I know it's been over a month since I last posted. Time flies when you're busy it seems.
So today I'm going to mention the Hollister Rally. It's always been the 4th of July weekend but for some reason not this year. It would have been a perfect time to do the rally with the 4th on a Friday this year and all. But hey, what do I know right?
We were again at Corbin's factory off San Felipe Rd. This is a good space for us, lots of room, nice parking lot, good people and above all the price is right. Sorry but the promoters of this rally are asking way too much for their space. Add in the city taxes, permits and fees and the basically one day rally would probably be the most expensive day of the year. I say it was a one day rally because Friday was really slow, Saturday was great. We had a great turn out but Sunday was nothing. That's the day everyone goes home so it was really a single day rally. Again, had they done the rally the weekend before it would have been better for everyone, vendors, attendees and the promoters as well. Also at Corbin's with us were Samson pipes, Barnett Tool and Engineering, you know the cats from Barnett cables and clutches. The cool thing about Corbin's is they're doing seats all weekend as well as doing an open house so you get to see how they make their seats and other parts. His showroom also usually has several interesting bikes from antiques to racing bikes. Overall I'd say the rally was okay, not great though and it has the potentail to be great. I'm hoping someday they get a promoter or somebody doing it that sees what's missing and how to make it the premier west coast rally it should be.
At the rally we unveiled my latest build, Destiny. This bike is really something cool to see. American Iron magazine is planning a feature on this bike so keep your eyes open for that.
Also on my ind today is Red Fridays. I've been a supporter of this idea for almost a year now and still support it. It's Friday and I'm wearing my red, are you? Today I get an e-mail saying we need to wear blue on Fridays now. Okay, this is ridiculous to me. I'm all for showing our support but we need to all get on the same page people. It doesn't show anything if we're going in twenty different directions.
Sturgis is right around the corner. I wish I could be there, always one of my favorite rallies. Maybe I'll make it back there again someday. I hope everyone that is going has a safe and fun rally week.
FTF
Ride Free
Friday, July 18, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
CHOPPER CHALLENGE
So CMT has their new show, Chopper Challlenge where builders get a crate load of parts and are assigned a client to build a custom bike for. Not sure how many have seen this new show but I've seen a couple of episodes. I kind of like the format of 30 days to build the bike and they're told who their client is. Not sure about the parts being semi mandated although I understand them wanting to use parts from sponsors. I'd say if they want this to happen then it needs to be mandatory they use all of the parts supplied since the people sending their parts are sponsors of the show and should get their name mentioned and parts shown.
I saw the first episode where Kirk Taylor built a bike for Geico. Nice enough bike and it seemed to fit the theme. I was a little disappointed that Kirk seemed to think he needed to dress a certain way and portray some sort of a personna for the cameras.
I missed the second episode where Scott Long built the Incredible Hulk bike. I did however see the bike in person in Santa Maria a couple of weeks ago and I have to say I was very impressed. While it may not fit the whole Hulk theme with huge parts and beefy chunks of metal I did like the paint they did. The paint is really done nicely and the bike tends to fit Scott's building personality. I didn't see the show but I somehow doubt Scott did anything to play up to the cameras, just doesn't seem like that kind of guy to me.
The latest episode was Cole Foster building a bike for the Roadrunner internet services from Time Warner. I've always like Cole's style, understated and very clean. He, like myself likes to see the mechanics of the motorcycle. He's not one for massive body panels and tedious superfluous crap on a bike. He builds clean hot rod bikes and I've always liked that style, probably why I tend to build my bikes that way most of the time. The bike was done nicely although there were a couple of things that disappointed me.
First was that somehow Mike Rouse from BMC seemed to think he needed to be in the epsiode even though he didn't do a damn thing except take up oxygen but then again that's pretty much his specialty. I wonder if he's figured out what kind of oil goes in his bikes yet. I love the story I tell anyone that knows Big Mike about how he didn't know what kind of oil went in his bikes he was building when he was the "Master Builder and Designer" at American Eagle. I think most Master Builders would know what oil goes in the bikes they're building. Sorry Mike, you're not really a builder in my book, master or otherwise.
Second was the lack of color used on the bike. The Roadrunner's colors would be purple and grey and could have been done in a really clean paint scheme to add something to the bike. Instead they went with what looked like a black frame and oil tank while the sheetmetal was done in silver. It just didn't do much for me. The rest of the bike was really pretty cool, well the pipes could have been something a little better but the bike was more than decent. I'd have really liked to see something done in the color area though. A little color would have gone a long ways to add a little snap to the custom work Cole did.
That's enough for now.
FTF
I saw the first episode where Kirk Taylor built a bike for Geico. Nice enough bike and it seemed to fit the theme. I was a little disappointed that Kirk seemed to think he needed to dress a certain way and portray some sort of a personna for the cameras.
I missed the second episode where Scott Long built the Incredible Hulk bike. I did however see the bike in person in Santa Maria a couple of weeks ago and I have to say I was very impressed. While it may not fit the whole Hulk theme with huge parts and beefy chunks of metal I did like the paint they did. The paint is really done nicely and the bike tends to fit Scott's building personality. I didn't see the show but I somehow doubt Scott did anything to play up to the cameras, just doesn't seem like that kind of guy to me.
The latest episode was Cole Foster building a bike for the Roadrunner internet services from Time Warner. I've always like Cole's style, understated and very clean. He, like myself likes to see the mechanics of the motorcycle. He's not one for massive body panels and tedious superfluous crap on a bike. He builds clean hot rod bikes and I've always liked that style, probably why I tend to build my bikes that way most of the time. The bike was done nicely although there were a couple of things that disappointed me.
First was that somehow Mike Rouse from BMC seemed to think he needed to be in the epsiode even though he didn't do a damn thing except take up oxygen but then again that's pretty much his specialty. I wonder if he's figured out what kind of oil goes in his bikes yet. I love the story I tell anyone that knows Big Mike about how he didn't know what kind of oil went in his bikes he was building when he was the "Master Builder and Designer" at American Eagle. I think most Master Builders would know what oil goes in the bikes they're building. Sorry Mike, you're not really a builder in my book, master or otherwise.
Second was the lack of color used on the bike. The Roadrunner's colors would be purple and grey and could have been done in a really clean paint scheme to add something to the bike. Instead they went with what looked like a black frame and oil tank while the sheetmetal was done in silver. It just didn't do much for me. The rest of the bike was really pretty cool, well the pipes could have been something a little better but the bike was more than decent. I'd have really liked to see something done in the color area though. A little color would have gone a long ways to add a little snap to the custom work Cole did.
That's enough for now.
FTF
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
MOTORCYCLE MADNESS
I know this is technically out order chronologically speaking but I wanted to post something about Motorcycle Madness. This is an event we just did a couple of weeks ago in Santa Maria. It's promoted by HP Productions, they do Hollister now as well as several other events on the west coast. I've done their Grand National Show in October a few times and always liked that event. We had been told how huge this event was and how we just had to do it. It's not a huge deal to pull our trailer down there so we decided to give it a try.
Well huge it ain't. It's maybe average to me but then again I like to see crowds like you see at Sturgis and Daytona. There were only 4 builders in the builder's plaza. There was Todd's Cycles from Huntington Beach. Santa Clarita Choppers, a fairly new operation from what we could tell was next to us. There was us and then Scott Long, our friend from Central Coast Cycles in Santa Cruz. There was a lot of indoor smaller vendors, some food people, Hoppe was there with their really cool bagger fairings and some exhaust guys I'd never heard of. That was really about it. Oh yeah, Meguiars had a huge ass trailer there for their products.
Apparently we were also at the same hotel with most of the builders as well as a bunch of others from the event. The weather was beautiful, we can't complain about that but the crowds really weren't there.
I'm still on the fence whether or not I'd do this event again. In a few months I may decide it wasn't too bad but then again I may decide with the ridiculous price of diesel fuel, high hotel and food bills that this event just wasn't worth it. Right now the jury is still out on this event.
We'll be at Corbin's place for the Hollitser Rally July 11-13 so stop on by and say howdy, aloha, hola or whatever you wanna say as long as it's civil.
FTF
Ride free
Well huge it ain't. It's maybe average to me but then again I like to see crowds like you see at Sturgis and Daytona. There were only 4 builders in the builder's plaza. There was Todd's Cycles from Huntington Beach. Santa Clarita Choppers, a fairly new operation from what we could tell was next to us. There was us and then Scott Long, our friend from Central Coast Cycles in Santa Cruz. There was a lot of indoor smaller vendors, some food people, Hoppe was there with their really cool bagger fairings and some exhaust guys I'd never heard of. That was really about it. Oh yeah, Meguiars had a huge ass trailer there for their products.
Apparently we were also at the same hotel with most of the builders as well as a bunch of others from the event. The weather was beautiful, we can't complain about that but the crowds really weren't there.
I'm still on the fence whether or not I'd do this event again. In a few months I may decide it wasn't too bad but then again I may decide with the ridiculous price of diesel fuel, high hotel and food bills that this event just wasn't worth it. Right now the jury is still out on this event.
We'll be at Corbin's place for the Hollitser Rally July 11-13 so stop on by and say howdy, aloha, hola or whatever you wanna say as long as it's civil.
FTF
Ride free
MEMORIAL DAY AND MORE.....
I'll probably do more than one update tonight but I'll start with Memorial Day. To me it's a day to honor those vets that gave the ultimate sacrifice like my Unlce Ross. He fought with his three brothers in WW II and then re-enlisted for the Korean War. He was a flyer. He flew The P-51 Mustangs in both wars as a bomber escort. He managed to make it all the way through the first war and was shot down over Korea. He's techincally an MIA to this day. All of his brothers managed to come home safe from WW II. My grandfather was one of them, he was at the Battle of the Bulge. So with all four of the brothers being in service during WW II my family has a history of serving in the military. On Memorial Day we always fly the flag and try to remember those that have given their lives so that we can enjoy the American way of life and be safe at home.
During this latest war I have been a huge supporter of our men and women in service. We offer discounts to the military as well as police and fire personnel because we feel we should give back to those that protect our families at home and abroad. We're also big supporters of Red Fridays.
Just before Memorial Day weekend I got an e-mail from a person that had ordered a wheel from us for his Harley. He had an APO address so we knew he was in the military in some way. I now know he's in the Air Force stationed in Germany. Anyway, this gibblet head ordered the wrong wheel from us and didn't know any better that he needed to give us more information for us to get him the right part. He informed me of the wrong part and I researched what happened. As I suspected it was his fault. We sell a lot of wheels and this is the first problem we've run into because most customers give us all the info we need. I explained that even though it was way beyond our usual time of accepting a return I'd let him send it back so we could get him the right wheel. Well that wasn't good enough. He wanted a refund, something we never, ever do. He also wanted to be paid for shipping the wheel back as well as be paid for the original shipping to send him the wheel. We do not do that. If a return is needed we authorize a return to the customer but the shipping back to us is on them. That's how it is with every company I've ever ordered anything from on the net or otherwise. So even though I was willing to bend our return policy and get him the right wheel he wasn't happy with that. He started m-fing me about how I was ripping him off and saying how he would bad mouth our shop to everyone he's stationed with. He even went so far as to mock the Red Fridays we support and push on my site and everywhere we go. Gee whiz what will I do now? I'll lose all those sales that I've never gotten from his buddies. Sorry to bash a man in uniform but this guy is a jackass in the first degree. I don't take shit from people like this pencil neck was trying to throw and I let him know it. The customer is always right until he's fucking wrong and then he needs to know he's fucking wrong and in this case he was. I flunked customer ass kissing in business school.
I'm still a huge supporter of the military and what they're doing because I've been around enough to know you get assholes and jerk offs in any group when you get the group to be large enough.
I'll still wear my red shirt on Fridays but it won't be for Andres Koplaine or whatever his name is. He can kiss my ass.
Happy Memorial Day everyone.
During this latest war I have been a huge supporter of our men and women in service. We offer discounts to the military as well as police and fire personnel because we feel we should give back to those that protect our families at home and abroad. We're also big supporters of Red Fridays.
Just before Memorial Day weekend I got an e-mail from a person that had ordered a wheel from us for his Harley. He had an APO address so we knew he was in the military in some way. I now know he's in the Air Force stationed in Germany. Anyway, this gibblet head ordered the wrong wheel from us and didn't know any better that he needed to give us more information for us to get him the right part. He informed me of the wrong part and I researched what happened. As I suspected it was his fault. We sell a lot of wheels and this is the first problem we've run into because most customers give us all the info we need. I explained that even though it was way beyond our usual time of accepting a return I'd let him send it back so we could get him the right wheel. Well that wasn't good enough. He wanted a refund, something we never, ever do. He also wanted to be paid for shipping the wheel back as well as be paid for the original shipping to send him the wheel. We do not do that. If a return is needed we authorize a return to the customer but the shipping back to us is on them. That's how it is with every company I've ever ordered anything from on the net or otherwise. So even though I was willing to bend our return policy and get him the right wheel he wasn't happy with that. He started m-fing me about how I was ripping him off and saying how he would bad mouth our shop to everyone he's stationed with. He even went so far as to mock the Red Fridays we support and push on my site and everywhere we go. Gee whiz what will I do now? I'll lose all those sales that I've never gotten from his buddies. Sorry to bash a man in uniform but this guy is a jackass in the first degree. I don't take shit from people like this pencil neck was trying to throw and I let him know it. The customer is always right until he's fucking wrong and then he needs to know he's fucking wrong and in this case he was. I flunked customer ass kissing in business school.
I'm still a huge supporter of the military and what they're doing because I've been around enough to know you get assholes and jerk offs in any group when you get the group to be large enough.
I'll still wear my red shirt on Fridays but it won't be for Andres Koplaine or whatever his name is. He can kiss my ass.
Happy Memorial Day everyone.
Monday, May 12, 2008
FTF AND MORE
I was talking to Sam from Rolling Thunder frames the other day and he mentioned how it seems like I don't really call it as I see it. It was sarcasm as anyone can plainly tell by reading my blog. I think it came about when the subject of the BBC recall came up and how I've seen some real nightmares. Their recall fix isn't going to fix their frame issue because their frames have inherent issues in their design. I won't bother to mention what those issues are, I know what they are so let's see if BBC can figure it out although I seriously doubt they will. They're too busy building what has to be the world's ugliest "bagger" or suing people that dare have some pointed parts on their bikes like BBC invented that whole gothic pointed swingarm look. Get a life guys, nobody is trying to copy your look, it's not that flattering to start with.
Mentioning suing people brings me to an old t-shirt I found in the back of my closet the other day. It has the letters FTF on the front. Those shirts were very popular back in the day, it means F**k The Factory. It's funny how some things never change. Back then The Factory, by the way it's the Harley factory we're talking about here kids, was running bike prices up, screwing retail customers by forcing them to buy extended warranties, keeping the production numbers low to intentionally manipulate the price of their products all the while threatening pretty much everyone with a lawsuit over trademark infringement. I got a letter from their lawyers way back when we used the word Harleez in our shop name. I thought it was funny at the time, we were a minuscule shop but somehow they felt threatened. We were in the process of changing the company name anyway but it was still funny.
So today Harley is still manipulating their production numbers to keep their pricing up. They've gone to pushing legislation that would kill off as many independent shops and small custom builders as possible. They feel threatened by custom builders because we can do what they never will be able to do, build really cool bikes to suit the riding public. They're just another cookie cutter production bike, actually the King of the cookie cutters to me. Others like Big Dog, the now defunct AIH, APC, the soon to be open new Indian, BMC, BBC et al are also cookie cutter "customs", just on a smaller scale. So even today, years later I find myself still having those old sentiments, F**k The Factory. I've got no respect for them anymore.
Lately we had a potential customer asking us to use Harley parts on a build for him. Sorry but we won't do that, mostly based on my principles. I refuse to support a huge ass company that's constantly trying to put me out of business, FTF. The other reason is because we can find parts that are made a lot better and in the U.S. so why would we use parts from an inferior manufacturer?
I remember talking to some jerk off at the local Harley stealership back in the mid 90's and he told me it was impossible to build a custom bike without using some Harley parts. I called that as I saw it and told him he was full of shit because he was. I had been building bikes for awhile and not using any of their shitty parts so here we are about 15 years later and I'm still building bikes without using their shitty parts. FTF.
This week we're headed to Santa Maria for the Motorcycle Madness event. If you're in the area stop by and have a bottled water on us.
I think that about does it for this installment. I hope I called them as I saw them this time around, was it good enough Sam? I wanna make sure I'm not holding back, you gotta say it the way it is. FTF.
Mentioning suing people brings me to an old t-shirt I found in the back of my closet the other day. It has the letters FTF on the front. Those shirts were very popular back in the day, it means F**k The Factory. It's funny how some things never change. Back then The Factory, by the way it's the Harley factory we're talking about here kids, was running bike prices up, screwing retail customers by forcing them to buy extended warranties, keeping the production numbers low to intentionally manipulate the price of their products all the while threatening pretty much everyone with a lawsuit over trademark infringement. I got a letter from their lawyers way back when we used the word Harleez in our shop name. I thought it was funny at the time, we were a minuscule shop but somehow they felt threatened. We were in the process of changing the company name anyway but it was still funny.
So today Harley is still manipulating their production numbers to keep their pricing up. They've gone to pushing legislation that would kill off as many independent shops and small custom builders as possible. They feel threatened by custom builders because we can do what they never will be able to do, build really cool bikes to suit the riding public. They're just another cookie cutter production bike, actually the King of the cookie cutters to me. Others like Big Dog, the now defunct AIH, APC, the soon to be open new Indian, BMC, BBC et al are also cookie cutter "customs", just on a smaller scale. So even today, years later I find myself still having those old sentiments, F**k The Factory. I've got no respect for them anymore.
Lately we had a potential customer asking us to use Harley parts on a build for him. Sorry but we won't do that, mostly based on my principles. I refuse to support a huge ass company that's constantly trying to put me out of business, FTF. The other reason is because we can find parts that are made a lot better and in the U.S. so why would we use parts from an inferior manufacturer?
I remember talking to some jerk off at the local Harley stealership back in the mid 90's and he told me it was impossible to build a custom bike without using some Harley parts. I called that as I saw it and told him he was full of shit because he was. I had been building bikes for awhile and not using any of their shitty parts so here we are about 15 years later and I'm still building bikes without using their shitty parts. FTF.
This week we're headed to Santa Maria for the Motorcycle Madness event. If you're in the area stop by and have a bottled water on us.
I think that about does it for this installment. I hope I called them as I saw them this time around, was it good enough Sam? I wanna make sure I'm not holding back, you gotta say it the way it is. FTF.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
NEW STUFF
We here at California Customs have a few new things going on. First is the introduction of two new models. The new Nomad II and the Bagfather 250 are two new bagger models from our design shop. We are losing the venerable old Nomad Convertible RS model but we now have some new designs for the next generation of custom baggers.
We've also brought back a couple of past programs. The Buy & Fly program allows our customers to fly to San Jose, get picked up at the airport and be put up for a night in a local hotel so they can visit our shop in person and have their new bike or custom kit designed for them while they're here. They then get credits for the airfare and hotel when they place their order for their new bike.
Our new dealership programs also are new. We're accepting applications for a very limited number of dealerships throughout the country. We're looking for independent motorcycle dealerships that are pasionate about custom bikes. They can sell the complete bikes or our custom designed kits. When they get our kits we allow them to either assemble the kit and sell as a built bike or sell it to their customer as an unassembled kit. We allow the dealer to make the decision that makes sense to their business. We have some of the easiest terms for new dealerships in the industry but we will only allow a small number of shops to become dealers in order to assure the new dealers are what we want as representatives of our brand and we can keep our high level of quality that we're known for.
I'd like to thank Cyril Huze for posting our news in his blog at www.cyrilhuzeblog.com .
We're getting ready for our next event, Motorcycle Madness at the Santa Maria Fairplex so come on out and say hi if you're at the event.
We've also brought back a couple of past programs. The Buy & Fly program allows our customers to fly to San Jose, get picked up at the airport and be put up for a night in a local hotel so they can visit our shop in person and have their new bike or custom kit designed for them while they're here. They then get credits for the airfare and hotel when they place their order for their new bike.
Our new dealership programs also are new. We're accepting applications for a very limited number of dealerships throughout the country. We're looking for independent motorcycle dealerships that are pasionate about custom bikes. They can sell the complete bikes or our custom designed kits. When they get our kits we allow them to either assemble the kit and sell as a built bike or sell it to their customer as an unassembled kit. We allow the dealer to make the decision that makes sense to their business. We have some of the easiest terms for new dealerships in the industry but we will only allow a small number of shops to become dealers in order to assure the new dealers are what we want as representatives of our brand and we can keep our high level of quality that we're known for.
I'd like to thank Cyril Huze for posting our news in his blog at www.cyrilhuzeblog.com .
We're getting ready for our next event, Motorcycle Madness at the Santa Maria Fairplex so come on out and say hi if you're at the event.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
EVENT SEASON AGAIN
It's that time of year again when all of the biker events start filling up every weekend on the calendar. Some of these are great events and have a long and great heritage in the biker community. Others unfortunately really are just money makers for the promoters putting them on. Laconia, Sturgis, Daytona Bike Week, Hollister and Myrtle Beach are some of those long time events. I'm not saying all of those aren't promoter oriented and I'm also not saying all of the others aren't great events either but let's face it, a lot of them are just money makers.
Laughlin, Street Vibrations and Vegas Bike Week are a few good examples of this. Their sole purpose really is to lure you to their event and get you to spend your money. In the old days the events were started because their was some sort of other event going, usually racing. Sturgis, Hollister, Laconia and Daytona Bike Week were all sprouted from racing events. Some like Hollister no longer have racing and the others have taken on a life of their own where racing really isn't the focal point of the event but at least there are other things to do besides just bake in the sun while shopping for your next chrome bolt on do-dad.
To me the best events are those that have some other things to do and go see besides just shopping at the vendor areas. Being a vendor/display person one would think I'd be all about vendors and displays but to me those events with nothing else to do will eventually run their course and attendance will suffer as the economy and boredom take their toll.
Hollister is a good example of an event that really would flourish if there was something else to do besides fight downtown traffic and shop at the vendors. I've been one that has said this over and over again but so far nothing has really been done. Even if there is some nice scenery to ride though most of these events would benefit. Let's face it, how many times can you ride through the same barren scenery to get to and from an event before it starts to wear on ya?
I used to do a lot of major and regional events but between the extreme high cost for trailer space to display, the high cost of hotel rooms and the time away from my family it really started to become a huge drag. I actually took a few years off and didn't do any events at all. The past couple of years have seen me start to do more events though. I'm still only doing a few here and there and those are regional ones but those are probably events that have caught my eye and make sense for me to do. Some I'd like to do again and some I'll probably never go back to. Some I miss doing like Daytona, Biketoberfest, and Sturgis.
Most of these promoter events have become really expensive for vendors to attend and the trailer space alone has become really expensive. I'd like to see others besides the promoters get rich on these deals for a change too.
Next time you're at an event remember to support your vendors, they've probably put out some serious cash to be there.
Laughlin, Street Vibrations and Vegas Bike Week are a few good examples of this. Their sole purpose really is to lure you to their event and get you to spend your money. In the old days the events were started because their was some sort of other event going, usually racing. Sturgis, Hollister, Laconia and Daytona Bike Week were all sprouted from racing events. Some like Hollister no longer have racing and the others have taken on a life of their own where racing really isn't the focal point of the event but at least there are other things to do besides just bake in the sun while shopping for your next chrome bolt on do-dad.
To me the best events are those that have some other things to do and go see besides just shopping at the vendor areas. Being a vendor/display person one would think I'd be all about vendors and displays but to me those events with nothing else to do will eventually run their course and attendance will suffer as the economy and boredom take their toll.
Hollister is a good example of an event that really would flourish if there was something else to do besides fight downtown traffic and shop at the vendors. I've been one that has said this over and over again but so far nothing has really been done. Even if there is some nice scenery to ride though most of these events would benefit. Let's face it, how many times can you ride through the same barren scenery to get to and from an event before it starts to wear on ya?
I used to do a lot of major and regional events but between the extreme high cost for trailer space to display, the high cost of hotel rooms and the time away from my family it really started to become a huge drag. I actually took a few years off and didn't do any events at all. The past couple of years have seen me start to do more events though. I'm still only doing a few here and there and those are regional ones but those are probably events that have caught my eye and make sense for me to do. Some I'd like to do again and some I'll probably never go back to. Some I miss doing like Daytona, Biketoberfest, and Sturgis.
Most of these promoter events have become really expensive for vendors to attend and the trailer space alone has become really expensive. I'd like to see others besides the promoters get rich on these deals for a change too.
Next time you're at an event remember to support your vendors, they've probably put out some serious cash to be there.
Monday, April 21, 2008
CUSTOM BIKE INDUSTRY AND INTEGRITY
Today I'm going to post some information about the latest news in the custom motorcycle industry and the integrity of our peers.
BIG BEAR CHOPPERS
Last month it became public knowledge that Big Bear Choppers (BBC) was going to have to issue a safety recall for a number of their models with regards to bad frame welds. This is obviously a huge issue since the frame is the foundation for the entire motorcycle. The internet has been buzzing about this issue with posts on numerous forums about how they planned to fix this problem for their customers that have motorcycles on the road and could be in danger of serious injury or even death. Their proposed solution and repair has now been published by NHTSA. At this moment I am unclear if it has been approved but I'm assuming it has been. In my opinion it's not an ideal solution from the customer's standpoint. It leaves their frame with a patch job done, the work is done without using a frame jig and the customer is supposed to be okay with their frame being painted as a "patch" job to their finish. Most people I know use powdercoating for their frame finishes and this can't be patched the way BBC is describing. I even know of a few people that have gone to the expense of chroming or nickel plating their frame. What's that customer supposed to do with a frame with the plating ground off for the repair?
From BBC's standpoint I can see how this is viable. It's tons of money cheaper than replacing all of these frames so I'm sure they feel they're fulfilling their obligations to their customers that have supported their company with their hard earned dollars. Personally I couldn't do this.
BBC marketed themselves as being a top notch custom motorcycle manufacturer using high quality parts and their prices reflected this. Somewhere along the line they decided to start making their frames inhouse. I'm sure in the long run it makes sense financially to do so. So they lowered their cost per bike by doing this but it also looks like they lowered the quality of the parts by doing the work inhouse. Did they lower their pricing when they started using lower quality parts? Nope. Personally I use a frame made by only the best frame makers I know of. Sure, I could hire a local welding shop to make my frames and lower my cost per bike by a lot but I also know the people I buy frames from have done a lot of research and only offer the best parts possible. To date we have had no frame problems.
I guess to me this sort of smacks of doing the bare minimum to pull your ass out of the fire. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a fan of BBC and I'll be honest when I say I wasn't shocked to hear they're having a safety recall. Hopefully BBC feels they're doing the right thing with their fix, from what I've seen most of their customers don't.
To see the entire filing for the recall go here: http://nhthqnwws111.odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/docservlet/Artemis/Public/Recalls/2008/V/RCDNN-08V129-1984.pdf
MORE ON INTEGRITY
Recently I posted a page on my web site about integrity and how I feel it has been thrown under the bus in our industry. When I started in this business I was impressed by how many people worked with a handshake as a contract and most people lived up to their word. I've always tried to do this and at the time felt our industry was one of the few that seemed to have high amounts of personal integrity involved. Some of the people I found with these same traits were Mike Corbin of Corbin seat fame, Duncan Keller of Yankee Engineuity, Mike Chase of Mike Chase photography, Keith R. Ball and Scott McCool both with Easyriders magazine at the time, Harold Pontarelli of HD Performance and Arlen Ness.
Over the past several years I've noticed the level of integrity seems to have dropped as the desire to make more money seems to have risen accordingly. I've been an eye witness to this with people like Big Mike of BMC basically ripping off a company he was partners in, American Eagle and starting BMC. Along the way he also copied frames by Daytec and went so far as to rip off the ideas of my personal friend Duncan Keller and copied his proprietary motor mounts, gauge mounts, coil mounts and coil covers. I had already seen other larger companies doing this with his parts, Pro-One was the first I believe and now Midwest Motorcycle parts has done the same thing. While I always thought those people were pretty low minded by doing this they didn't take the actual part made by someone else and put their name to it. Until recently I hadn't seen that done, remember I said until recently.
In October 2007 we were at the Grand National Motorcycle show at the Cow Palace. I happened to notice a bike entered in the show that looked amazingly like a bike I had built for a client a few months earlier. As I looked closer I realized it was indeed the same bike. It had a different set of handlebars, a front fender mounted to it and a new seat but other than those parts it was basically the same bike. The thing that really caught my eye was another shop had it posted that they had built the bike. Funny but I don't remember them being there when I designed the bike and did all the work to create the motorcycle. I wasn't happy about this but I wasn't going to really make anything more out of it unless I happened to see the owner of the bike. Had that happened I would have had something to say to him. A few months later my painter calls me and tells me to look at the current issue of Easyriders magazine. I was really shocked to see this other shop had the balls to get the bike featured in a national magazine with their name as the builders and creators. This is the epitome of plagiarism. The shop's name is U.S. Kustoms from Concord California. These jerk offs swapped a few parts and are calling it their creation. They even had the balls to steal the name we gave the bike, Rootbeer Float. I guess I'm from the Old School of Bikers because to me this offense would warrant some serious retribution. I think they're just about as low as a shop can be. It's one thing to "borrow" other people's ideas but to actually put your name on another person's work is just fucking scum bag material to me. Since posting my web page we have also sent out press releases to all of our media contacts informing them of how this low life shop operates. Not too much later I received an e-mail from U.S. Kustoms. They were apologetic and mentioned they thought it was more of a collaboration. Bullshit, it was nothing of the sort, it was plagiarism and they know it. Looking at their web site it looks like that's about all they do anyway. I'm not apologizing for calling them as I see them and it wasn't a collaboration. People like these jerk offs need to be run out of our industry. We have enough to deal with having to compete against cyber only "shops" selling parts at cut rate prices because they don't have a brick and mortar shop to support without having to worry about other shops ripping off our work and calling it theirs. I give U.S. Kustoms the big middle finger salute.
Unfortunately this type of behavior seems to be more prevalent lately, I think a lot of it has to do with people getting into this business that really don't belong. They've watched TV and figure they can do what they see these other guys doing and making money doing it. In most cases these people fail for various reasons and with a vastly shifting motorcycle market we're seeing more and more of these people disappearing. Maybe someday our industry will be back to where it once was. I hope so.
BIG BEAR CHOPPERS
Last month it became public knowledge that Big Bear Choppers (BBC) was going to have to issue a safety recall for a number of their models with regards to bad frame welds. This is obviously a huge issue since the frame is the foundation for the entire motorcycle. The internet has been buzzing about this issue with posts on numerous forums about how they planned to fix this problem for their customers that have motorcycles on the road and could be in danger of serious injury or even death. Their proposed solution and repair has now been published by NHTSA. At this moment I am unclear if it has been approved but I'm assuming it has been. In my opinion it's not an ideal solution from the customer's standpoint. It leaves their frame with a patch job done, the work is done without using a frame jig and the customer is supposed to be okay with their frame being painted as a "patch" job to their finish. Most people I know use powdercoating for their frame finishes and this can't be patched the way BBC is describing. I even know of a few people that have gone to the expense of chroming or nickel plating their frame. What's that customer supposed to do with a frame with the plating ground off for the repair?
From BBC's standpoint I can see how this is viable. It's tons of money cheaper than replacing all of these frames so I'm sure they feel they're fulfilling their obligations to their customers that have supported their company with their hard earned dollars. Personally I couldn't do this.
BBC marketed themselves as being a top notch custom motorcycle manufacturer using high quality parts and their prices reflected this. Somewhere along the line they decided to start making their frames inhouse. I'm sure in the long run it makes sense financially to do so. So they lowered their cost per bike by doing this but it also looks like they lowered the quality of the parts by doing the work inhouse. Did they lower their pricing when they started using lower quality parts? Nope. Personally I use a frame made by only the best frame makers I know of. Sure, I could hire a local welding shop to make my frames and lower my cost per bike by a lot but I also know the people I buy frames from have done a lot of research and only offer the best parts possible. To date we have had no frame problems.
I guess to me this sort of smacks of doing the bare minimum to pull your ass out of the fire. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a fan of BBC and I'll be honest when I say I wasn't shocked to hear they're having a safety recall. Hopefully BBC feels they're doing the right thing with their fix, from what I've seen most of their customers don't.
To see the entire filing for the recall go here: http://nhthqnwws111.odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/docservlet/Artemis/Public/Recalls/2008/V/RCDNN-08V129-1984.pdf
MORE ON INTEGRITY
Recently I posted a page on my web site about integrity and how I feel it has been thrown under the bus in our industry. When I started in this business I was impressed by how many people worked with a handshake as a contract and most people lived up to their word. I've always tried to do this and at the time felt our industry was one of the few that seemed to have high amounts of personal integrity involved. Some of the people I found with these same traits were Mike Corbin of Corbin seat fame, Duncan Keller of Yankee Engineuity, Mike Chase of Mike Chase photography, Keith R. Ball and Scott McCool both with Easyriders magazine at the time, Harold Pontarelli of HD Performance and Arlen Ness.
Over the past several years I've noticed the level of integrity seems to have dropped as the desire to make more money seems to have risen accordingly. I've been an eye witness to this with people like Big Mike of BMC basically ripping off a company he was partners in, American Eagle and starting BMC. Along the way he also copied frames by Daytec and went so far as to rip off the ideas of my personal friend Duncan Keller and copied his proprietary motor mounts, gauge mounts, coil mounts and coil covers. I had already seen other larger companies doing this with his parts, Pro-One was the first I believe and now Midwest Motorcycle parts has done the same thing. While I always thought those people were pretty low minded by doing this they didn't take the actual part made by someone else and put their name to it. Until recently I hadn't seen that done, remember I said until recently.
In October 2007 we were at the Grand National Motorcycle show at the Cow Palace. I happened to notice a bike entered in the show that looked amazingly like a bike I had built for a client a few months earlier. As I looked closer I realized it was indeed the same bike. It had a different set of handlebars, a front fender mounted to it and a new seat but other than those parts it was basically the same bike. The thing that really caught my eye was another shop had it posted that they had built the bike. Funny but I don't remember them being there when I designed the bike and did all the work to create the motorcycle. I wasn't happy about this but I wasn't going to really make anything more out of it unless I happened to see the owner of the bike. Had that happened I would have had something to say to him. A few months later my painter calls me and tells me to look at the current issue of Easyriders magazine. I was really shocked to see this other shop had the balls to get the bike featured in a national magazine with their name as the builders and creators. This is the epitome of plagiarism. The shop's name is U.S. Kustoms from Concord California. These jerk offs swapped a few parts and are calling it their creation. They even had the balls to steal the name we gave the bike, Rootbeer Float. I guess I'm from the Old School of Bikers because to me this offense would warrant some serious retribution. I think they're just about as low as a shop can be. It's one thing to "borrow" other people's ideas but to actually put your name on another person's work is just fucking scum bag material to me. Since posting my web page we have also sent out press releases to all of our media contacts informing them of how this low life shop operates. Not too much later I received an e-mail from U.S. Kustoms. They were apologetic and mentioned they thought it was more of a collaboration. Bullshit, it was nothing of the sort, it was plagiarism and they know it. Looking at their web site it looks like that's about all they do anyway. I'm not apologizing for calling them as I see them and it wasn't a collaboration. People like these jerk offs need to be run out of our industry. We have enough to deal with having to compete against cyber only "shops" selling parts at cut rate prices because they don't have a brick and mortar shop to support without having to worry about other shops ripping off our work and calling it theirs. I give U.S. Kustoms the big middle finger salute.
Unfortunately this type of behavior seems to be more prevalent lately, I think a lot of it has to do with people getting into this business that really don't belong. They've watched TV and figure they can do what they see these other guys doing and making money doing it. In most cases these people fail for various reasons and with a vastly shifting motorcycle market we're seeing more and more of these people disappearing. Maybe someday our industry will be back to where it once was. I hope so.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
RED FRIDAYS
Anyone that knows me knows I'm a huge supporter of our troops. That doesn't mean I support the war, I simply believe we need to suport our troops in any way we can. Last November California Customs sent a box of t-shirts to our troops for them to have something from home. Our web site has a section devoted to our troops and we offer discounts to all military personnel as well as police and fire personnel.
Last year we also tried to put together a USO tour with several custom bike builders to go over and do a handshake tour in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately the military powers didn't think we were important enough to send so we missed out on being able to meet our troops in person.
In an effort to do whatever small thing we can to show our support we have been promoting Red Fridays. This was actually something I read about on Curt Schilling's blog, 38pitches.com. The deal is this, every Friday we all wear something red to show our support. This isn't flag waving or loud protesting, just a silent vigile to show how we at home support the young men and women that have put themselves in harm's way to protect our way of life. My hope is that soon we'll see a sea of red every Friday until our troops are home. This doesn't mean you have to agree with or support the war, Americans need to start realizing there is a difference between supporting the war and supporting our troops.
So if you care about our troops and showing your support for them wear something red next Friday, if not then feel free to live free in our country and not show your support. That's the nice thing about living in a free society, you can do as you wish.
Last year we also tried to put together a USO tour with several custom bike builders to go over and do a handshake tour in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately the military powers didn't think we were important enough to send so we missed out on being able to meet our troops in person.
In an effort to do whatever small thing we can to show our support we have been promoting Red Fridays. This was actually something I read about on Curt Schilling's blog, 38pitches.com. The deal is this, every Friday we all wear something red to show our support. This isn't flag waving or loud protesting, just a silent vigile to show how we at home support the young men and women that have put themselves in harm's way to protect our way of life. My hope is that soon we'll see a sea of red every Friday until our troops are home. This doesn't mean you have to agree with or support the war, Americans need to start realizing there is a difference between supporting the war and supporting our troops.
So if you care about our troops and showing your support for them wear something red next Friday, if not then feel free to live free in our country and not show your support. That's the nice thing about living in a free society, you can do as you wish.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Welcome
Welcome to the first edition of the Bobfather Blog. If you're into custom motorcycles, especially Bobbers and Old School style bikes then I'm probably one of your bretheren. I build custom bikes at my shop, California Customs. I've been told I should be a blogger, mostly because I'm so opinionated on so many subjects, not just custom bikes. I've actually been a blogger for a long time by posting my rants on my web site over the past 12 years.
In my blog I'll try to post info and news relating to the custom bike world and I'll probably throw in some rants about other subjects, politics, support for our troops, sports and numerous other subjects as they pop up.
Jump in where you can and hold on.
In my blog I'll try to post info and news relating to the custom bike world and I'll probably throw in some rants about other subjects, politics, support for our troops, sports and numerous other subjects as they pop up.
Jump in where you can and hold on.
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