Brake line fittings are the pieces that connect the tubes carrying brake fluid to the brakes themselves. They help make sure the brakes work correctly without leaking fluid.
Law Tigers is a company that helps people who ride motorcycles if they get into an accident. They know what to do and can guide you through the process.
Arlen Ness is a brand that makes custom parts for motorcycles. They create things like wheels and brake parts that help make bikes look better and work better.
Forged wheels are special wheels made from solid metal that are shaped to be very strong and light. They help motorcycles perform better and look good.
Brake calipers are parts of a motorcycle that help it stop. They hold the brake pads and push them against the wheels to create friction, which slows the bike down.
Car
2024 Road Glide
The 2024 Road Glide is a motorcycle made by Harley-Davidson. It's designed for long rides and has a special front fairing that helps with wind protection.
A chopper is a type of motorcycle that has been customized to look different from standard bikes. They often have longer front ends and a unique style.
Car
Dyna
The Dyna is a type of motorcycle made by Harley-Davidson. It's known for being comfortable to ride and can be customized in many ways.
A bagger is a motorcycle that has storage bags attached to it, making it easier to carry things on long rides. They're great for touring because they can hold more gear.
Big brakes are larger brake parts that help a vehicle stop more quickly and safely. They are especially useful for fast or heavy vehicles that need better stopping power.
Custom Dynamics makes special lights for motorcycles to help them be seen better on the road. They create products that fit many different motorcycle models.
Fiberglass is a strong material made from tiny glass strands mixed with a plastic resin. It's often used to make car parts because it's light and durable.
The Honda Civic is a small car that many people like because it's reliable and gets good gas mileage. It's been around for a long time and comes in different styles.
Carbon fiber is a very strong and lightweight material made from carbon atoms. It's used in cars to make parts that need to be both light and strong, like racing cars.
Car
Harley-Davidson Low Rider S
The Harley-Davidson Low Rider S is a type of motorcycle that is designed for cruising. It has a powerful engine and a comfortable seat, making it good for long rides.
A twin cam engine has two camshafts that help control how air and fuel enter and exit the engine, which can make it run better and faster.
Term
M8
The M8 is a type of engine made by Harley-Davidson that powers many of their motorcycles. It's designed for better performance and is popular among riders.
The Chevrolet C10 is an old pickup truck that people really love because of its cool design and how easy it is to customize. Many fans enjoy finding and restoring these trucks to make them unique, which is why they come up in conversations about classic cars.
The Chrysler Daytona is a sporty car from the 1980s that looks really cool and was made for speed. It's famous for its racing background and has a special place among car fans who appreciate its unique design and performance.
LIVE
What is up everyone and welcome back to the fast life podcast on today's episode I'm sitting
down with the king of carbon fiber Mr. Curtis Hoffman we've been doing podcasts together
for many years now a lot of great stories on those past episodes and today we're kind
of reminiscing on some of the early days of the performance bagger transition or movement
talking about FXR's M8 FXR's birth year FXR's the whole nine it's a great episode I hope you
enjoy it before we get into it please check out our sponsors there's great opportunities to get
cool stuff for you and your motorcycle if you're looking for some cool parts for your bike
Arlen S motorcycles has you covered and if you go to their website you can use fast life 10 to
get 10% off whatever you order and that can go a long way so use it wisely cowboy Harley Davis
is going to get you covered with new and used motorcycles down in Austin Texas give them a
call shoot them an email they're going to get you dialed in custom dynamics the best headlights
in the game front to back they got you covered with some great lighting law tigers 1 800 law
tigers if you or someone you know has been in a motorcycle accident they're going to get you
taken care of they're going to get you on the right path please check them out now let's get
into this episode with Curtis Hoffman hey guys you ready to let the dogs out
know you're really uh you've been drinking too much when water tastes good right you know so
fuck don't drink that much anymore i'm trying to stop i just don't i fucking i can't do the
hangovers anymore yeah i wonder how much it affects my progress or like i think i'm still
as i get older i'm more looking for clarity every day and i feel like that's a hundred percent
exactly it i literally like i only fucking went drinking one night in Sturgeon those are for three
weeks like i'm just i want to be like like almost 40 and i'm like fuck this like i just want to be
able to know what i'm doing like i get up at five six o'clock every morning and like i just want to
fucking be good yeah that's what i i've always been a night out not that i was drinking but it's
right it's quiet right i feel like i can work well that's like kyle fucking he's a huge fucking
night oh i'm like kyle i'm up at like i'm in the shop by seven and like you need something like
i don't hear from you like to ten eleven i'm like yeah dude the fucking day's half over buddy
yeah you know so i don't know the older i'm getting the more it's like fuck that i don't
want to pull a late night i'll be in here at you know if it's daytona thrash or surgery thrash
we're in here at four o'clock in the morning instead of 11 o'clock at night well think about it
when you run into problems at when you're here at four o'clock in the morning
you can get the overnights and get the things on order and get things solved
rather than you solve it you finding out you have a problem at six p.m correct you can't do
anything about it until the next day means that the next day you yeah like you just said yeah
you're not gonna get the part for two days right yeah if we and that's exactly it when we build a
bike like one of these things we're doing that's exactly it because we're still i mean we've been
doing this for a long fucking time and we're still gonna run into something yeah when you're
thrashing it's you know i don't care who you are you are still gonna run to i don't have that yeah
you know i should have six of them but i don't have one i forgot to order in the last time yeah
and you know we're we're fortunate we've got a lot of you know smaller shops and you know dealers and
it's like yeah at eight o'clock you know eight nine o'clock in the morning okay cool i can find it
yeah but at where's the seven isn't there a drag is there a drag uh warehouse out of here
janesville janesville wisconsin okay so which is not like a day right it's a day right and that's
and we'll even like we're supposed to be guaranteed one day from them but we'll still overnight it
in that i mean we just mean it's it's crazy like the more we put ourselves in these crunches the more
the overnight build just when you look at the end of it you know because we'll just pile everything
up right yeah like we don't check in it gets when we're thrashing we're thrashing yeah and we'll
find that like and i'm like oh like fuck i spent that much in overnighting to finish this bike for
one event it's it's crazy when you you know i start looking at the numbers yeah it's an FXR
yeah oh yeah it's i mean i'm like i spent what to do that you know or you know we're what what is
nice when we get in those positions is we do have denis kirk yeah so denis kirk is an hour from us
okay so there'll be times where like ashley you'll have to like hey you know we need this this and
this and they have it go grab it you know so we're not going to wait you know till tomorrow when
it's holding up seven more things yeah so we are fortunate because that's a that's a good size
warehouse yeah i've found myself having to order from them every once so just because they have
something in stock yep you know the hardest problem i've had this year was a good rich break line
fittings i had a hard time finding that i found like one company had a hoard of them so i was like
are you doing like the pro two like the little nylon the 316th nylon stuff or are you doing like
the big full like an three fittings yeah i don't know if it's a and three i haven't been versed in
that the hell yeah but it's like just a normal break you know like 35 degrees yeah 90 degrees
straights yeah uh those kind of things and then we're like braided lines black line okay yeah so
yeah that's gonna be like the an style like we use all the pro two or whatever the heck it's called
it's just 316 airline is what it is so like you go into our parts room dude i have drawers of
fucking every fitting it's you know because when we're doing these things it's you don't know what
you're gonna need you need a 35 a 90 like you know like what you're saying and that's what we run into
and it's like you'd i probably have 100 fittings have all that stuff though but the cool thing is
i should show you if you haven't seen it like the brake line stuff we use you just get it in a hundred
foot roll okay and then you make the brake line yourself that's that's the next step and now that
kind of opening the doors and going down this path a little more often um of course i bought a lot
of the wrong sizes and i just kept them because i know i would need them at some point but yeah
there's that time where like you need the options eight or 10 inches and you need nine and a quarter
you know what i mean so yeah it makes sense it is i mean it's so nice and we've i mean we've been
using it forever and it's it's so much cleaner it's so much smaller it's you know and just make it
whatever you like you want it then i mean knock on wood we've literally had zero issues in 17 years
of using it yeah zero issues you know it's just a compression fitting style you know like any kind
is there a crimping tool or some kind of thing it's all compression okay so you literally just use a
regular airline cutter so the line straight and fucking compression fittings oh shit so but that's
i mean that's how we hide all the lines like we do and you know they have every fucking you know
straights 90s 35s everything so that works great yeah it's it's those details that like that i think
that as you progress in this uh building bikes customizing bikes you start to you know you build
a bike and you're like this is the best thing i've ever done and then an og comes there goes well
you know on the next building you need to focus on the hardware on the next building to focus on
all your stuff matching you're this kind of thing and it just kind of you just kind of a
get to a point where after the fifth or sixth build you kind of like now you cross out your
yeah you're getting into the grooming we're still i mean you know doing this as long as we have
we're still every you know we still find when we do a new bike it's how am i going to hide that how
am i going to do that whole different deal like if you look over there that red and white bike
that was my second custom bike i've ever built myself and i just bought it back last year and
you look at that and then you look at one like this and it's like you can absolutely see the
progression of you know hardware doesn't match on that thing brake lines don't match on that thing
you know reusing stock buell parts that you know we would never use today and stuff like that it's
it's a it's it's a trip when you see that and you know you put them next to each other and it's like
but that's 15 years of progression you know it's really what it was i mean i built that in like 2009
or 2010 you know so i remember when they were they were making those kits right like a rain kit for
yeah that's a redneck mutant buell it was what that is and we did one you know we did that one
back i think it was i think i got the chassis in like 2009 or 10 oh nine or 10 i got the chassis
but i didn't finish it until like 2011 or 2012 because it kept getting you know that was literally
the fucking hustle of you know we just started when that was close to when you when did you leave
west coast we we talked about this before we this is probably a six-year-old yeah yeah it's
because i came down to you well the first one we did in the hotel remember oh vegas vegas yes
that was 18 or 19 it was 19 it was 19 okay it was either 2020 or 2021 when you came out because
you we had that that party yes 2020 honestly it was 2020 because it was fucking covid yeah it was
party we had because we had when i left vegas and we did that podcast that's when i built out
my studio and you were one of the first guys we yes yeah right yeah yeah so that would have been
so i left i so i started in business in 09 yeah i was in california for like three and a half years
i was there from oh beginning of 06 to end of 09 and then i came straight here and you know basically
i loved california but it was a rat race i realized that the goal of doing my own thing
with the costs of everything out there it was just never gonna happen where i can come back here
and basically start from nothing yeah and do it and you know literally we started in
me and two buddies rented a shop it was like 1200 square feet and they did cars they were
both dealer tax i think one was like at Volvo and one was at BMW and they now they have i mean
we all started together it was all you know i did i went full time right off the crack
in this 1200 square foot building or bay of a fucking building and they did it at nights
well which worked perfect they'd work at night and i was there all day yeah so worked out great
and then it just progressed and they progressed and then um they kept going i mean and they're
making i mean they built killer cars and wool cages and all that type of stuff now uh but was
it mainly fabricating they were fat yes so they're yeah race car type so you're able to like kind of
share all the tools together correct when we did um we did a lot of that i mean i had my basic
hand tools and you know welders and stuff like that and that was it um and then really kind of
in a nutshell a quick base was i think we were in a bay it's probably maybe a year or so together
and then the bay right next door opened up and i'm like guys we're all out growing this you know
like i'm not trying to break the lease or anything they're like nope we need the space
fucking take that one so it worked out great all's i did was move yeah literally right next door
you know one door over and i was there for three three years um and then we outgrew that and it was
it was service work i mean i was doing service work i was doing repair work i mean you gotta think
at that oh nine 2010 was just still choppers and stuff like that were going on yeah um you know
kind of you know everybody still had them so it was to the point where they were breaking them
stuff was breaking you know they needed a tab made or a bracket fixed or stuff like that
yeah i did a lot of that type of stuff and then you know 2000 you know 2010 2011 you know we started
getting into big wheels yeah and you know did i think it was 2000 2010 we did our first we did two
of them cut and raked for 23 inch wheels yeah and then 2011 i did a 26 and then it just it took
off from there because there's literally only one other guy in the area doing big wheels who was
that ballistic uh no he was over in wisconsin wisconsin but um deadline dana dana right yep
and he builds a great bike yeah he he was like a jack of all trades yes he's he's awesome power
yeah fucking yeah abricade he used to do some insane like reverse rear fenders that i used to
love watching them make those things yeah so they they did that i mean you know they're they're a
little over an hour from us you know so you know different kind of you know customer base and all
that and the funny thing about minnesota and it's literally stems from basically when the chopper
craze went away minnesota was always like in the in the 80s the 90s the early 2000s minnesota was a
hotbed for custom you know it really was you had donnie here you had a few other guys that were
around back then how's the color from here house colors from here they were down literally
in downtown minneapolis you know for 50 years or whatever they were um and that's really cool
i've gotten into kosmoski for a long time uh one of my well couple towards the end it was in
2014 because i stopped big little baggers and 15 was the last year 16 we i started my last one in
15 finished it for Daytona of 16 and that was it yeah my one that i built for sturgis 2014
i got to go down to the original john's original shop or wouldn't be original but the shop he was in
yeah that he just sold a couple years ago i think and we literally mixed an entire
one-off color you know custom color from like he opened up his cabinets and i'm like he's like
yeah that that that that flake is older than you and i was like this is wild yeah like i'm
literally mixing a color with john kosmoski yeah to paint this bike and it was with he's like yeah
that big we can't get that anymore we can't do that anymore you know all this studying is like
he's just got a fucking treasure chest of stuff there's the same way we're talking about like
collecting some of the old memorabilia the bikes and stuff like that from the you know the the
founders of our culture or industry if you will it's the same thing that paint there's a lot of
things they've outlawed like morano pearls there's there's a lot of pearls from like the the late
2000s that might i say it's a lot of the podcast but like we can't get any more because there's
only one place that made him and he got wiped out by a tsunami in japan oh yeah yeah it's it's
crazy because i'll still see kosmoski because he's you know he lives out here and uh it's it's
like it's just wild right like we're in the world what i have ever you know mix a custom color with
the guy started house color yeah i mean there's so many experiences like that that are just like
this is incredible yeah that's um it was kind of the thing that was going on with the you know you
brought the big world world that it i've always tried to tell people like hey i know that you
know people kind of have their opinion about it now but there was a there was a window where the
bikes were really cool yeah that they weren't you know stereo bikes they want yeah they had a good
tasteful stance uh you know the bikes were built to look cool and not wow people well and see and
that was always my take right and to me the biggest compliment we can get as a company
or anybody has any company the way i look at my opinion is that you have to adapt with the times
you have to adapt right and when we go through different genres of bikes whether it was pro
streets and choppers to big wheels to performance baggers now we're doing our custom you know
pro street and chopper style still baggers but when somebody comes up and can say
you built that bike like we know you know they can still see our style in a different genre of
bike yeah and i know to me that's ultimately the biggest compliment right because that's what we
go for right we want people to know that's what we do and there is a history to every company to
every builder there's a history you know of progression or not in progression but times change
yeah and that's where it's the same as you know donnie you you know a donnie bike whether he you
know it's his bagger or yeah you know bike from the 70s you you know donnie did that bike or what
would you say your early influence influences in motorcycle building were oh it's a hundred percent
it's you know because i'm from minnesota it's donnie yeah a hundred percent it's it's it's donnie
dave arland um you know i grew up in an aftermarket motorcycle shop my dad had an aftermarket shop
so and we're from minnesota you know like we were talking in theirs but i've got his best friends
one of his custom bikes from donnie yeah um you know so yeah it was a hundred percent my motorcycle
inspiration or growing up or looking up to is a hundred percent it's hamsters yeah i mean it
just it is and that's uh you know a lot of that comes from that's where i grew up you know minnesota
has a lot of hamsters um but it's that's the era i grew up in i grew up in it before um the tv shows
yeah you know of the early 2000s no did i watch yeah i watched all the tv shows of the early 2000s
and you know seen it and you know again then then you get different inspiration and you know
different things we gotta think that what obviously what was taken along before the 90s all helped
but what was going on the 90s is what inspired the tv shows to want to be a part of it and yep
and exploit the the culture you know it and what i felt like it was a good way in the time 100 i mean
it was i mean there was you know those companies you know boomed because of tv and you know i don't
think even you know people want to criticize you know orange county choppers for what yeah they put
a spotlight on an industry that grew substantially you know you know they might not have built the
coolest bikes or the best bikes but not everybody does yeah you know and it put a spotlight and
allowed so many companies that would have never got the spotlight that do build a high quality
motorcycle or you know build something so wild that's you know off the charts you know you could
also attest it to the same way that how many different people went through west coast choppers
that are a part of the industry not leading the industry now yeah how many people worked at
Boyd's yep and then became the bike shops that then became the you know what i mean that yeah
those they did with the with um orange county choppers like there's a lot of people
this worked for them over the years and now people in our industry that have their own thing
and that is i mean you look at like west coast choppers spawned a heck of a lot of shops i mean
i was only there for a year but you've got me you've got steve with why can i i'm gonna get it wrong
oh he's in corona steve um and used to be trackered i yeah yeah he's with uh till death cycle
yes yes um you've got ockie who had um i can't i remember the names but i don't remember the
fucking name of the companies um then you had chopper daves you had bill john you know bill dodge you
have um you know there you know there's probably 10 shops that came out of you know that went through
you know there yeah and even you know like uh a lot of the dudes that were just a part of the
chopper dogs stuff that are you know the uh jason hallman jason hallman um boosted bread speed
dealer uh cody children's cody children's yep all building incredible incredible bikes yeah you
know and that's you know so it's it's crazy to see like one shop did this they impacted
correct huge impact on it you know and i think that when people look back on some of these things
and that's kind of why i asked you like where some of these early influences come from because
right now there might be a guy that really wants to become a bike builder and he really
needs to be honest with himself now who's inspiring him to do such things and hey carry the torch don't
be an asshole it won't be a dick yep they'll be like oh fuck these guys i'm better bike builders
i mean i think a lot of people did that back in the day too but we i think we're better at it now
i i i do i think there's a big thing where and we are we're all getting older we're all getting
for lack of better words it's crazy sounds to me say yeah we're all getting wise we're like
where the fuck did that word come from for us but we're we're still all a bunch of degenerates
you know i mean i was a mini trucker right and you know it's the same as like kyle i mean that's
fuck i've known kyle for over 20 years yeah 1800 law tigers is the number you need to save in your
phone if you or anyone you know has been in a motorcycle accident the first call to make is to
law tigers their job is to help you take the proper steps in the unfortunate event of an accident
they have helped many of my personal friends over the years and they can do the same for you
across the nation law tigers has been a major supporter of our motorcycles culture and events
and we are excited to have this new partnership here on the fast life podcast
remember 1800 law tigers also check them out www.lawtigers.com
Arlen S is a one-stop shop for some of the baddest custom motorcycle parts in the industry
i have had the opportunity to ride with many of their products including their forged wheels
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you have to you're almost in my opinion you're fooling yourself you're doing yourself and just
if you don't realize where your inspiration is coming from you know this is i mean you know
when we're looking at those bikes i've gotten there you know i'm like hey you know did you see
this because it's yeah they've been fucking doing it for 50 years yeah you know it's been done you
can do it your way you know today and same as i feel like yeah we're doing things our way
you know not to say we're the first to do it but we're doing it our way and that's where
if you if you can tell yourself that you're you're gonna get far i think yeah you know you've
got to understand that there is a history you know if you want to get into the medical industry right
there's a doctor that did it before you there's a doctor that did it so you can be doing it today
yeah and it's the same as the motorcycle industry or the custom car world we are here because these
guys started it yeah and that's and that's huge and and you've got to you know the younger guys or
the guys my age or even the guys that are older wanting to get into it you got to understand
that there is a history to that yeah you know it's not this big huge you know thing like music
or something right but there's a huge history that is incredible yeah you know with this stuff
yeah you know it it just pays to be interested in it even if it might not be the bikes that you
want to build you you can find so much inspiration by studying them and find ways to kind of like
add you know style and things to your you know i mean that's yeah and again it's one of those
things you can't go into it close-minded like you know i could look at a bike that i have no
interest in like it's not my style yeah but there's a half a dozen like holy
shit how did he pull that off yeah like i would have never thought of that you know and stuff like
that and that's where you know back in the day when i was doing mini trucks and stuff i i'm and
still to this day i'm not into low riders i'm not into low riders but i will stare at one for an
hour because they're so intricate they're so insane and just because it's not my style doesn't
mean i don't appreciate it right that's that's huge and that kind of goes back to big wheels like
it's it's not my thing anymore but i'm still the first guy to say dude a fucking big wheel
bagger that was built sleek clean elegant they just flow they're not over the top they're not
gaudy yeah i mean it's i look at it as like a old you know merc sled yeah right they're just you
know you're not going to go take them you know a merc that's chopped in sectioned and channeled and
you know fully shaved and all that yeah you're not going to go take it on the tail of the dragon
yeah but it's going to be the baddest motherfucker sitting in the parking lot yeah you know and that's
how i look at a big wheel versus a performance bagger well even i think that this is the thing
that i've been you know talking a lot with people about it's like not every bike is supposed to ride
like every like like not everybody is supposed to ride like this 2024 or five like you know road
glide right here with all the bells and whistles right yeah that's an experience in riding a motorcycle
like a chopper like a vikla like that big wheel that you're riding it at a different pace and it
feels good correct you know yeah but what i can agree with is that maybe you're really drawn to
that right now and the speed and the agility that it has and things like that which makes
sense yep but you don't have to you don't have to say all these other bikes suck because they don't
do that yep well and that's and then that's 100% and i've always been like that like i said you know
when i was into cars and trucks and all that type of stuff i'll appreciate the hell out of a low
rider they're fucking insane i never wanted to own one yeah but i'm not i mean i'm gonna say that
thing is fucking crazy but it's not for me you know and that's that's just you know how it is but
you know and like i said you come here and you know our day-to-day operations is performance
baggers or soft tails or you know doing that type of stuff yeah you know and in products
but you go to the showroom there's not a performance bagger in the showroom yeah um you know they're
out here for r&d and you know that type of stuff and i love them and we have them but i like everything
i mean i've got fxr's i've got soft tails i've got baggers i've you know that's
there's a whole world of motorcycles you you can't just look at one genre of it in my opinion
yeah you know and then there's the history yeah you know and that's what's fun because there's so
much uniqueness you can do whatever you want in this industry yeah and if you and i mean if you
really want to be here like why not why not open your mind to all this stuff you know like why not
you know i feel like my love for the performance motorcycle says kind of allowed me to start to
develop a style that starts to land in other styles of bikes right you know and that's like
you were saying earlier about yeah you can you can take you can have a style and you can adapt
that style to any type of motorcycle you want just like if you're a car builder and you want to build
a a truck instead of a car at that time still have your style in that truck instead of the car
yeah and that's where you know we like to do things is blending you know i like to
blend things but you know that's that's huge i mean there's just off the off the rip there's
i mean long and low for the most part here but still it's like it can corner and perform yeah
i'm saying so and it's it's it's fun right i mean that's where um you know we're fortunate where
if i think about it we can make it yeah you know we've changed so dramatically over the years
that if we come up with it we're just gonna make it yeah like you said you build on your tools
you build on your skills you you know you talk to more people they they they tell you the the the
keystone thing to make that whole idea work you know what i mean that it just goes to show that like
the history communicating with the the guys that did it before you
you know all that stuff pays into making it to where you can do more intricate stuff in the
long run yeah and then and then having great people here i mean that that's huge i mean my
guys here are just you know incredible and it's you know like whatever we want to do i mean we're
we're creative and you know come up with the craziest thing like yeah let's make it and you
know that that mentality in the shop is is huge yeah yeah where you know this can't be done with
just me yeah you know it's and you know that's just part of it and i've got great great people here
do you feel like you have the ability maybe not the ability but maybe the foresight to kind of
maybe even foresight's not the right word you just kind of feel when things are kind of evolving
because like i said you were an early adopter of the performance bagger scene right and like 2016 i
believe or 2015 so 2015 2016 what i ended up doing was i was done i was tapped out on big
world baggers and it's not because i didn't like them it was i didn't like the direction it was going
and we were getting busy right we were getting busier we were picking up and it was getting more
rare for me to hop on a bike and go ride and so when i would do that i would pick out a big
world bagger that's what we had in the shop and it was air up the front air up the back make sure
to not drag the saddlebags because i can't afford to fix them make sure that when i'm parking i don't
back into the curb yeah you know the the joy of riding motorcycles just went out the window
because of what the bike was so 2015 2015 i started building the last big wheel that we
finished for Daytona 2016 and sold at that same time i did a 2015 street glide that i brought to
so i did a i did my last big wheel and my first performance bagger for Daytona 2016
and which is not did yet in three months it's 10 years yeah so it's 10 years from right now
when we were doing the first and the last yeah yeah and and i literally just went in back then
it was nothing but they did the big well i mean for like for a lot of people i think it did last
10 years yeah but it felt like for me because i kind of i was 16 i rode my big wheel two Sturgis
and i never rode it again yep because i took a dyna with me and i rode the dyna home and then
sold the the big wheel afterwards and then built my first fxr and right after that i in 2017 i picked
up my first bagger to do a performance bagger yeah yeah so and that was all things so my deal you
know kind of the and a lot of people know us a lot of people don't i'm i'm the first to admit i'm
about looks i want something that's unique i want something that's cool i want something that other
people aren't doing right that's been my whole goal my entire life right i don't want to drive
the same car that everybody else has i don't want to have you know the same motorcycles
everybody else right i'm going to start with that same thing but i'm going to make it mine yeah
and that's how i've always been and so performance baggers we did the um we did a set of bars and
we did suspension front back and we did big brakes um and you know got the ergonomics in the
seat and you know all that type of stuff and we did some colors i think the first one i did was
like a red it was a grand red yeah and i fucking fell in love with riding it yeah i mean it was
such a blast to ride and it got chopped for the magazine because it was something completely
different and you know they did an article on it like you know the i think the article's hanging
in the in the showroom and it's literally you know there's another blurb of you know the editors
know it's like this is what's coming and this was in as an american bagger yeah and which is big
wheelbagger based yep and they're like you know we're watching you know kurtis is out ripping
this bike around while everybody else's you know behind and i get back and actually i sold that
bike in dates on a 2016 so i came back i bought another one i bought a black street i just street
glad again same deal same recipe you know big brakes did the motor did everything and then i
sold that one like a month later and i'm like okay then i got one and it went into winter
and then winter happened and i'm like we're doing this and we're making them fucking ride killer
they're awesome the ergonomics are fine i mean it's just a great bike yeah the thing still looks
yeah still looks like i'm like well i can't make you know in the world it was fiberglass right
so every you know it's like well i'm not putting the stretch bags on it because that's the polar
opposite of what we're doing here yeah we're going you know we're building the opposite of what we've
been doing for 10 years or whatever the 70s yeah um and i'm just like and i'm looking and i've always
been in the cars and stuff and i'm like why are we making carbon fiber and i'm like nobody's doing
there's there's just there's not there's some guys doing a couple fxr parts and
you know a couple sports their parts or whatever you know here and there and stuff like that so
spring of 17 so we started r&d in 16 on carbon and we did we fucking r&d and we tested we destroyed
and spring of 17 we started going into production and i brought two bikes because they released the
17s with the m8s yeah i had a brand new street glide and a brand new road king and we built those
for sturges 2017 with carbon harm and we only had side covers bags lids and a rear fender and i want
to say 17 because this is i think sturges 17 is when i also uh i rolled my gold fxr uh t down there
p actually and then that's when uh mjk dale had came out and was like ripping around and
even though he's kind of long gone now at the time that bike that he had was pretty bitching
100% yeah and you were there and i i don't i want to say there was maybe race glide you
remember him yep that like that was the that was the ones that were doing it right and then seven
so that was 17 yep and then 18 i missed and then 19 was when we all were hanging out together i think
you were you were working so yeah i must have been i can't i think i think i'll know them
so 20 was one of the first year we did a booth at date at sturges okay okay 20 yeah 20 we hit
uh datona or no
yeah i think sturt no 21 was when we started doing boost grill but we did you know we were
out you know having meaning you know doing all that type of stuff in that you know 1920
so yeah 21 because i you know i was i'm like a fuck i don't know you know we couldn't because
COVID hit and it it exploded yeah i mean it was you know people didn't understand what we were doing
from 17 to 20 like we were still doing service we were still doing repair um we were still building
bikes for people um you know we would you know a guy had a big wheel that he bought and you know
we were you know fix everything that was wrong with it right we did a lot of that stuff yeah
you know from that time i converted with the chopper stuff when you started yeah exactly the
exact same thing so i do you know you kind of ask you know do i kind of see what's going to happen
and things like that i think to a point i do and i think it's more of i've been around long enough
to know kind of how long trends last and then if somebody just kind of when i get bored that's it
that's when i go on to something different yeah you know i still you know like we were talking
i love ripping on you know a little rag or st yeah or i still love ripping on something like that
but the creativity and everything like that goes into the you know my my thought of what should be
next and i mean fuck i'm the first one i met there's been a ton of ideas that i've had and
i've spent money on that didn't fucking work yeah you know and it's it's still i look at it as are
we you know let's just have fun yeah and that's where you know it takes some time yeah i i can agree
in a test to what you just said it's basically how you feel about it as a motorcyclist when
when you're not like i don't hate the bike i love it i want to rip it but i also kind of like how
i don't know how to expand on this right you know and i kind of want to try some stuff that might
not fit on this correct you know but maybe i can take some stuff from this and apply to something
else yeah or start with the same chassis or whatever and you know and then you do again i think
anybody in you know somewhat of a position we're in of you know we were at the forefront the beginning
of a trend i remember we're not the first to be you know to start performance barriers never
never would say that um but we were there at the beginning with a product line that nobody
else was doing and over the years it's you do get beat down when you you know go online and oh here's
another company and here's another company doing it and you know stuff like that and it's like okay
well that's fine we've been doing that for years i you know we're not going to get mad we're not
going to get discouraged no that's giving me fuel to start the next thing yeah you know is how i always
look at stuff like that well when we were you know you know i'm essentially 10 years ago for you yeah
seven years seven or eight years from me what you're dealing with is like there wasn't a parts
line so you were finding things that like p.m. made or nests made or you know h.h.i. or somebody
made something that might work in this and adapting and we adapted it and then as time goes
then all the companies pick up on it you know and as a company that that is um you know p.m. is
probably looking at it like you know what i don't know if we want to completely invest everything in
this direction right what if this is a short-lived trend correct and now you have tons and you know
hundreds of thousand dollars and stuff that's not going to move right but once i think 2020 hit like
you said and the bag of races came out on top of like the bikes that we were all doing just got
better and more intricate yep yeah because you were you were getting better parts you were getting
better knowledge yeah people were you know the company you know that adapting and olymps front end
to a bagger well then olymps you know okay well we're going to really dial this in specifically
for that bike yeah you know same as like you're saying the brakes and you know the rotors and
everything like that we're going to dial it into this yeah everybody's adapting it now we're going
to make it proper for it right out of the box instead of just correct instead of people just
retrofitting yep which is which is great and i am a very very very firm believer in competition
is good for for business and the customer wins but also a complete knockoff is not competition
yeah that's you know you come out with something that's different or done your way you know that
does compete cool that's that's that's completely different and and we've done that we you know we'll
come out with you know like our floorboards we're not the first new floorboards but we're doing them
our way the way fit our style and things like that yeah and that gives the customer a new outlook
right but you come in and make the exact same part as somebody to you know to a t that's that's not
competition that's that's knocking something off if you think about the way the parts game came out
right a company like nests you know starts to make a part and then the the skews get bigger and
it gets to the point where when they're designing their bikes they have more of their own products
going on it yeah right it doesn't i mean i'm sure that at one point they're like you know what yeah
i want to use some some said brand pn brand pegs on why but if they're eventually like hey you know
i got an idea for a peg that's going to be my peg correct you know and i i understand that there might
have been a tiff you know oh we make pegs it's like but in the grand scheme of things like it it's only
why it's wise it's smart for a brand to make a catalog of parts so someone can have if they're
already going to buy the parts off the website they can have a version of your bike or your style
yep on their bike it makes sense yeah or if you're building a bike you r&d parts yeah and those become
the next version exactly that's that's exactly it and that's where i'm saying like to me my opinion is
do your own thing with it you know make the you know everybody's gonna make bag latches right
you can make bag latch your style that doesn't look like anybody else's right yeah um do that
because that is great for the customer wins and the other company also wins because it's
going to get them back on their toes yeah um but you know the influx that we're seeing like
crazy right now which is we've seen it with big wheels you've seen it with chopper you've seen
it's it's ultimately you know just a blatant absolute copy is it's it's discouraging and it's
like it's discouraging but it's like okay if that's what you're gonna do we're gonna we're gonna
keep you on your toes we're gonna go the other way and you know we've now got the equipment
where we can do that and we can pivot and you know that's what's huge to me is you know make it
you're saying i mean not not only one company's gonna make wheels not only one company's gonna
make riders not only one company's gonna make carbon not only one company's gonna make side
cover right that yeah that's not gonna happen um because ultimately you'll put that company out of
business because you're the only place to get it and you're not gonna be able to keep up yeah yeah
and so other companies coming out with stuff is great to to fuel the industry yeah but there's
you know to me there's a there's a line that you know be respectful with it and i i do believe
the industry the actual core industry is respectful of that but it's the there is and it's been
every trend everywhere the knockoff guys they're not the knockoff guys 99% of them they're not from
the industry yeah the guys knocking stuff up are not from the industry as you all know off-road
lighting has become a huge deal in the motorcycle scene but as those trends rise so has enforcement
regulations you don't want to be stuck out on hundreds if not thousands of dollars in lighting
that will get you pulled over find and possibly have your motorcycle impounded custom dynamics has
the solution with their shark demon headlight which is designed for motorcycles and is available
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in south austin cowboy harley davidson has become a hub for killer events and provides a place for
the motorcycle community to call home cowboy harley has something for you every weekend of the month
on the first saturday they will host a cars and coffee style meet and hang then on the second saturday
it's ink and iron a local artist show where tattooers painters pinstripers and all artists
are welcome to come showcase their work and art the third saturday of each month features a bike
show with a different bike category every month offering a 500-hour gift card for the top prize
finally the fourth week of the month will have a thursday night bike night check them out at
www.cowboyharleyaustin.com and give them a follow on instagram at cowboy hd austin yeah they you
know in the car world i might imagine they they you know i could there's lots of people that lay
up fiberglass right right in different forms whether it's yep a boat place or a fucking you
know a dude that's doing some body work for honda civic right or somebody yeah making a
body kit or something yeah so i mean a lot of the same principles kind of process over but there is
quality that laying up a fiberglass part versus laying up a carbon fiber part is a similar but
very different process correct you know what i mean yeah similar process but a whole different
quality level yes um you know so that's where it's you know where you know for the last few years it's
been you know get somebody that emails us or sends us an online post or whatever you know i'm
like oh another one yeah you know and stuff like that and it's like nothing we can do yeah you know
like i said we should go on to the next you know we keep focusing on what we do and you know supplying
what we do well i've ran a lot of your parts i painted tons and tons of your parts over the
years and i could attest to the fact that they they they're paintable yep you're not you know
that's one thing that people understand is like when you get a carbon fiber part sometimes the
the the gel coat the uh the the releasing agent the things that they use still releasing it's yeah
it does not work with paint you end up having pinholes and it becomes a whole process to get
it right and so pop everything yeah there's lots of aspects to it that and you know and we're talking
about marginal differences of prices sometimes more time you know you're in demand sometimes it
takes a little while to get a front fender correct be like that yeah well and that's the whole thing
that's our goal is the one thing i will say is we know the motorcycles we've we know the the industry
we know the customer we know the client we know because this is what we do you me you know guy
that owns you know one of these bikes whatever he expects a higher quality that a knockoff knockoff
company isn't going to give him because he doesn't know that company doesn't know the end user yeah
you know and that's in that's just huge to me of that's where we focus it's again it goes back
like we were talking i won't put a part on my bike that i'm not you know i won't sell a part
that i won't put on my bike yeah um you know when we get you know lately we've been getting it well
you don't make this part you don't make that part well there's a reason why we don't make that part
and there's a reason that company does and there's a reason why when you walk up to that it looks the
way it does yeah you know and things like that and we run into that fairly regular nowadays but
there's just it is i mean the best painters in this industry will only recommend our parts yeah
because we have the bikes painted yeah you know so we know we're not going to give a painter
a headache but unfortunately the customer doesn't know that sometimes yeah trust me i have a i have
a bagger that's got a i want to say one of those brands that you're speaking of full a lot of
carbon so i'm going to see how that goes and see you know see what the deal is on that but it's
i think it you know when the carbon stuff got more and more prevalent it's everywhere it's on
things the paint jobs that you know like the wanes bike that lucky strike did and kyle built
originally yeah um though just there's so much like it it does add a level of like holy
shit that's a whole another like when you get a full carbon fiber body oh yeah and then you paint
the whole damn thing like you're that's that's a lot it's it's not cheap right great because yeah
and that's but man it adds something to it that you just can't you can't replicate that right that's
it's huge i mean you keep talking i'm just gonna look at this you know i just fuck
we um
it's it's wild you know and we know i mean for for literally for years when covid hit
we exploded along with along with a lot of other companies right and the backward times we had was
fucking insane um but i mean you look i mean there's you know access molds now that we had to build
to get caught back up and i mean it's it's crazy the amount of tooling we have and and all that type
of stuff like you see over there you can see some plugs and original parts and masters and yeah you
know we do i mean we we invest in what we do yeah and we want to make the best part possible
and our thing is i mean we invest in what we do and we ride these motorcycles we ride them
we own them we maintain them we keep them we customize them you know we work with the best
people that that we can and that's what we want our parts i mean we'll get guys that come up to
when we're at an event they're like you know can i bring my bike over to you and show you i'm like
yeah sure bring it over and they've got parts from 2018 2019 yeah on their same bike and they've
actually taken those parts and put them on new bikes yeah um and they love it i mean that's the
thing i mean that's so that's a what seven years six seven eight year old part yeah and it's it's
still looks like it's new you know i'm like you know this i'm like jacuzzi buffett he's like dope
like you know so that's to me that's what we go for yeah you know we're we're not you know we're
making the best damn part we can make for somebody to put on their bike and be proud of yeah and it's
not about the volume it's not about the you know i i'll still be doing this after you know
performance baggers slow down and you know it's just what we do we want to make the best
fucking thing we can yeah and i mean for those that are watching there's there's
plugs up here i mean there's molds up here there's plugs over there for those people
that think that the the the carbon industry is like two people doing it and everybody's buying
from it like it's not that so the funny thing is is there is lately we've been seeing that because
all these new new i shouldn't say all but a good amount of these new pop-up companies and stuff like
that we can see the part that they're getting and they're selling and they're coming out of overseas
and we know what factory they're getting it from because they're sending us the emails too trying
to get us to buy from them and so that's thing there is right now a a surgeons of you know company
x company y company z all getting the exact same part from the exact same factory and then selling
it when they get over here yeah you know so that that is absolutely happening now and how long is
that gonna last you know i'm never one um whether it's the machine part whether it's a composite
part a plastic part whatever i mean there is absolutely high quality overseas yeah there
absolutely is you just got to actually find it yeah you know that's that's exactly i mean you're
also going to get you know team who shit you know with that too but there is there is absolutely
high quality stuff that's made overseas there there just is um most of what we see you know
doesn't compare to what we do because yeah they're price pointing it there there's just a factory
trying to pump out another random part where they don't know the end user and the fit the finish the
quality how it's going to work and things like that yeah things like uh you know the outer fairings
always been a complicated one you know just for fitment um you know the the carbon fiber is so
much thinner than the normal plastic that they make so there's a there's just like a mill thickness
issue of like fitting in i mean there's so many things you can do yeah but i mean yeah it's like
the quality like you want you want to have everything your bike's perfect quality but
because you had to make this one part that one has to sacrifice quality for it to be existence
yep you know because then that's that's exactly what we're we're out with fairings yeah you're
on my website you're not getting a fairing because we know there's an issue where other companies
and and when we know we'll lose you know the rest of the bike to somebody because oh this company
offers it that means they're they're automatically you know we're just going to get it all and then
you see it and then you know we'll get people call us or email us and okay you know i talk to you
and we'll remember talking to them and the other fairing didn't fit there's a reason why i mean
i have you'd be shocked at how much money i have into developing the road glide fairing
yeah and we don't sell it because it's a problem and and this one's no the newer one's no difference
no better it's yeah yep and that and that's exactly it and we're getting we get calls and emails
literally daily do you make a fairing you know you know and it's do we want to absolutely you know
what is the thing like for those for you know like Harley has a fairing right but they're not
it's a race fairing correct so there's not like all the stuff underneath it that has to click and
work into it it's a much different uh situation than it correct plus it's a completely smooth on
the front yeah you know so that's also like you don't have to deal with well and it's yeah and it's
it's not in the fitment but the race bikes are you know they can have a wiggle in the carbine they
could have you know whatever they're not clear code you know they're applying graphics to them
it's all it's a whole different deal yeah it's a whole different deal than a guy with a heart
you know the bike on the street yeah um you know so that's it's a big part of what we've been running
into is you know the the fairing for the bikes and it's like guys we don't want to put our name
on something that we know is a problem yeah you know and it's in in shit we released the road
glide fairing i think in 18 19 18 or 19 and so that's six seven years then it's not we just did
that's where we care about what we do yeah we care about well we're a part of the industry we're
always going to be here we're not it's it's not about the money it's about building a cool bike
and getting a customer a park that works on their bike yeah and that they're going to be proud of
that's the whole thing and you know just to sell a fairing that's good we know is going to look
terrible it's crazy it's crazy to me that people do stuff like that yeah i mean it really is
you're not going to paint a bike that you know is you know three inches off from the other side
you know i always tell people it's uh you don't have an economy version of what you do or make
it's the best you got and that's it because the customer is never going to tell someone
hey i got a fast slide paint job but it's the economy one right so that's so if you see a
flaw or something it's i didn't pay for the the buff job or something that and that's exactly
and that's where we'll get people asking for the blend parts like yeah no because the further
they're never going to say yeah that it was a blend part yeah you know so like it's not worth it
we're it is crazy as it sounds we're not here for the money we're here to get a quality part
on a quality motorcycle and you know the just it's what we do yeah i think that you know
you know especially with harleys like you know with the rr coming down things like that i
i definitely feel like performance baggers has some some life left oh hard for yeah like i don't
see the trend going away i don't see it dying by any means because i mean you're literally just
making the bike better in every kind of way that so it's not it's not that it's not that like
obviously you stated earlier the big will bagger thing lost its luster because of its you went
backwards it's yeah it's it's it you weren't making certain aspects away but where i think that some
guys like yourself myself and maybe a few others that were kind of early adopters we're just looking
for a next challenge right something that speaks to us creatively um that can still give us great
experience riding right and things like that and so i think that's where a lot of like maybe
you know the kind of for me specifically to want to say like i don't hate these right i do
want another one but my heart right now is in some other things yep you know i'm saying well yeah i
mean that that is exactly it it's you want the challenge you want what's different and
you're making the bike better even if you go and put you know a crazy paint job on it that's
that's the cosmetic side of it but when you do your suspension your suspension your brakes your
wheels your motor all you're making it all better you're making it better to ride and
you're always going to want to ride that bike that's better and that's where um the a big
chunk of the public still wants that yeah you know then you're still gonna have you know the
guys that have some mentality like i do or we do and things like that where okay i want something
different now i love my performance bagger but i want to build something else yeah you know because
you're not you're not going to for collectors you're not going to convince me that you're going
to get off of a performance bagger to build a better riding harley yeah you know i can't you
that's you know so you're going to you know and you start going back like you know like a
like an mf m8 fxr or like what we do right you know with these new bikes like you you're not
going to tell me that that bike rides better than that bike but you're not building that
for the best riding bike you know you're building that to make the best riding harley you can't
what i've heard from people saying it's essentially the bike i picked up to build right that guy
owns a nice performance bagger uh he owns a nice completely done uh you know uh low rider s right
uh dyna actually okay um but he wants something a little more unique visceral he wants to fill
more you know and that's something that i actually can attest to is that like you know on the bagger
it just i mean i haven't owned the newest one yet and it's so much leaps and bounds over the last
generation um who's just talking about the hand controls like dude i don't is there a finishing
move on here yeah i i have no i i can literally start the bike and that's it yeah i don't know
how to go through the ride mode it's great and i've had a half a dozen of them you know and you
know it's it's crazy i mean it's in the controls have been out what since 13 23 yeah 23 sorry so
you know three seasons already and i still just i know how to start it put my helmet on and and
that's it you know it's wild it's all there and it's so smooth and it's it's just that and the other
but like man i i i'll ride one of those i have one in the shop right now that the before i took
it apart i was able to like take it to the gas station or something real quick and i just i'm
personally just i like the feedback of the throttle cables and you know the older you know not this
but like an older fxr right now that's just right now it's not like right that's yeah definitely
you know you know and that's gonna be i mean and that's like i've got a good a good buddy of mine
two of them that are out of um north caroline and they're just huge horsepower guys right everything
they have is just stupid power and one of them came down and helped me have bike tolber fest
and i'm like just you take because he wants it he wants a new one because everything you know he
wants a reliable bike right because everything i mean 250 300 horse and these bikes that they have
right it's silly and so you took that and he's like holy shit yeah you know like this is a whole
different he says this is reliable and this is smooth and it's you know i just go and i'm not
worried about something breaking and you know everything like that and it's like they are they
are you know the new bikes are nice you know they really are um but also that i think that just to
a degree they're kind of enough yeah like you just said that like the power like you know before
when these inmates first came out we were i mean there was a lease of balance over what power we
would get out of a twin cam like you can throw a cam a tuner and a few things on it on it on a 107
and get a good a good uh a good feeling bike out right and these new ones with this how high up or
motor yeah there's even more insane yeah they're they are they're so you still get to feel good
because you put money yeah like you know you did something about like not being having to do anything
that takes away the fun out of it right because i but i want to be able to still put a cam in it
and it opens it up like to me that's the best feeling because the cam gives it like a feeling
and a sound and a personality almost yeah i mean that thing's literally you know it's got our air
cleaner on it and a d&d pipe and it it's amazing i mean it's it's crazy i mean it's surprising it's
shocking that that's still a factory motor you know in that thing it's wild to me but uh it's just
part of it it's you know everybody wants more power everybody wants you know everything like that
and you know for performance baggers i think it's you know you're not going to get one out of you
know me i'll always have one because it's just it's better than factory yeah you know and you
do everything a factory one but i do i do believe i think we're in that turning point of the trend
of the industry where people are looking at what's next you know i have my performance bagger i'm
not going to get rid of my performance bagger because it is my incredible like but i want
something unique again like the performance bagger was you know eight nine ten years ago
yeah you know and i think that's the that's the guy that's actually custom based you know he
wants something unique he wants something different you know you and i you don't want to ride a stock
bike i don't want to ride a stock bike you know and that's where i think it's going to go back to
two bikes again yeah and that's it's even like for for i know that a lot of the performance bagger
performance scene has this like i want everything to perform so but the bike kind of looks stock
still yep so i need the aesthetics to match whatever performance is added to the bike
if it is going to stay very minimal with paint i just need it to not be the way that you got it
from the factory correct you know so and that was that right there that is exactly what my mind
thought was when we decided to do carbon fiber yeah you know it can't look stock if we made everything
else better but the bike looks stock yeah i just can't do it i just could not do it um
you know so that's just that's just it but you know like i said you've got you know
pro streets and choppers and you know m8 choppers and you know there's a couple of
m8 soft tails being turned into choppers and you know we're really pushing heavy on the
m8 touring the bagger platform to turn them into something custom you've got the m8
fxr you know trend you know and things like that so there is a there's a good
um turning point in the in the industry right now i think between some of the guys on the
fxr tour and like uh cody children's town we got the m8 fxr chopper trend yep so it's like
i think it's all badass i think i love seeing every i mean being close with cody and a friend
of his and watching him build this bike over the last you know the year basically and that
dude busted his ass yeah it's killer i haven't seen in person yet he actually so ward did the
motor for him yeah and then because ward can't get a semi into his place yeah the motor came ward
brought the motor over here and then it got delivered he got picked up from here to go to cody
so and that way i'm like you're gonna get that bike done he's like yeah i'll get it done
yeah yeah fuck okay so as it was like it was last september or yeah beginning of october
yeah whatever it must be end of september or something like that when rick brought the motor
over mic okay like that's yeah that's awesome but yeah i think there is there's a lot of different
stuff that can come right now and it's fun to watch it's fun as l to watch yeah you know
because i mean who i don't i don't actually think i i'm gonna make this project prediction
slash projection i think that i don't know that there be there really becomes a trend
trend like all encompassing trend kind of moving forward right i think there's a lot i mean well
everybody kind of thought that when choppers and pro streets and diggers and you know all that
and then big rules came in and fucking swept everything but you remember that that that time
that phase like after you felt like okay the choppers are kind of dying off yep it went through a
bobber yep a rat rod style kind of like a cafe racer kind of thing seemed like that kind of blew
up and then you know it just kind of seemed like it the big one was also one of those things in that
that world it just clicked a lot of boxes yeah you know because it was a bike that people were
fine able to finance well and they weren't going so radical where the guy that was in the costume
he had a rider and he had a custom yeah then he realized well shit i can make my bagger i can
make my rider custom and i only have to have one bike right now yeah you know so in in that's great
and on then it kind of went to you know same with big wheels right everybody you know when you had
the the customs and the guy at a stock then he went to big wheel and he went from two bikes to one
bike then when he had that big wheel then he had to buy another bike to ride so then he had two bikes
he had two baggers yeah then if the guy did transition from big wheel to performance bagger
then he went down to one bike again now we're on that second bike you're on the second bike again
because a performance bagger is such a utilizable motorcycle why would you get rid of it you know
even if you have an over-the-top full build yeah and you say i want to get rid of that you're still
going to get a stock road glide you're still going to do the motor and you're going to put the performance
you know the things that you know the the minimalist performance bagger let's say yeah right you know
and stuff like that but then you're going to have your fxr you know m8 or your fxr chopper or
you know anything like that so i think there's going to be back to two bikes again yeah yeah
uh because you know if and i think you're gonna be two bikes if you're a guy that actually is
going out to ride you know you want your bar hopper um and you're going to an event bike but
then you know if you want to take you know your girlfriend or wife or whatever on a ride or you
do want to hop on it and ride to Sturges from uh you know Arkansas or wherever right yeah you know
you're going to hop on your bagger yeah you know and stuff like that because let's face it you know
you still want the luggage you still want the bags you still want the you know most guys when
they are doing that they still put a tour pack on them yeah you know and you know you're not
going to do that with some of these other ones you can but you know you're loading it down way
too much and yeah you know the bike's not designed to handle that so it's um i think it's good yeah
i've been you know on the fence again i think i was telling you earlier before we got on the
podcast that i was really i'm really trying to decide what because i want to get another modern
bike next year i just don't my i've already had a little red rst but that's kind of what's calling
me more even though i haven't had the new body style the roguelite yet i right now i'm just kind
of drawn to the st again it's it's kind of a step up from what i've been on so it's not as big as
this right but it does kind of solve a couple problems as far as storage wind protection things
like that yeah um and i don't know man like i i i think that's the next one my wife actually
really enjoyed riding on the lowrider st versus my bagger which blew me away interesting you know
i did have a little tour pack i put on the okay on this so she had a backrest and everything but
yeah she's just like i like this one more i feel like it's smaller or whatever i'm like okay well
it's usually the opposite yeah you know more room and more storage and all that but i like
i was saying before we did the podcast i i fucking love riding these lowrider sts yeah
they're comfortable they're smooth for what they are they're you know especially now that we've got
you know the bag kit for them and all that stuff where you know you're not fighting the clamshell
bags and this one's a 24 so they're the uneven bags yeah you know but you can do them and they're
just fucking fun yeah you know they're light they're nimble they're you know they got plenty
of power out of the box so we were kind of also talking about this before we hit the hit turn on
the camera um the prediction for next year if we think they're gonna do a road king in that new
body style or not i i don't have any information guys so and i and i don't either my my in my like
i was saying my thought is they've got to do it because you see in last year they transition
you know they're trying to get the the street glide ultra and stuff like that you know package them
that way um you know because what is it left though the ultra limiter no did they get rid of
they got rid of that because they did have a road glide ultra that was still the old body
they had the road king and then the police bike and the they didn't change the did they do the
rg3 last year i don't the trike i don't know yeah i think so so that probably would have been still
too so i i know the police bike is now the new body they did yep i know that and um i mean ultimately
they have to because it was just they had a lot of inventory that that's my thought i i do believe
that you know that you know hey we're gonna burn this out because they had they hardly had to come
out with that because indian had that yeah and now harley did that so now indian has to read
his i mean that's that's where it goes back to competition it's good you know if india didn't
come out you hate it love it whatever anybody wants to say about indian if india didn't come out
that bike wouldn't be sitting there right now as in the technology that's in that bike now in the
in the amount of time correct you know um you know because look at how long they ran the evo
for look at how long they ran the twin cam for you know and things like that because they had no
competition they owned the market the previous not the not the last roglad fairing but the one
before that was like a 20-something year run or no it was like they had variations i mean so what
was it like 98 to 13 okay so what 15 years what did they had the tour glide fairing did and
now that was the and that had a couple that had a couple variations and that went into the 90s
that went from 80 all right um to like 90 sure so i guess it does it is about the same but i
just feels like what we're talking about does it seem like that long ago no 100 it's 100 i can't
believe that it's literally 10 years ago right now that we started our first performance beggar
yeah that to me that's like where the fuck did 10 years ago i remember with a mutual friend
steve uh from from norcal uh trendsetters oh yeah when the i remember the day that the new
roguelide the the rushmore roguelide came out the company dirtback cycles the original one
uh they bought they took it home that day and we had the neck cut that night yep and they were we
were doing a uh like a big wheel on it painting it and we did it in eight days yep and it was
out of show up there yeah painted it big wheel you know we had to figure out what would work and
what wouldn't work oh we didn't say yeah ours fortunately the the a lot of the back end stuff
was already figured out from the uh you know what was it 14 correct uh street glad it already came out
with the back so people were able to the tol had so yeah so we did that with in in 13 when the
rushmores came out so the rush was back when harley was releasing the next model year in
august yeah like sturgis still back then yeah they released it what i ended up doing is i bought
the first ultra limited so it was the first water cooled rushmore it was a 2013
or i'm sorry it was a 2014 we bought it in august of 13 i bought the first one that the local dealer
had hopped on it literally the next day and wrote it to uh madison for drag's nvp and parked it out
front and literally once people heard that that because nobody's seen it yet i mean it was like
a mass exodus when we showed up you know a couple hours later and you know the word got around
that was there didn't everybody went right outside to see the bike yeah and we built that and we debuted
that and we did you know lay frame you know we did every we threw through everything we could do
you know back then to this bike and but we retrofitted everything we had a 41 millimeter front end on
instead of 49 we had 13 and earlier bags on it um we cut and made the fairing for it you know
everything like that and we debuted at the donnie smith show in march of 14 so and we kept it liquid
cool we took both you know the we got we moved the fan or the radiator and the coolant tank
built a big metal chin spoiler and had everything up in there it was really fucking trick um the metal
guy that you know and we're still great friends but when he was working here and stuff like that i
mean we went all out on this thing and uh but that's i mean that's much fun right i mean i
shouldn't say when it was fun but it was fun as l like what the fuck are we gonna do with this thing
like yeah being thrown for a loop and you think about it now it's like now you look at one of
these and it's like we thought the world was you know harley just threw us for this giant loop of
the wiring that went into you know a 14 when the rush wars came out this is insane now yeah
you know the script stuff all the yeah everything the wiring they harley has crammed so much shit
in these bagger platforms and yeah i think that platform is still since oh nine yep you know the
chassis is still you know a couple little you know they changed the neck on it a little bit and
you know the bottom a little bit but it's still a you know oh nine platform yeah which is why it
still fits in an fxr relatively well and it's why you know like if the seat didn't change you could
put oh nine to 23 side covers on it yeah you know the bagger rear fenders oh nine to 25
so yeah i think a lot of us were thinking that this design was slotted for a later release
due to the longer bags and the longer stuff to go to a monoshock with a new redesign frame
and possibly even the the water cooled motors and but this was the all right we need to we need to
we need to do something because that came out yeah is you know is what they did yeah you know and
now indian it's now it's an indians hands now indian needs to step up their game because harley
did a harley did a great job with that bike yeah you know they did what indian needs to do in my
opinion um we're like they they gotta go a good technology more technology does not necessarily
look that's what we're kind of talking about we need right it's almost like i want less
yeah a little bit well it yeah styling we need we need options we need a we need a real good deep
dive into these things to you know get rid of that art deco style indian style and come up with
something that's unique to you now well in that you know for me the older i'm getting and you know
it goes like my daily driver car right i'm you know i'm the guy that gets a new car every year
and they redesign the car i've been driving i love the car i have and it's more tech and i'm
like i got in one and i'm like i was gonna buy one i'm like i gotta pay how much more for tech
that i don't want i'm not gonna use i don't use it's like we're talking like the hand controls
and the radio and this i don't use it and it's like you're gonna get to that point of my opinion
you're gonna start maybe losing some people because you're putting too much tech in them
and that's why you see you know like the values of older sports cars going through the books yeah
you know the analog car feel yeah you know you people want an analog car you know they don't
want all this tech and that's like me i'm like i'm gonna keep driving this thing i'm not gonna
lose a whole lot of money yeah to have you know one year newer of a car that i don't want the
technology i'm never gonna use it i'm the guy that i don't even use carplay yeah when i got my
Jeep it's a 2018 and i got it probably like 21 and dude just heated seats uh you know a backup
camera yep the the able to do carplay like that's all i fucking need yep i need some roof i'm good
yep the rest of it like we we rented a car once it was like a Cadillac and uh you know i'm changing
lanes but i didn't put my blinker on and it's like taking the steering wheel and yep i was like
what the fuck is this it's it's gonna drive for you yep the experience of this is gonna go away
you know yep and that's and that's just it i like that and it goes to you know i just i don't need
the technology yeah you know i you know i've actually been taking myself more and more off
of social media and off of you know obviously i need the computer for work and all that type of stuff
but you know i'm just i think i gotta build up a lot of energy to throw at social media
and then i do it real hard for like two or three days and then i've kind of disappeared
from it for like a week and it's it's really not good because i'm not giving daddy algorithm what
he wants but it's like it's really hard to be at all these things creative content um and just
everything that like maybe even the your customers or the people that watch my podcast
it's hard to be all those things all the time right and that's i mean you know i'm the guy
i i'm genuinely happy and i genuinely need to be at the lift working on a bike you know
designing something creating something i don't do well i'm not a guy that can you know try and come
up with a product at my computer right like most of our ideas come from i shouldn't say most all
of our ideas come from the thought that the bike needs this fixed you know like i was telling you
like our brake arm right for the for the softails yeah um you know they're they are terrible from
the factory and you know there's people that make an adjustable link to move it a little bit you
know so you can actually use it but then you know multiple positions if you you know if you're used
to a different you know deal like that where it fixes you know maybe it's not a problem for everybody
but i know if i think it's problem somebody else thinks it's a problem you know and that's where
you know we attack with you know our new you know our billets which we've been doing billet for
over three years now but the whole reason for getting behind billet was everybody issues everybody
but a vast majority of people were just trying to make the same thing you know their way like we
were talking but not putting in well the bike actually needs this this is a problem with the
bike let's fix the problem yeah and that's where one the 23 and a half's hit that's where we really
went hard and really really you know surpassed things because we literally got that 23 and a half
you know before it was released yeah um how we pulled that off and we just hit it hard of
we know this is a problem we know this is a problem we know because we're trying to do this
and that's that's where we started making stuff you know we're making this you know adapter this
piece or you know and things like that too and that really you know worked well because people
running into these problems and then because they didn't know we were doing billet right we're
known for carbon or we're known for custom bikes or whatever and then they started realizing oh i
didn't know they had a full line yeah so the 23 and a half was honestly it was kind of like a
blessing in disguise for us yeah you know kind of like how covid was where we had the product line
and people had money the unit fucking exploded right so the the carbon you know covid for the
carbon was incredible and then when the 23 and a half came out it was great for us to
promote the billet sign of things yeah and you know it really did it worked you know great for
that and we're you know we love doing it because there's honestly there's more you can do with
billet than carbon oh yeah you know and i'm i'm stuck in this exactly what you're explaining i'm
stuck in like i got six ideas but they they they solve problems in the fxr world right right and
that's the that's a scary world to make new debt new technology parts for it and it is because you
know we've looked at that too of you know how far do we go into the indian how far do we go in you
know obviously i'm gonna build my effects are this winter so you obviously we know that we're
have some you know one-off parts on that yeah and but that's just it and it's like do we do
carbon for fxr's do we do you know yes there's a resurgence of fxr's again you know and fxr's
always do this right i mean you know that's it's how they've been you know since you know since
1982 that's how they've been you know they they couldn't sell them or give them away back then and
then you know that's a custom world picked them up and they really yep you know cut their teeth on
that a lot of people did and say i think there's the same thing that happens now right you know it's
i've i've been saying this for years it's a rite of passage build like bike see i think they're i
think are our age group we're all getting to that the only harleys that were cool and they
weren't even cool from the factory for our birth your type bikes as fxr's yeah right i mean that's
how it is like i talked to jeremy from lucky strike yesterday on the phone
when i was driving back from dallas for a while and you know because he's gonna paint this fxr
for me and i'm like you know i'm like you know what are we doing and everything we knew what we
were doing and he knew because it's my birthday and he's like i gotta find an 87 i'm like so you
want he's like yep i want my birthday as an fxr yeah and i mean that's i think that's what you
said your guy out here right yeah um yep so i think that's that's just that's the i think perfect
you know like what you're saying you know right a passenger whatever that's your that's your you
know fxr it's the it's the it's that bike that everybody loves but for our age group it just
so happens that it's kind of a double hit of it's our birth year bike too yeah most everybody that
i hang out with is going to be able to get a birth year fxr yeah you know what i mean i'm 82 yep so
yeah i'd slip in yeah yep exactly i mean that's just it i mean i think that's i think that's a big
and i could be dead wrong but i think that's a big driving factor because i know mill houses yeah
his is an 86 nonly he's not doing a liberty but you know the same same deal he's like i want
a birth year bike so i think that that group of guys a big part of them that's really hitting
fxr hard is it's the that that behind the meaning deal but also there's there's the other aspect
of it it's like i because you said that that's going to stay with you yeah right i think that
when when some of the guys that are now in i guess our age group that we're talking about right
because we're the fxr we're not i guess we're the fxr generation right right um
like they're like they're building a bike and they're like not looking at it like okay well
if i go to sell this i can get my money back i don't know build this bike to the sickest thing
you'd ever do with no intentions of selling it yep and i i promise you will enjoy this thing so
much more yeah because if you when i was when i was on my baggers all the time like i love riding
i travel out and i stopped riding them as much sometimes because i didn't want to put miles on
it because i want to take away the value of it right as opposed to when i built my gold fxr
chop i had i hadn't i was like you know what i'm gonna ride this one in the ground and then i'm
gonna take it apart and do it again clean it up again well which is like what we're talking about
with the bikes that i've got here from you know the 80s and 90s you know those bikes that's
exactly it i mean it's you know and that's where a lot of you know the you know like you were
saying you go through all the old magazines and stuff like that and i got somewhere over there
like those crates right there you can see that that's that's that's those are crates full of
magazines oh yeah um but there's a lot of those that were magazine bikes and you think well where
is that bike more likely it probably got redone it's the guy was really a custom guy or it was a
shop like you know donnie and arlyn and david they would all they'd build a bike they'd have it out
for a season and they couldn't afford to go get another bike they redo it they'd strip it down
and you know it was the same bike over and over and over again yeah and so that's where a lot of
those bikes that you know we could fall in love with in a 35 year old magazine they don't exist
because it's something else now yeah you know like that white fxr that i've gotten there that was
done that was in two different magazines both different styles yeah yeah you know so the first
bite you know if the guy's seen the magazine from 1990 and fell in love with that bike
well that bike's gone it was in the magazine again in 95 or something like that as a different bike
so which is which is cool too because you just see what the you know the difference was what i was
on my performance because i had i had four baggers over the course of uh 17 to 23 okay
or 24 um and the first one i did and then someone wanted it and i sold it real quick yeah
the second one had two versions of it of itself this third one had two versions of itself and
then the last one was just like a short-lived situation and but what i would do is i would
sell the first paint job oh okay with trade so that that paint job could still exist out there in
the world yeah and then you know ultimately try to sell the bike with you know when i'm ready to
sell it with yeah but i mean that that's what we were talking about is like it's like that's a
really cool paint job it's on the white one that i really like it kind of definitely is a time period
style yep but it's super clean it was a pair with paint job yeah that wasn't flames correct you know
and at some point oh better better way to tie it in is like uh when i was at darin mckegg's
yesterday we were sitting down he he said i want to show you something because he knows i'm a big
david man fan he brought out a gas tank that was painted by david oh shit okay because the story
behind it is is that uh the guy that used to run an easy rider back in the day didn't really pay him
a lot of money for the the the stuff he would do for the magazine yep so he would paint these like
you know murals on these tanks and stuff and it's just kind of badass to see that and he's like
it's like i'm now the caretaker of this art this going to you know well and that's is is crazy
it sounds that i've always you know and i've had people that bought bikes from us you know say that
this is art i'm buying it for art i'm not buying it's riding stuff like that and it's like it blows
me and i it's hard for me to understand like it's just a motorcycle yeah and you know i don't look
at his art and but it's like you know people do and you know these collectors and stuff like that
that you know have bought our bikes or you know things like that and it's like it's it's wild to
think like that it is you know because i'm in a stage where i'm trying to buy or get my hands on
stuff of the guys that i looked up to your yard there still do look up to right now yeah not did
but do and um you know i'm searching for that and then when you have somebody you know say that they
want it for that same reason like that's just i think it's wild it's a it's a threshold you cross
in the time that you're a part of this stuff right you know if you just jumped into it you know maybe
if you're like drinking the fxr kool aid so much so you're like i gotta get a fucking ball mill this
and that like i get that but i think some of that might be a projection of what they see older guys
they really do want it for more reason than just it's valuable right to a culture right right um
you know those are kind of what i think that like as i get older you know i'm drawn to certain
things that i've sound at or just like learned about and i'm like i want those kind i want those
little trinkets or those i'm not at the point where i can buy their bike shit but i can buy
something maybe a gas tank they painted with right yes and that's it's cool i mean that's just
odd i mean and that's more honestly that's more kind of realistic because hang gas cap you know gas
tank on your wall hang the fender and you know whatever and it's like you know i'm trying to find
you know space put bikes and it's like god damn um yeah but if you can have an old you know
an old gas tank that nes painted back when he was a painter or when he was painting bikes or
some old pair with stuff pair with is still here so you could actually get him to paint something
but like just these things become very uh you know to me it just becomes important to like
preserve preserve fruit but also like uh i like surrounding myself with that kind of stuff in my
shop in my home right you know and and that's huge you know like we're talking like i'm i'm full
on custom guy and i am very very fortunate to get to do this yeah for for my life or career
whatever you call it and i'm fortunate to get to know the guys that i do look up to and i go spend
time with them and you know it's that's incredible because it's it has nothing to do with like oh hey
i know so-and-so it's i want to know the fucking history i want to know how you guys actually did
this like yeah i've seen this bike how did you actually do that and you know tell me you know
how it was 40 years ago doing this when there wasn't you know the internet and there wasn't
you know big distributors and there wasn't you know everybody having a cnc machine and you know
things like that and it's like you know i'll go to Sturgis or Daytona or you know even little
events that you know that i've been really making the point to go to and like you just sit there and
it's like holy shit and you can't do anything but like i i wouldn't have i wouldn't be able to do
what i do today if you guys didn't do that 40 years ago yeah yeah and that's where you know
bits in getting to know you know those guys it's just nothing like it
yeah that's definitely been like a you know i'm pretty fortunate being being able to do this
podcast i get to i get privy to sit into a lot of really cool things right around a lot of cool
people a lot and so and that helps shape my opinion about things to the way i see the world and
when i when you when you see someone or you meet someone that's passionate about something and you
actually give them the time of day to listen and understand why it's hard not to fall in love with
what they're in love with as well you know yeah so and that's it i mean in those industry guys that
have been doing this for 30 40 50 years they don't know anything else and i'm not that's not a dig
that's this is their life and this is what they know and who knows better than those guys exactly
you know that they chose you know a life that's you're custom yeah you know and to go against the
grain and it's it's fucking wild yeah i mean it is it's and to see what they've done and created
over that long yeah is is incredible you know to see the bikes that you know how they've changed and
how they you know revert back to what they did 30 years ago you know in stuff like that it's it's
wild it's so fucking cool yeah i'm excited about it man i'm excited to see you know i think i think
the the the performance the the big world of performance bagged like you know transition
that was the first thing i feel like i got to witness yeah it like fully coherent to what was
going on yeah you know because living it daily you know living it daily instead of you know just
kind of you know down you know seeing a little bit yeah you know you're you're living your experience
it was televised it was on instagram it was on facebook right and then now it's like another one
where like i said i threw my projection out there or prediction but it is still going to be interesting
to watch it go in directions and for those out there listen i'm not saying performance bags are
over that's not that's not there's nothing conversation it's just like we feel that there's
something kind of changing in a lot we're seeing a lot of our peers yep want to build something
different and when when that's happening it's kind of like take notice when you're in a flock of birds
and they go left you're like okay what why are they going left which way yeah why are they doing that
but you know and that's kind of like you know i was saying like my effects are so i went down
picked a bike in indiana came back and on tuesday i went i was talking to howard kelly from s and s
yeah um about getting that motor and you know him and i had a long conversation about it and i
kind of came up with it it's kind of like i was saying you know that our generation is the effects
are is our birth year bike right and it's the same thing i feel our generation is the last one that
understood or knew what print media was yeah and you know things like that and it's wild to think
that like we'll get people like you see in our showroom it's full like the walls are full of
magazine you know features and covers and all that yeah we'll get people that come in here and they're
like what is that like you know and i had somebody working for me um as a as a videographer no clue
yeah no clue that that that that existed that that feeling you get when you are literally knowing
that it's the week of magazine should be hitting your mailbox yeah yeah and you're watching for the
the fucking postman to come and deliver it and you walk out even you know as a bit today i still
do it today if cycle source shoot something for us i still am i'm flipping like there's nothing like
that yeah and it's it's ultimately 99% gone and and i think our generation is the same thing we're
the last generation that you know like when i was in middle school or high school i would go to
library because the library had magazines yeah they had high they had the the prime media subscription
right for everything that that prime ad i'd go to the fucking you know during lunch i'd go to the
fucking library and i'd look at hop like in high school yeah or in you know i always look at trucking
or whatever and that doesn't happen anymore like they don't you know they were literally that last
generation that grew up with print you know we're the generation that transitioned into digital
yeah we definitely did you know i remember fucking getting dial up internet yeah yeah
yahoo pool yeah you know chat rooms yeah and that's in you know so that's the wild asl
yeah sex location you know and that's what's wild yeah you know it's the same thing you know we're
talking about you know the effects are is it's it's the same way with print media if you think about it
i think traditionally the the millennial generation is 81 to 95 or 96 yeah and it's
like 82 to 94 is the the traditional effects our years yeah that's crazy i think it just it
that's just where it is it's the same as you know you go on like bring a trailer or something right
now like our first cars like the a Honda Civics the Acura Integers they're going for crazy money
if you can find one that's clean and like 30,000 miles or something right it's like
huh you're just somebody just paid that for an Integra you know it's yeah i was a i was a Nissan
240 yeah we used to okay we used to do the import motors and those and every once in a while for
shits and giggles i'll look on marketplace i'm seeing shells going for like eight grand i'm like
oh dude i used to pay 500 bucks for full running oh yeah c r s selling my dad yeah i'm like is it
meaning yeah that's that's just it i'm a hundred percent right there with like i'll look up i am
i bet i spend more time on marketplace than actual facebook or actual instagram
you know i i was i was talking to a friend about that i'm a i spend more time on if marketplace
had a profile within it other than our facebook profile was just for like oh yeah and then we
could comment like it would be the new social media your shit for being sell but like when i
find something on there that i really want like right now i'm really really looking for an old
lathe i want like an old like you know how you got the older bridge right there i want an old
lathe right next to it oh there is yeah okay yeah do all we got to do all i just want something old
manual that uh that i can really just get into but it's like i also you know it's like a if i see
the one that and i i always cross reference with my good buddy cori for main drive i'm like hey is
this the one on egos no no you don't need that one that's not not a force power that's a you
know you need this that and the other so one day it's going to be in the right one the right place
and i'm not going to have the money for it but it's going to motivate me yeah together like all right
i gotta hustle real quick i gotta figure out how to make this happen well and that's yeah i mean if
you are going to do you know like that fx are you doing out there and like that chopper you just
did and stuff i mean it's i'm a firm believer and you got to have the right tools yeah and i've
always invested in right tools and i think when you get into stuff like that and you're actually
doing the custom those i mean uh you know $2,500 bridgeport and uh $2,500 lathe you know manual
stuff it you gotta have it you know that's uh you know you just have to yeah you know there's
dude it is so satisfying to use those things like like i said i've only been been privy to it through
my buddy cori at main drive but when i'm at his house and you know he's setting up like jigging up
to do something on the bridgeport the mill and i'm like and then he's showing me like a center
finder and all these machinist tools i'm like it's fucking wild this is uh this is kind of addicting
dude so like i am the guy you know so my guy that's here his name is lee i've i've he was so
when i bought my shop over in buffalo which is 15 minutes from here um we were building bikes i had
the lathe and in that stuff but i needed the stuff that needed to be actually cnc or you know
properly done and things like that yeah i literally one day i went on the fuck computer
and i felt like machine shops near me because i just moved in that area or whatever and i went
down to it and i introduced myself hey just start you know that type of deal and go in the office
and like yeah you know give it to us and we'll go you know have one of the guys do it and stuff
like okay cool and then it got to i'd go into the office you know and this is over a span of you
know a few years getting going out like just go back and see you know lee and then lee and i would
get to the point where you know he would just you know get it done and he was still working you
know there and he'd be at the shop every night you know because fuck at that point this is
2016 when i moved over there yeah you know so and we were there from 16 to 21 when we bought this
building and so every day he would you know stop by and um you know he'd start helping around the
shop and he'd start making stuff and um turned into like some more jobber type stuff you know like
we needed and that type of stuff and then um we moved over here and he lives you know damn
your walking distance from here and he was always you know if you you know he's a guy he has to be
busy he has to be doing something he can't just milk the clock yeah and he's always you know he's
like if you had he said i'd love to work here he's like you just don't have enough for me to do i'd
like i wouldn't be able to do it yeah and uh so we bought our first machine
and a few months after that he came on full time so we've had him for almost three
about three years now we've had him and you know it's it's a whole different deal now because
he's a 30 year machinist and i'm still every day i'm like you know but back to it when i'd walk into
that place and they'd finally let me into the shop area i would just be like can i stay here all day
and just watch how you're doing this because this is crazy to me like this is you know people
love to come into the shop right they love to come to your place and see how you're doing things
and i'm like yeah everybody likes to see i'm like this is what gets me going like this is like
this is a whole different world to me and to see how you know how precise they are like we think
we're precise in here yeah you know you talk to a machinist that knows what he's doing and it's like
yeah this is a whole different deal yeah um and it's the same thing when i got to go to you know
cosmosky like i was saying like how he's mixing the paint and doing all that i'm like it's it's
manufacturing to me is like the coolest fucking thing ever yeah um and i got to go on the way back
i stopped at s and s to pick up that motor and i got full tour and everything like that and i'm like
this is wild did you go to the viola one viola yeah and uh you know i didn't know i'd never been
there i you know i've been doing this my entire life i've never been there yeah and uh you know
full museum everyone like you know that's you know they've got have you been there yeah okay so
have you been i've been through i've only been to the museum okay the cafeteria and the fucking
like up and we were up in an office doing okay podcasts and shit yeah so we did you know they
gave me an entire whole about went in 2020 when it was like it was like things were kind of weird
no 2021 since right it's still kind of yeah getting back to it so you know that but like
it was cool when you went did they have his original lathe in the museum no so so they had
his original lathe in the museum they had his original bridge port in the museum uh they had
the original uh what tramp bike in the museum they had streamliner in there so i guess yeah
she said they're all the motors in a couple bikes but i cannot remember the bikes at will
yeah they well they had like four of the five or five of them the 145 tribute bikes in there
it was really cool they had the x-wedge prototype bike in there i remember seeing the x-wedge motor
yep they had the prototype bike sent right next to it i think it was like a big dog or something
yeah and uh why did they ever like really expand on that mode it was like one of the coolest looking
George Smith's last ideas type of it you like to build the motor you know this motor deal and then
it went away for you know he passed away and it just went to the side and then um somebody picked
the project back up from what i was understanding and then you know did it and um but they don't
make it anymore now they stop making it and uh but yeah they had one of the they had the plastic
one sitting there or whatever and then they had a real one and then they had the test mule bike
with all the sensors and all the equipment on it everything and like it was fucking cool and then
like they had like a glass case of all the original carburetors like prototype number one carburetor
and you know ever i mean it's like that that's so fucking cool because you know our first stuff
i don't have any of that my first bike i don't fucking have it yeah you know like they had the
foresight to just you know keep it off it's like harley with what they did i think yeah back in the
day they just they were a little bit more connected to the idea of uh lineage and um and uh legacy you
know and you know it's like fuck i'd like there's certain things i wish i still had they just don't
exist anymore because you know they went to this guy got wrecked or got this or yep and that was
like i've got i mean i'm fortunate to have my second bike back yeah um i got that back i was down in
houston and i got that back a year ago and i'm going to restore it i just obviously have not
got to it yet and then um you know i've got the fxr's i've done and i've got you know i've got pretty
much every kind of genre that i've done except i don't know the big wheel and the i wanted my last
one i built back yeah and it was local and the guy went and took it to a stereo shop a motorcycle
stereo shop and they turned it into a fucking audio bike oh i'm like well i don't have to worry
about wanting a bike back anymore because that was the only one i really wanted back and it's i don't
want to say wrecked but it ain't my it's not a bike anymore you know was it bike tober fest recently
where they somebody brought out a bagger they literally had like a 10 foot set of bags i think
yeah i think over like the speedway like the audio i mean it's i mean at this point it's kind of
like they're doing exactly what the audio like car world where it's like i get that i that's fine
i mean those bikes are not riding them on the street well and my thing is the difference between a
car and a motorcycle when it comes to audio stuff is you could still drive the fucking car yeah yeah
you know and that's that was my whole thing when you're taking a motorcycle and you can't even start
the motorcycle or you can't even push it into a trailer i got heard they had like extension
cords going to the bike yeah so it's like okay with that i got it's not 30 batteries on i'm like
this is not running off its own no word you know you know and that's that one that's that's a tough
one for me in in trying to figure out a why you know it's just why yeah why like a motor that's
not a motorcycle anymore you know that's it's just not um so it's i couldn't imagine what being the
guy that that builds that for somebody knowing that everything is always going to go wrong on this
thing because this dude one day is going to be like you know what i want to ride it up to this yeah
it's this the money that these guys are spending on steroids is insane yeah it's absolutely insane
for me in that world one of the couple of the things that really pushed me away from the big
wheels and the stereos were starting to pick up pretty heavy in that you know 1415 16 range
and then it just kind of i was kind of out of it after that and it got worse but what was happening
was and i never got this logic the guys would come to my shop asking me to paint their bike and
they would brag about the money they spent on every other part of it but then somehow only have
you know a 16th of the money for this thing yeah and i'm like what makes you think that that's a
great sales pitch right oh i really want to be a part of this project like the you know and the
crazy thing is i think it was 20 right 22 you know and we were i mean you know most everything we
were building when we were doing big wheels was you know either cover bike or feature bike you
know and things like that we were building but you did beautiful cover of drag was that 2020 we
did the fat book and then it came out in 21 uh no so we built it in 19 and it came out for 2020
that's right so but when we did that you know we were we were i mean we were building a beautiful
big wheelbacker i mean it was dialed it was detailed i mean it was you know only a few other guys
were building the caliber of a big wheel we were and when i walked through is one night we were
leaving the booth at Daytona Harley and they had an audio they do their audio show at night there
and it must have been 22 21 or 22 and i'm like i just want to walk through here because i've been
disconnected from it for so many years at this point and it was fucking insane like they made
like they were doing the quality of a bike that we were doing you know five years previous you
know five seven whatever year it's previous but then the paint was more wild now the you know
platings were more wild now the the progression of it and then they were dumping x amount of money
in the stereos and i'm like this genuinely makes what we used to do you know child's play it was
it was crazy to me i had no idea so there's quality there there what back i i don't i've seen like a
i don't think the quality but there was that like i said i walked through there and i was impressed
i was genuinely impressed of these audio bikes that were incredible if you were into a big wheel
bagger it was still a big wheel bagger but with the stereo now the stereo bikes yeah and the stereo
bikes don't do anything for me and in you know but they did they just they took what we were doing
and just went to this whole other level and it was wild to see and there was i mean i walked through
and there was there's still a good amount of guys that i knew um you know that were building bikes
and they they transitioned into putting these stereos on them and i was blown away there was
some really fucking quality bikes in them but i am now when i see that i'm like huh but you know
the same thing happened with the the mid-2000s chopper ship right it went from you know 130 tires
so all of a sudden now there's 400 watt tires 380 or whatever you know and it just it kind of like
it it became a one-up thing instead of a refined thing correct you know and i think that's what
happened in the big wheel too when it was like yeah a 26 looks really good and proportionate
but let's see how far we can get the the wheels as a wow factor over yeah hey how can we just really
make everything we're doing better each time correct and that was our thing when when we did
big when we build a bike yeah how do we do it better how do we do it better not how much
more wild can we get out of it yeah i want to figure out how i can hide that on the next one i
want to figure out i don't want to look at that i'm i'm huge on that that's the direction of
performance baggers that i like i always say this like i feel like when when justin my machinist
did his green one i feel like that was like a turning point of like custom like finding a
way to do things on this thing that made it like very different yeah and he went to it a
machinist way yes you know not i i don't want this to sound negative because this is not where i
don't this it's ultimately it's a compliment but he went at it as a machinist not necessarily a
bike builder yeah you know the bike was beautiful he is a bike builder but he's a machinist and he
went at it the machinist way yeah you know compared to a guy that's not a machinist you could be a
bike builder a bike builder and machinist are two different things right yeah and you could
absolutely blend that but he went at it with the machinist he built a killer bike with a
machinist mentality if you take this fucking beautiful yeah that bike was amazing if you take
the moniker i think is the way you would say it of a bike builder as like the main thing there's
a lot of different types of people in what their main focus and skills are that still kind of fall
into that thing and that's why you get a diversity of things right if every bike builder had to be a
mechanic correct as their main gig or a fabricator like some people are more better at this but they
kind of have a little bit of skills and all of it you know what i mean yes and that yeah that
bike was incredible and that's you know we did you know like the drag cover bike that was you know
we these are still street glide actually it's an electrolyte the electrolyte standard that we
started with um but that was i mean that was tore down to me that would be considered a custom
performance bagger because the frame was shaved slicked down fully painted everything hidden
everything internally wired you know and things like that um you know and then but there's
that's that kind of next level type stuff yeah and there's not many people doing that
you know what with with a performance bagger you know like kyle's doing it justin did it you know
jaylson's bikes i mean that that by the mint green one i would have fucking owned that thing
yeah it's beautiful um i feel like the last until like my recent gold fxr shop the last full off
frame up build was my gold fxr whole thing years before yep my my versions of the performance
baggers over the years were were mostly outside of it i never i'd actually never dropped went frame
off on it right i those are my travel bikes correct so i was you know my one had like
60 000 miles on the other one had 30 000 miles on it that i just made them did all the things to it
painted them and then i fucking smashed miles on them it works for me i always kind of looked back
on it like man i wish i would have did one little yeah frame off all out kind of like what could i
what could i apply so there's a lot of things that i learned in building big wool baggers prior to
that i mean i still apply some of those techniques on the bikes that you know i i've done the last
year well yeah and that i mean that's exactly it that's that you know same as you know what i
learned working on on pro streets and choppers yeah i applied to big wheels i still apply big
wools to you know performance baggers and that's where you know same as when we do this or like
my other fxr um they like t1 it's it's who's that one that spearfresh oh shit so i've got that one
out there and then the uh drag cover bikes out there too okay so we were yeah we were when we
did the drag bike we were the first ones where we actually owned the bike and we got to keep it
when we were done oh that's cool so you know that yeah they did the whole deal you know they and they
did that because they just kept accumulating all these bikes then they'd sit in the warehouse and
get chipped up or damaged or whatever and then oh shit what do we do with all these and then if
you ever went to nvp in maddison they did only your entryway had like yeah all of them sitting
there with for sale signs and then they'd you know take you know take whatever for them and
you know guys would buy they're like you know paul was buying them back and nick buys them and you
know jeff from you know they just they go and buy the ones they want like you know like don't
hotop bikes right everybody wanted hotop bikes so they you know like that so but they finally just
said why are we warehousing all these bikes and now every year since we did it they're you know if
you build the bike for them it's been yeah the same deal where you you now own the bike
that makes sense to do it oh yeah and it's it's cool for us it's a hell of a history piece
and that's one of those another one where you know every once in a while i'm like
ah shit what am i gonna do with it and and then it's like that's one of those things we're talking
about like that's my history i i now have that performance bagger that's a full custom performance
bagger that we built for you know the drag specialties right so it's like we'll just keep it yeah you
know so but that was you know again that was a full frame off and you know even when a lot of
guys are doing you know the powder coat frames that was a big thing yeah which is great but you're
doing a lot of work just powder coat to put the wiring on the exterior and you know it's that whole
there's nothing wrong with that you know but to me it's like let's just take that next up
yeah you know but that's that custom mentality and there's just so many ways of different
you know to do things yeah i mean once you start taking these things apart you find little
nuance little ways you can kind of customize them i remember back in the big old days you know we would
you know clean the firewall up and yeah make it to where it only has two plugs coming out or
or or then go with the cool pack so you had no plugs coming out like just it's subtle it's simple
it's not the hey i built a whole bike around this plate right it all adds to the uh to the
just the allure of what what you're creating and like i said i get so goddamn excited when we do
something and you know somebody else takes that idea that we did and they run with it yeah i mean
it's it's it's fucking cool like i would say that uh you know like back in back in the day
in the big old days john jesse did the uh the lay frame flh shovel head it was had like a real
thin it was like a just an easy it wasn't really a bag it was just a soft tail style but like an
fl actually fl shovel head not a flh you don't remember uh it was like a flat black one not a
custom but it had a 26 on it um apes floorboards and it was kind of like a a vehicles style but
not really yeah oh yeah i said jesse my yes john show yes yes i'm like so he built that and i was
in love with that bike and then right after it or right before it you had did that tour glide that
was layflame framed out and i was i was just in love with that because i was also in love with
like uh the like finding the old c10s and just kind of laying them out like even though i never
had one i was like a dream to have one like that yeah and that's it that's what's fun is when
you know people step outside the box yeah you know and that's
i don't want to say it's rare but when people see the money rolling in from a trend that's hot
they won't step outside the box yeah and there is a lot i mean i should say there's there is guys
that will but not a lot of them yeah you know and that's those are the guys that i look at what
they're doing and you know you know you stepped outside of it to try something and it's it's not
about the paycheck yeah you know and that's to me in the custom world that means everything
you know i love seeing people step outside the box nobody asked for this bike nobody asked for
the chopper in there yeah you know but that's what challenges you know challenges me yeah and in
what we can do yeah i think yeah when you what we kind of have like there's a kit now in in the
performance bag of world which there wasn't big wheelbaggers yeah yeah and there wasn't pro streets
and choppers and that kit i think is uh is a safety net it makes the people the customers feel like
you know what if i if i do this kit then i it's going to be cool no matter what right you know
the right parts the right painter the right builder or the right group and they're not wrong
they're not wrong at all good shit yeah uh but then you you know like it gets like to the point
where like everything starts to look the same correct and that and not to me to me that's when
things start to kind of like burn out muddy the waters and so Daytona this year even though Daytona
is like not my favorite thing right in the world i do see the value and i do see that every year
i'm almost as excited to see what people built for Daytona as i am to see what's going to seem
this year you know and so if next year in Daytona that kit is like used by everybody
that's when i'm like okay now this shit's boring yeah you know it is good shit but there's nothing
like it the same painter had to come up with 15 different versions of the same thing yeah and change
the color and you know and then yeah you know and then okay the same swing arm with 14 different
variations the same this the same that and it's like it becomes like you know the the proper
bagger show becomes uh you know like how do you judge this and and i do believe that's why the guys
like you know you and millhouse and say justin and say all that all of the guys that were early
adapters of performance baggers that's why they're all doing doing something different yeah you know
so it's i well i mean also because like i think all of us you know we're we're not rich right and
those kits show the world i spent money and when you do that it does kind of like take away the fun
because what makes doesn't make custom motorcycles uh like better or worse right but to me it's about
what my hands can create well and that's the thing and and i have this conversation a lot
in a different aspect of you know what i do but there's there's levels to everything yeah business
personal life custom motorcycles not custom you know anything like that there's there's
levels to everything and i am a firm believer that you know the guy that doesn't have all the resources
in the world doesn't mean he can't be a part of something cool yeah and i'm also the you know if
the guy up here that has this money you know same deal right like there is there's there's levels to
and it's it's what are you looking for what are you doing um you know a shop that can put out a
beautiful motorcycle but doesn't have cnc's in their shop it doesn't mean we're any better than them
yeah you know and the guy that is doing it as a garage doesn't mean you know that the shop is
any better either yeah it's that i for detail it's doing the best you can and appreciating
because and i'm the same way right like in my position i i do i get a hang out with the guys that
you know are at the top right they're they're doing way more than i or we are and what i get to
somewhere i release a new bike or whatever i'm proud of shit of it and i get you know excited to
see what they're also doing too and i want it's it's not that i want to do anybody i'm not a i'm
not a competitive person you know what so i am not a competitive person i compete with myself the
company competes with itself i always want to make our next bike better than our last bike yeah
and i want our company to be known for the best thing out there yeah so when i go and say
nick and i leave the booths from black hills yeah and he grabs one of his bikes and i grab one of
my bikes i want to be the two fucking baddest bikes that are that are out there together
yeah yeah you know and that's you know that's a huge thing for me is competing with yourself
not i don't i don't compete with anybody else i want to compete with myself i want to do the
best i can and i want other people to you know to do that same thing i think you know that's
just how i am and so i've always been i don't do bike shows i don't yeah i that's just it's not
me it never has been you know so you know even back in the day like the baddest bagger stuff
i wouldn't i just i didn't yeah um it's not it to me it's it's just not how i am yeah i'm with
you on the show thing i don't really i like to show off my bike i don't want i'm not looking for
a confirmation through a trophy or something like that i've i've always been the guy that
stands in the back yeah like i'll park the bike and i love hearing the feedback yeah when they you
know they they don't roam around or it's not my bike or whatever i like hearing you know then
pick out the little details or they miss the little details or the biggest thing we're getting
right now is everybody thinks these are fxr's yeah yeah um you know and shit i've had i've had
fxr purists think that these are fxr's and it's like all right and that to me that's when i get
excited yeah i get excited i mean i get excited doing you know getting getting to get up every day
and do what we do yeah um and when people are excited for our product i mean there's no better
fxr feeling it's same as for you i mean what's a better feeling than the you know you're spending
you know all your time painting a bike for some guy and the guy just jaw drops yeah right i mean
that's that's my passion my passion is seeing somebody get excited about what we've done
and that they're excited to work with us yeah and they go and tell their buddies you know that
they love their motorcycle you know and things like that there's there's a there's a part of like
your bike when you do your bike that it's a true feeling that you get every time you see it especially
when it's on the lift from like the raw stage to the painted stage to the now it's your stage
well to me there was a point in my career where i felt like i was so unsure of that feeling that
i almost needed the validation from the rest of the place but i'm at a point now where like i trust
correct and i trust my taste and i feel like it's a it wasn't like a a transition that i felt like i
could have said oh yeah now i'm like this i just like one day it's like fuck man like i'm you know
what if nobody likes this i i don't give a shit this fucking is speaking to me right now yeah that
was i mean the fxr chopper was that because that was a very going that direction while those things
have been done a lot before yeah going in the direction with that with the amount of attention
that i can put onto a motorcycle it was scary but yeah damn dude well me and kory were building
that bike and we were sitting on the lift and we're like you know dude this is fucking it this is so
sexy and that's just how i feel about it where the world feels like that well and that's a you
know and we've done some youtube stuff and we've done some build videos and that and and i've i've
said it and i and i've said this forever like there is no greater feeling in my opinion than
you like you just said you you see it as a raw bike or raw chaster whatever and that first time
you know the the for me the stages and when you build a bike is it's wild when you know
you're done with fab and it's time to break it down and you get to see what it actually
sits and looks like yeah like i just sit there and stare at it yeah and then when you fire it up for
the first time it's still on the lift still on table or whatever insane yeah it's just insane
feeling and then when you actually put your hands on the bars and roll it off the lift and just let
it sit there yeah and i do it like every single time it's i will sit there like when everybody
leaves i will sit there and it'll be silent in here and i just sit in a chair i just look at and i'm
like this is great i mean there's there's no feeling like that and then it's when you get
a ride for the first time yeah you know you so you have those steps through the process and
there's just no feeling like it yeah there's just not it's just it's crazy the the adrenaline or
whatever you want to call dope i mean whatever right that you just you did that and you see you
all those times that you doubted yourself because i mean i don't want you but i still
fucked it down myself every time we fucking come up with an idea or every time we got a new bike on
the you know like my effects are i'm like am i really gonna do the right thing or you know if
i do it this way you know and things like that and i you know i also just say fucking i'm gonna do it
yeah but you still have that little bit in you that's like yeah what am i doing here am i really
doing this and the play you know i've i've literally you tell me i've said since day one
i'm gonna build cool shit and if people don't like it i'm gonna go out of business
and then i'm gonna have to do what somebody else wants or likes or whatever and we're here now
almost 17 years later yeah and i get a build cool shit and appreciate everything we do every day
yeah you know it's it's wild to think that you know if we can fuck what what you know
we can do what we want yeah we don't we don't gotta go punch a job that you know a punch a
clock at a job we hate you know we didn't you know you didn't sell out for an extra dollar an hour
yeah um you know you know that passion is there and then for this industry you have to have that
passion you have to 100 you have to there there is like there is to me every year that i get to
step foot in the black hills i'm like well i did something okay this year because i'm back here again
because i'm at this place again and i the same thing my buddy joe kid said this long time ago
is like there's dudes that live their whole life dreaming of owning a harley davidson you know
there's levels to the to the map to what you could dream about having within this world of
motorcycling yeah and to me it's it's just a testament to uh whatever version of whether it's
just staying relevant staying skilled staying on top of it to be able to go sit there every year
in some form or fashion and go to the fxr show go go to the go to the uh you know
was it lucky 13th yeah yeah go there oh yeah go go do some rides go see people like it's just
to me like that's just okay i made it here you know it is i mean this is in my opinion there's
no industry like this even custom cars because that's a giant you know a kind of like you know
pockets of small niche in it but it's it's still a giant compared to the industry we're in and the
thing that that i'm always thinking every day i wake up and you have to be the fxking best you
can in this industry because this is a a lot this is not a need yeah nobody needs what we do
nobody needs what we do um you know even if you if you if you dumb it down
and nobody needs a motorcycle so they really don't need a mechanic for a motorcycle yeah right
so car mentality car mentality you have to have a car yeah you have to you know yeah you can take
the bots or whatever but you have to have a car yeah right so you need you need a car you don't
need a motorcycle even in texas or florida or california where you can ride your own you still
don't need a motorcycle you know you need a car so we have to every day you have to you have to
know that you have to know you have to do your best for the public yeah you have to because you
don't need a motorcycle but you also don't need a custom motorcycle that's exactly so you don't
need that that yeah that's exactly you don't you it's the it's the next step right it's the next
layer you if you don't need the vehicle that we're customizing yeah we really are fortunate to get
to do what we do yeah and that is it it's it's your we sure as fuck don't do it for the money yeah
oh yeah you know that's that's just it i mean you know we all could be doing something else
but that's where this is it's a passion built industry you know and it's the way you know what
gets me like i said what gets me excited is the guys that you know trust us with you know with
doing their bikes or their parts and everything like that and then surrounding you know myself
where i'm again i can't say how much you know how many times i'm fortunate to do what we're gonna do
and get to be around the people that have the same passion in this industry as we do yeah you know
and and that's what's cool you know some of these guys that have the biggest companies in this industry
are the most fucking passionate too yeah you know that you know they're not corporate they're not
you know that type of stuff and it's it's crazy yeah they're still riding the Sturgis yep they're
you know still out there you know involved in it yep going to different events and you know things
like that and you know we'll you know we'll get together and you know we'll fly in somewhere you
know like next month we're flying into phoenix and we're riding to san diego yeah and you know it's
just it's it's about motorcycles it's about having fun it's about being with like-minded people
that love motorcycles and and more or less custom motorcycles yeah um and it's so exciting to see
like different groups do that yeah it's also like uh i think it's all also on our our job as well as
to build them but also kind of lead by example as to like why why is it cool to have a custom
motorcycle yeah you know yeah and there's just you know i don't know what it is about it but like
to me it's just like when i travel on a bike like there's something about i want mine to look
unique and then when i look back on my travels on motorcycles uh i i see that bike and i'm instantly
or i see a picture of this bike i'm instantly taken back to all the different things i got
to experience on that which you can have that with a red bike or a black right right but for me it
just makes those uh those daydreaming uh reminiscing kind of a young moment's a lot more visceral and
yeah you know it's visible it's fucking awesome i mean that that's just it i mean we get to build
something and then go ride it yeah you know it's it's incredible agreed i mean it's just it's
fucking fun you know yeah and you're still killing it man we're trying i mean machines plugs molds
it's all going down bike builds yeah i mean you keep doing it right i mean it's the passion is
what pushes it you know this is what we do just like you i mean you're killing it with
fucking paint jobs and now you know getting to build the FXRs and you know the chopper you just
did is fucking killer thank you and i mean that's like i said that's the shit that gets me excited
it is seeing other people get excited about it oh yeah you know that's what's so fucking cool
well man where can they find out all about your cool shit i mean you got the youtube
talk about so we do we did so i have you know about a year ago we did i yeah year year and a half
ago we had a full-time media guy um we parted ways with him i just hired a new videographer
that starts next week so we're gonna start the youtube again um and it's you know one of those
things that i'm not a youtuber um but you know our you know bike builds and stuff like that we
want to you know people to know how we do things you know we've always been an open book right we
always you know explain how we build parts how we build motorcycles you know what our construction
is of our carbon fiber all that type of stuff and we want to show you know the inner workings of what
we do we're we're still a motorcycle shop you know we don't do repair and service but we're
still r&ding bikes we're still building bikes we're still machining the parts here you know
doing all that we want to show kind of the behind the scenes aspect of everything um the show how we
build a bike from you know if we're rolling it on the lift to rolling it off the lift or you know
if we're starting with you know a full custom and we're starting with a ridget chassis or whatever
yeah we want to show that process behind it we're not um you know it's not a tv show or it's not
using it to get youtube to pay us or anything like that that's you know it's it's not what we do
it's just insight we want to show the insight of what we do because i do believe we do cool
shit here um and we want to show people that we want to you know get people excited about what we
do and how we do it yeah um so you know there is a decent amount of youtube stuff up there like
you know some of the build of this the other one we did last year is up on there and so a lot more
youtube is coming it's just hofman designs yeah and then instagram facebook our website you know
obviously you know we've got somebody running instagram and facebook and that's updated you
know daily yeah and then website is you know where all of our product is and you'll see a lot of
history of stuff and um bike builds are on there and things like that so um a lot of a lot of digital
stuff a lot more coming because we've had like six months where we haven't had a digital guy in here
yeah so he's gonna have a lot going on to catch up with and then we're literally throwing him right
into you know documenting the fxr to build for oh that'd be right for uh Daytona so we'll have that
done for Daytona when the for you guys listening or watching this the description below there's a
link to there'll be links to all this stuff so that you can just scroll down click the link
and have at it yeah and you know and what i like to tell you i mean are you know we're here every
day we're and then we're a brick and mortar place right we're um we're here we know email
dm phone call i mean we answer it all yeah you know there is people here answering the phones you
know there's only you know five of us here you know so it is you know it gets busy it gets
hectic but we're we're always here we're always answering emails we're always doing everything we
can um you know if you're ever in minnesota you know stop on by we've got some cool bikes in the
showroom we got some history in there you know and a lot of that type of stuff you know we do like
to show people what we do we're we're passionate about this this is what we do so we get excited
you know seeing people excited about our stuff um so yeah looking forward you know we're we're done
we just got back from Daytona we you know we've got Daytona's our next thing we'll bring out you
know some new you know new bikes new products uh but the FXR is uh that's the project that's you
know that we're gonna start on next week birth year liberty edition yeah uh m8 yep so we got
yeah sns got involved got us a their new what is it mk 136 yeah so we're gonna stuff uh
stuff that in there and it's uh you know the plan is make a 1986 look like a 2026
you know a 40 year old bike just like me it's it's wild to think that we've made it to to 40
no not yet you're saying you're saying 40 man i'm i'm i'm knocking on the next door which is like
44 next year so it's a tough one but hey i do appreciate that coming in on saturday uh you know
appreciate all the uh stuff you know you've definitely helped me out over the years with
products and stuff like that on builds and you know love the parts always have and uh yeah no we
appreciate the hell out of what you do i mean you definitely you know are pushing the podcast and
you know everything like that and everything you're doing is killer you know our i want to
help people out that you know have that same mentality the same vision the same type of stuff
in a different you know side of it and that type of deal so you know we're here to help whoever
and you know whoever we can and you know we we love it you know that's what we do cool sorry man
they appreciate the hell out of it man appreciate it bud yeah i hope you guys enjoyed that it's
always fun talking about the uh the good old days it's not that long ago it feels like it's
been a lifetime um hope you guys enjoyed it once again thank Curtis Hoffman for uh sitting down
and hanging out got a lot of great wisdom from him even after the podcast it was a great conversation so
guys uh i do appreciate all your support wherever you're listening to this episode please take a
moment to uh rate it review it uh and all that good jazz um if you want to support the podcast you
can do so by checking our patreon um we've had a slow or back half of this year if you will you
know build advice for born free and all this other stuff and running around getting these podcast
you'll listen to um recorded we haven't been able to do the garage talk like we have wanted to um
but we're definitely going to be kicking that back off if you're not on patreon and you haven't been
there is a lot of unreleased podcasts and a lot of which is not really date specific so you could
go back and listen to it at any time and feel like you're getting some good stuff good conversations
good information you know a lot of good things over there there's a chat room if you want to join
that talk about your bike builds talk about what you're riding to going to do wanting to do wanting
to find people to meet up we're trying to build that community over there so there's a link down
description if you want to check out the patreon um and once again that helps support this podcast
to keep it alive uh also checking our sponsors is the other way to help support this podcast and
there's links down below with offer codes for some of them to help save you some money on
products for your bikes so yeah got some more coming for you I got quite a few podcast records
so we're gonna we're gonna dump a lot out this month we're gonna get them we're gonna get them
all done this month that way we can start 2026 fresh and uh yeah that's all I got to say about that
all right we'll see you guys in the next one peace
About this episode
Curtis Hoffman, the king of carbon fiber, joins the Fast Life Podcast to reminisce about the evolution of performance baggers and FXRs. The discussion dives into the early days of the performance bagger movement, the challenges of building custom bikes, and the importance of quality craftsmanship. Hoffman shares insights on the transition from big wheel baggers to performance models, the significance of creativity in bike building, and the camaraderie within the motorcycle community. The episode highlights the passion behind custom builds and the excitement of seeing unique motorcycles on the road.
Hofmann Designs was an early adopter of the Performance Harley culture and is the reason most of the carbon fiber you see on bikes today exists. Curtis is a custom motorcycle builder and parts manufacturer out of Minnesota. In this episode, we're talking about building all-out FXRs and sharing our thoughts on today's performance Harley scene and where we feel it may be going.