While others chase the latest fad in the motorcycle industry, we at Sucker Punch Sally's keep a steady course, doing what we do best, and it seems to be working. At any given time we are at least a month back-ordered on builds and can't seem to keep our parts on the shelf. We follow a fairly simple formula: We build bikes we would like to ride ourselves and try to carry on our family's tradition of building mechanically sound, ridable, stripped-down American motorcycles. We don't really pay attention to what everyone else is doing in the industry, and we don't really care about winning shows. Our main concern is helping the guy who busts his ass for a paycheck to get on a cool motorcycle at a reasonable price.
Sure, we enter shows, but we do it to get our name out and let people know what we are all about. We don't build show bikes; we build bikes that are meant to be ridden. We make sure every bike and part that comes out of our shop is built to the best of our ability, and we get those bikes and parts to our customers at the lowest price possible. We used to be in the same position as some of our customers, so we know how important it is to save a few bucks. We remember what it's like to be on the verge of getting a bike done but needing that last piece or something machined, so we try to help people out. We really look at what we do as a service, even though we don't have a service department perse.
Calls come into the shop from people such as Kevin Baas, who asked for help with parts for his latest Kennedy High School project, and we pitch in where we can with parts or tech support because we believe in the altruism that's supposed to be inherent to this business. It goes beyond just donating parts and time to a project; we were always taught to stop when we see someone broken down on the side of the road because it's the right thing to do. Today, the same thing holds true with our business philosophy; obviously, we want to make a living doing what we're doing-and have been fortunate enough to do so-but we also embrace the idea that life isn't always all about making money. We truly believe that just because we do this for a living, it doesn't mean that we have to become opportunistic and follow trends. We have a formula that works for us, and it just so happens that what we enjoy building is what the public is looking for today. We hope that won't change, but if it does we can't see Sucker Punch Sally's starting to change its basic formula just because our bikes and parts might fall out of the public's favor.
We are adaptable to a degree, and we'll change parts out on our bikes if we find something that will work better (or if we can get comparable quality for a better price), but we never use anything that will compromise our quality, look, or style. For instance, take how we mount our rear fenders. Every single bike we send out has a handmade fender bracket that comes off the rear of the frame because we were unable to find a manufactured part with the minimalist look we strive for, or one that will hold up like the ones we make in house. The same is true for our spring seat mounts. All the available manufactured spring seat mounts are cumbersome and require cotter pins. We came up with an easy way to turn a few pieces of steel and get a seat mount that works on friction, making it easy to pull the seat up to access the battery. The process requires us to use the lathe and turn a few pieces, but it adds to our signature look and cuts down on cost. This fact brings us to the idea that having our own unique style requires skill and mechanical ability. Without prior knowledge of how bikes hold up, or what it requires to keep a fender attached or a seat spring to stay, it would be impossible to predict whether any of these in-house-manufactured parts would work. We have years of practical building and riding experience and were brought up around motorcycles and the custom motorcycle scene, so we have a good sense of what will work and what won't.
We have had good luck designing and producing our own parts. We like the way they look, and we use those parts on our own bikes. Our H-Bomb oil bag has an interesting story. We saw a steel orb on a metal fence in a ritzy neighborhood and thought it would make a cool oil bag for a panhead project we were working on. After tracking down the manufacturer, we ordered a few steel balls in various sizes and started mocking up some ideas. We put one of the bags on the panhead and got a lot of compliments. We started producing them, and now they're a very popular part carried in the Jammer Handbook. We didn't start off the H-Bomb endeavor thinking we were going to make money selling them in bulk; we made one because our customer wanted our signature Sucker Punch style with a twist. We wanted to do something different that we thought was cool, functional, and was in keeping with our style, not what the market dictated. We have tried to keep that organic approach in our business, and we feel it has made good business sense. We keep building what we like, and if the public likes it, great, but if not, that's fine, too, because in the end at Sucker Punch we are competing against ourselves. Each time we come up with an idea, it's about trying to make a better bike that we would enjoy riding, not to produce something that will be the next hot product-but it doesn't hurt when we do.
Jeff Cochran and Donny Loos are co-owners of Sucker Punch Sally's, located outside Cincinnati, Ohio.
Visit Sucker Punch online at
www.suckerpunchsallys.com, call (513) 353-2803, or send a letter to P.O. Box 527, Miamitown, Ohio 45041.