Jeremy Cupp from Weyers Cave, Virginia, enjoyed reading motorcycle magazines until he came across stories of builders who claimed to have built the bike but actually just bolted it together. Rather than take his frustration out on the pages of the magazines, he channeled it into constructive action. Jeremy decided to build a bike according to his principle on what it truly meant to build, not bolt something together. Equally important to him was the challenge: could he do it? As you can see from these pages, Jeremy did it, and this build even surprised him.
Jeremy remembers loving motorcycles ever since he was a kid, even aspiring to grow up to be a biker. "A biker was like a dirty scary guy back then," he said, "who looked like he'd kick your ass. A guy who lived the way he wanted." Jeremy added, "That was exactly what I wanted to grow up to be." Over the years he worked in the family businesses-cutting, grinding, and welding-and eventually landed a job at a fabricating company. When the timing and money finally lined up in his favor, Jeremy bought a 'ragged as hell 89 Sportster.
With the advice of Tom Stevens at Independent Cycle and Machine in Verona, Virginia, Jeremy rebuilt the Sporty and couldn't get enough from the finished project. "Then I wanted to build a bike-frame and all-to see if I could, and 'cause nobody around here seems to build bikes anymore," he said. Jeremy started this bike after picking Tom's brain again-kind of a crash course in frame construction. He then scavenged his Sportster for an engine and frontend. He started the build off by jigging up the engine, rear wheel, and steering neck. He then designed the bike by the seat of his pants but kept all the laws of physics in mind. Jeremy wanted a low drop-seat frame. So he went with 37-degrees of rake in the neck and added 4 inches in the backbone with another inch in the downtube. After building the oil tank inside the gas tank, he finished it off by running copper tubing for oil lines to show off the mechanics of the bike. Jeremy also wanted a low-slung board tracker set of handlebars. But by the time he made them clear the tank, the bars looked more like the old panhead style.