brembo four-piston calipers up front.

Once the front end was done, and the newly constructed frame jig completed, it was time to start the chassis. The various bends and shapes of the chassis were created using plywood bucks over which tubing was heated and bent. One key difference at the rear of the bike is the elimination of any rear wheel adjustment. In the quest for a perfect tire-to-fender fit, Gary decided to forego the typical setup and instead built an idler off the frame that takes up unnecessary slack in the chain. The rear wheel is a three-piece configuration; the design itself was created and machined by Gary. The wheel center started as a 100-lb-plus piece of 6061 aluminum but has a finished weight of just 18 pounds. The rear hubs and rotor carrier are also one-off pieces; a single Brembo four-piston caliper handles rear braking.

Even though the original plans called for an 18-inch front wheel once mocked up, the tire looked too bulky. So plans changed and a 21-inch was put in place allowing for a more streamlined look. Mid controls, clutch linkages, and the like are all one-off pieces. The gas tank and oil tank were also fabricated by Gary, the tanks carry the old-into-new theme of the bike as well.

Once all parts were finished and a mock-up completed, it was time for paint and bodywork. Gary handled all this in the same garage space he used for the build. In a makeshift spray booth, the job was started and finished in just four days. The black basecoat was sprayed before Gary applied the White Gold Leaf and accent striping to match the color of the leather seat. A nice detail of the striping is the way it is carried over into the embroidery on the seat.

This time around the bike represents more than just a pastime or hobby. This bike utilizes several parts that Gary wants to put into production such as the primary cover and the velocity stack. With a little luck and some hard work this bike will not only carry on an almost 30-year passion, but will hopefully serve as a springboard to Gary's future in product manufacturing, providing consumers with a little piece of Gary's ingenuity, pretty much taking things full circle.