When put to a challenge some guys step it up while others step aside. For El Pitts, founder and CEO of Vegas City Choppers in Sin City, stepping it up is the only option. When a call comes in about a bike build, El is always ready for the project. But to pick up the phone and find out Discovery Channel's Biker Build-Off has chosen you for a build-that is a true statement of recognition. And for El, it was a good way for him to say, "I'm not going anywhere, I'm here to stay."
From the start El has wanted to push the envelope with his style of bikes. He grew up in Las Vegas, where the best of the best can be seen on the street in the form of cars and bikes. As a youngster, El was in love with flashy hot rods, lowriders, and motorcycles, and the older he got, the more involved he had become in the car scene, building and customizing some of the industry's best-known show pieces.
It all started when El was at a car show and a few guys rolled up on some tricked-out lowrider-style bikes. As he looked closer, El liked what he saw. But the more he looked, the more he could see places on the bikes where he would have done things differently. For El, cars were easy to pimp out-he felt like had done it all-and it was time to challenge himself to something new. Like all the cars he had built, El's first custom bike was a hit and a show winner. Shortly after that, the shop phone started ringing off the hook. Guys who had seen El's work at the shows wanted to get their bike tricked out, while others wanted custom builds. One thing lead to another, and that first bike turned into a few years of building custom bikes for customers, and before he knew it El was building a bike for Biker Build-Off with one thing on his mind: showcasing his style on a worldwide stage. Oh, and winning the build-off would be cool, too.
El told us that Biker Build-Off was the best experience of his life as a bike builder thus far. It taught him many valuable lessons about this industry that he will carry with him through all of his future business ventures. "It was such a privilege to be chosen to do the Build-Off," El said. "You get the chance to build one of the best bikes that you've ever done, then you get to show it to the world. It's a cool thing."
On the flip side, this has been one of the most difficult projects he has ever had to do. El's challenge was to build the best bike that he'd ever built, but not make it a carbon copy any other bike he'd done. What people may or may not realize is the shop building the bike has to fund the entire project, and there are not as many freebies as you may think. Being a small-scale builder, El doesn't have as many sponsors to support him as a lot of the big shops do. As soon as he had his concept drawing together of how the bike was going to be built, El called a few friends to help out with building the next level of "Show & Go" from Vegas City Choppers.