A dyno tune helps improve a car's performance by testing it on a machine that measures how much power the engine produces and making adjustments to make it run better.
A Harley crate motor is a complete engine that you can buy from Harley-Davidson. It's ready to install in a motorcycle, making it easier for people to upgrade or replace their bike's engine.
Car
Harley 131
The Harley 131 is a powerful engine made by Harley-Davidson that gives motorcycles more speed and performance. It's a popular choice for riders who want to upgrade their bikes.
Motul is a brand that makes oils and lubricants for cars and motorcycles. They are popular among racers and enthusiasts because their products help engines run better.
The Pontiac Chieftain is an older car that was made a long time ago, known for its unique style and good performance. It was popular in the 1940s and 1950s, and many people appreciate it today for its classic look. People talk about it because it represents a special time in car history.
DOT regulations are rules made by the government to make sure vehicles, including motorcycles, are safe to drive. These rules include how lights should work and look.
Custom Dynamics makes special lights for motorcycles that help them be seen better and look cooler. They create products that fit many different motorcycle brands.
The RS2 rear suspension helps make the ride smoother and better controlled. It's a part of the car that affects how it handles turns and bumps in the road.
The RS1 front cartridge system is a part that helps control how the front of the car reacts to bumps and turns. It can be adjusted to make the ride softer or firmer depending on your preference.
The FXRT style front fairing is a cover on the front of a motorcycle that helps reduce wind resistance and can make the bike look better. It also helps protect the rider from the wind while riding.
Car
Harley-Davidson Road Glide
The Harley-Davidson Road Glide is a type of motorcycle made for long trips. It has a special front part that helps protect the rider from wind and offers storage for personal items.
OG Moto is a Canadian company that makes parts for motorcycles, especially for Indian and Harley-Davidson bikes. They work on special projects to customize motorcycles.
The Chevrolet Camaro is a type of car that is known for being fast and stylish, often seen as a fun car to drive. It was first made a long time ago and has a strong following among car enthusiasts who love its classic look and powerful engine. People talk about it because it represents a cool part of car history.
IROC Z wheels are the wheels that came on a special version of the Chevrolet Camaro called the IROC-Z. They have a unique look that many car fans like.
The Chevrolet Impala is a large car that many people have used for everyday driving, especially families because it has a lot of space inside. It has been around for a very long time, and many people remember it fondly because it’s comfortable and reliable. It comes up in conversations because it’s a classic car that many people have owned.
The Dodge Challenger is a big, powerful car that many people love for its speed and classic look. It was first made a long time ago but came back in 2008, and now it’s known for being fun to drive and having a lot of horsepower. People mention it because it’s a favorite among those who like fast cars.
Indian Motorcycle is a well-known brand that makes motorcycles. It has been around for a long time and is famous for its unique style and performance.
LIVE
What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the Fast Life Podcast.
On today's episode, I'm sitting down with some great friends, some old friends, some guys
I spent a lot of time riding performance baggers with, Mr. Steve Chamberlain and Kyle from
Forever Rad.
And in this episode, we're talking about the past, present, and future of performance
baggers, the Indian platform, and many more things.
Before we get into this episode, please take a moment to check out our sponsors, 1-800
Law Tigers.
If you or someone you know has been in a motorcycle accident, they're going to get you on the right
path.
Check those guys out.
Also, Arlen S Motorcycles, some of the best motorcycle parts in the game.
They got everything you need, wheels, brakes, cool accessories, good people, the best in
the business.
Kyle B. Harley-Davidson at Austin has you covered with new and used motorcycles.
Please check them out.
Great friends, bought a lot of bikes from those guys over the years.
Custom Dynamics has your bike covered, headlight to tell light with the best motorcycle
lighting in the game.
And also, and last but not least, RWD V-Twin for Performance Motorcycle Suspension, some
of the best in the game.
There are offer codes and links down in the description wherever you're listening
to this podcast.
Check them out.
Now let's get into this episode.
Hey guys, you ready to let the dogs out?
Fast life, 5 Castle Ray now.
Well, this is how we, you know, we set up on the fly situation.
We're finally doing a video in your shop though, so that's the thing.
We cut it down the last time, but somebody dropped the ball.
Yeah, dude.
Well, I did actually got everything set up to come on this trip and I forgot bike
straps.
I haven't even looked to see if my trailer hitches in the back of my Jeep or not.
So it could be a shit show, but we'll see.
Adapt and overcome.
We have to hit new railies and be fine.
Yeah.
They got shitty straps though.
Yeah.
Herbal sleep.
At least they have straps.
Yeah.
Show up, pick up this dude's bike and all out build and I'm showing up with
some Harbor Freight, some Titan or whatever the hell it is, some Pittsburgh.
rental trailer.
You're like, I'm a professional.
The worst is they come with the actual yellow straps like they were strapping
out a tractor trailer.
Yeah.
He just scratches everything on the bike as you try to strap it down.
Yeah.
Two inch wide straps and you're trying to strap down a bike and it's
on the kickstand every time.
Just breaking shit and suspensions compressed in the front.
Dude, I feel like more people's bikes get destroyed, trailing them
because they just don't think about like bikes bouncing up and down,
going down the road and just don't time down, right?
And then they fall over and hit shit.
Then they do on the road.
Yeah, they fall in early.
They're in close trailers and they try to they try to sardine them too much.
Yeah.
And they'll start rubbing each other and shit like that.
You got to remember that they bounce back and forth like at least four
get to put couch cushions.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, you need anything rubbing up.
Well, aside from that or learn how to strap a bike down.
Yeah.
You just ride it like a man, like an adult.
Yeah.
Are we are we live now?
Oh, they were rolling, I think.
OK.
You know, I'm at the sound.
No, dude.
Hello. Welcome to Movies Home.
It's been a while.
What? Yeah.
I was going to say, I looked it up the other day.
You said you were coming up here.
I was like, shit, I think the last time you did a podcast was like
February 12th on the way to Momma tried.
Yeah. Four.
Yeah.
It's like right before Daytona.
No.
It was the day that we were finishing our music city.
Sports chief build.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because you took some good photos.
And that would have been right before Daytona.
I was just finishing the red guy.
This is the burrito for Daytona.
Yeah, we called him the incognito burrito.
That's when it blew up, though, right?
Yeah.
I read it.
Wait, which time?
The bull.
Yeah.
We did the whole bike and then we brought it down to Daytona.
And I think it made about 268 miles and then full like redo.
And, you know, I didn't that motor was the same motor throughout all the race
and other than the first race, I blew it up in between the first race
and the second race on the street.
Then when we're down it, I was down living down at Texas Performance.
We built a nice little 127 inch and that motor lasted all the racing
and riding to Sturges in between and all this and all that.
And then I bring it down to Daytona and I blow it up down in Daytona.
I mean, to be fair, like you you were I mean, you're you ride hard on the bikes.
And I mean, the motor took a beating.
Oh, yeah. It's really I mean, I'd say it was a test of like it's
these are good motors.
Yeah, I was going to say like I wasn't mad at all.
They had like 12,000 three miles on it.
And I mean, 15 races, 20 races.
You know, all the races.
But aside from all the races, October, October of twenty three,
he raced Daytona, right?
And so I'm in the pits the whole time
making sure everything is good for him and he's out on the banks
and he's like the guy in the buffalo and he's pinned out
and he's tucked down and that thing is it's paint.
It will not your pants feel like being on those banks.
You're pinned for, I don't know, an honest, like 45, 50 seconds.
Like in like the long stretch, like at least it feels like.
And you can't look like normally in front of you.
Like you're riding down the road.
You're looking, you know, 50, 75 foot in front of you on the banks.
You can't look that like you're looking 500 foot out
because if you're you're going so fast, you know, 140 plus miles an hour.
Like if you're looking only like 50 to 100 foot in front of you,
like you're getting speed vision.
So it's like you're just tucked down and you're looking, you know,
five, six hundred foot in front of you because you're like, whatever's in front of me.
I've already seen it, you know, half a second ago.
So it would be gnarly.
I wouldn't mind riding something on that.
But it probably freaked me out.
I would overthink the whole situation before ever getting on to the like
getting fast enough to go around it or whatever.
Yeah, you chop off the throttle when you're on the banks.
You drop to the bottom.
You just like if you just that and just like your momentum is carrying
so hard and you just ease up on the throttle and just you kind of just fall
right down, you would be fine.
But that was like one thing with like racing is like, I never like
tried to overthink tracks like some people would like watch videos
and you put there wasn't always baggers and Harley's and the videos
I was watching on the tracks.
It'd be sport bike.
Well, my bagger line wasn't always the same as what some guy could do
on a sport bike.
So I'd just be like, I'd look at like one of those top views and I'd be
like, cool, like I see kind of how the tracks laid out.
And I was like, I'll just show up and figure it out.
I do better that way, you know, than trying to sit there and overthink it.
Yeah, overthink it.
Oh, we got to take
our newest Indian out on the track in Daytona.
It was on a parade lap.
Yeah. And I was like, well, we're not going to mess around too much
and like get kicked out of this thing.
It was the opening for King of the Baggers.
And by turn two,
look, everybody in the parade lap was like, all right, let's go.
And so I was like, well, I'm not backing down to that.
So I did get to hit the bank just a little bit.
Now, we did not go up to the top.
Absolutely not.
I got to go like it's too extreme to hit.
If you don't hit it before the entry, you can't.
So you don't go jump back on.
No, it's literally it's like 45 degrees.
Yeah, like you can't just be degrees.
You can't just enter it.
Yeah, over thinking and now like, fuck that.
Yeah. But once you're up, if you're carrying your speed,
you just you're just ripping around it.
You'd be fine.
And that's why I said you'd be fine.
But it was bizarre.
And I only did one lap on that thing.
What was the thing you did up in the Clems
at that time that like velodrome thing?
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Well, shit, that was like it was like 2019.
You had like a little anniversary party
and then it was like an old velodrome that's in Detroit.
Yeah, then it was so sketchy.
It was like this old bicycle racetrack that's like banked.
And then like one side was like pretty well straight out.
But like the other side was like the concrete cracked and dropped.
So in the middle of the corner, either you took the high line
or you took the low line like you didn't switch over
because it was like a six or eight inch like concrete drop in the middle.
You know, so.
And that the end of your talk about is the is that the sport chief,
the red one, the red one.
But that's a power plus chief in.
So, OK, yeah.
So that's this year's model of long story short.
The challenger has been out for five years.
And that's the competition to a road wide.
Yeah. And so this new power plus chief
in is the exact same thing as a challenger,
but it has a batwing fairing.
So it's more of your street glide model.
Yeah. And it's it's oddly familiar to a challenger
because everything is identical,
but there's still something about a fairing that's moving with you.
Yeah. And so that was that was the bike
that we built for Daytona this year. Yeah.
And it was it was cool.
It's been a fun year on it, you know.
Yeah, I get to ride that one in the and the challenger.
Oh, on your trip to Vegas.
Yeah, I went out to do that.
So what did you think about the chief in the new chief in?
I mean, it was it was cool.
I mean, I definitely felt more at home on the challenger.
You know what I'm saying?
Just more familiar with that, you know, fixed bearing
in that kind of bulkiness.
Yeah, but fucking fast.
Yeah. Well, so same, you know,
same same drivetrain for five years now.
But it's even for me, it's been
we're getting used to the fairing that's moving with you.
Yeah. In many ways, it actually feels
like it's a little more flickable
because everything goes with you.
You're not doesn't feel like you're pushing it so hard
for a small view like myself.
It's very easy to throw around.
But I do notice a lot more wind
with the batwing style fairing, more wind in my face.
And I haven't fully fallen in love with it.
It's been cool.
We'll keep riding it next year and we'll see.
But I think I got like six thousand on it this year so far.
So do you feel like you've been able to?
I feel like this is the least amount of traveling
on a motorcycle I've done in the last five years.
I only did one trip this year.
How does it how does it feel?
Do you miss it?
It feels like something's missing.
Yeah, you know, yeah, like there's a there's a part
of the experience like I didn't get a chance to ride
to Daytona this year because I ran out of time
building that bike.
So I took the opportunity to jump
throw the bike on a trailer and get up there
because I thought I was going to miss
not Daytona Sturgis and.
Trailering up there takes away
my enthusiasm to do anything because when I got up there,
I was like, you know, I don't know when I travel
when I'm traveling somewhere like it's kind of like I'm out there.
There is no option to throw it back on the trailer and go home.
Right. You know, did you find yourself driving
the vehicle in Sturgis rather?
Well, I mean, I just trailed through the bike
on someone else's trailer.
We got there and I was on the bike the whole time.
But initially, my plan was to go do an extended trip
on the home, kind of like how we did a couple of what?
Twenty twenty, whatever you met up with us in Colorado.
Just something just so I can get another good trip in.
Sure. And the whole time I'm there.
I'm just like kind of over it.
I was defeated from not finishing the the FXR.
I felt like it was the first time I ever had a deadline
that I didn't meet for myself.
You know what I mean? A goal or whatever.
It kind of like just fucked with me a little bit in the head.
You know, like I always expect I was expected.
I had all these dreams of being here on the other bike.
Yeah. And I kind of I kind of had a similar experience this year.
Ended up seeing, you know, I got that twenty four road
glide, which that one's reliable, awesome.
Could it took that to Sturgis?
But I was like, I want to take the burrito like.
So I blew up my tan bike Daytona, you know,
and then sat all last year until right before born free.
And I'm like, all right.
And I just did a quick little rebuild on the motor.
I threw new jugs and pistons at it.
And I was like, there's some other damage in the motor that, you know,
either it's going to last or it's not, you know, it's like.
So I did that and ended up taking all and born free and it was good.
And rode it a little bit earlier this year.
I was like, I'm going to take it to Sturgis.
I had a couple of little things on the button up
and ended up going on a little test ride.
I mean, you know, four miles from the house.
And I was like, I was like, it's good.
I'm going to go get a new dyno tune on it
because I had some changes with that motor.
And then it blew up on that.
And then we had it up, throwing in a SNS 136.
Well, let's back up.
So we're about a week out from heading out for Sturgis.
And this is going to be a big trip.
We're taking the whole crew.
We got a house and spearfish.
Yeah, the whole team is going.
The wives, the girlfriends, my son is going with.
Yeah, this is going to be the year, right?
We have our forge build with Indian big year for forever.
And let's let's blow it out proportion.
OK, so he goes to shake his bike down.
He'll be fine. That thing's ready to roll.
Oh, this dude calls me.
He's like, well, think my bike blew up.
And I'm like, what? No.
So, yeah, hooked up the trailer and picked them up.
All right, so we got like it was like a week, right?
It was nine days, nine days away from Sturgis, departing for Sturgis.
And he's like, I don't know what I'm going to do.
So he puts it on.
I couldn't just go back to old reliable.
You know, like I just had it in his head.
He's like, I got to take this bike.
I got to take I got to take the race bike, right?
So he puts it on the story.
Hey, someone give me a give me a crate motor
and I'll get this thing swapped out and I'll still ride it to Sturgis.
Right. Well, good old S.C.
Rowan five one five over here.
Yeah, so I have Motul Motul USA reached out and they said,
all right, let's make it happen. Can you do it?
So I was like, all right.
And then talking they're like, we have no like we're out of town
or out of the country.
We have no room for logistics of getting you a motor,
but we'll get you a motor.
And I was like, all right.
And then, you know, Kyle forever ad for red dot com.
You know, I was like, hey, you know, I was like,
I was like, there's an SNS 136 and drag.
And then it was like Monday, like most dealerships are closed.
And I talked to one of our friends that runs parts department.
He goes, yeah, Harley crate motors are like
36 days out or something like that.
Like if you want to Harley 131.
So like I messaged back and I'm like, hey, I can get a,
you know, Harley crate motor in 36 days, you know,
then we're not going to do Sturgis or there's an SNS 136
and stock and drag specialties.
And then they're like, do whatever you want.
And I was like, OK, so got the got the motor ordered.
And then, you know, we're down in St. Louis,
South St. Louis, and they had it in stock
up in Jamesville, Wisconsin.
So the next day I hopped in truck, drove all the way up
to Jamesville when picked it up from little customer service
pickup, brought it back.
Then we ended up getting the motor ripped out.
I think the next day got the motor, the new motor
sitting back in it by that night.
We replaced all the hardware on it.
Yeah, replaced all the hardware to stainless.
And then next day was just wrapping everything up.
Little things. I got it started.
So that's by like Thursday.
And then he's just chasing like a tiny little oil leak,
you know, and I have aftermarket oil lines and whatever.
Then messed with it Friday.
And then I ended up taking and get dyno tuned by like Saturday.
I drove all the way up to Indianapolis, Jimmy from HPI dyno
tuned it came back and then, yeah, just, you know, a thrash fest.
It was like 1700 miles.
I drove in a car and all this and had it back run in like seven days.
Don't you like that version of yourself?
You can just turn that switch on.
Oh, like when there's like a deadline to me.
Yeah.
Like I'm not a person that likes to fail.
Yeah.
And now I'm like, I will do whatever I'll make, you know,
whatever phone calls and put in the extra effort,
drive through the middle of the night, you know, and like just line shit up.
And like, dude, on the way back from Janesville, I was like, oh, shit.
I know I have a leaky fork seal and I was like, you know, dealerships out.
So like I'm calling dealerships just off the highway, just like,
hey, do you have this part number fork seal kit?
And I called one of them.
They're like, yeah, we got 10 in stock.
I'm like, what, like nobody has 10 fork seal kits in the stock.
And then like making sure I had, you know, the primary gasket or whatever.
There was something that, you know, had order that wasn't available.
And I'm like, all right, cool.
So like as I'm doing, you know, driving, I'm doing the homework
and thinking in my head, like, all right, this is how we're going to build it.
You know, this is everything I'm going to need, you know,
obviously had to get oil coming and like Motul and, you know, got that all.
I'm going to try their stuff.
They they have a I've always known of them, but more to the metrics out of things.
So much in the Harley or the V-Twin market.
So not that it's they're starting to say they're big in to the king of the baggers.
Yes, here HPI was, I remember years ago, HPI was talking about there's
300 V oil, like, dude, the stuff's like green.
It's like Mountain Dew green coming out of the bottle.
And Jimmy from HPI like swears by it.
Like when I went and got my bike tuned, like they had it on the shelf.
And he had us.
Jimmy had us put it in the mustard row king with a new motor on the old mustard
bike, too. So Motul is trying to tap into the American V-Twin side of things.
And so they know that they just getting a display in a Harley dealership
is really all it takes.
Yeah. Look at what happened with Redline, right?
Valerais, same kind of thing.
So they're just going after that.
And it's they do make a killer product.
Yeah. So shout out to Motul.
Yeah, I've been using Belray for religiously for the last six, seven years.
And so one 800 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
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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, one 800 Law Tigers.
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Motul.
Yeah, about that. Motul.
You know, we use a lot of Bel Rain here, too.
Yeah. That's our go to on on oils and honestly,
like fork fluid for almost everything.
Yeah.
But the Motul stuff has been good.
So we look forward to maybe doing some more stuff with them
in the future and see what happens.
Yeah, it's like it's things like those kind of brands that I
feel like would be such a good
synonymous fit to the podcast.
You know what I mean? Because those are things that like it's easy to
like I have been religious with Bel Rain, you know, for like the
last, I don't know how many years, but it's like how I don't
know how to not do it at calling companies going, hey,
relay your product.
And I was just wondering, you know, if you're interested,
you could say no.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like with Motul.
Like I didn't run all their oil before they reached out
and you know that.
But like with the race and I always ran like Motul,
their racing fluid was like always my go to,
you know, the Moto wash products and that.
Like I've always just been like, oh, I like it.
You know, so I've ran it.
So then it was like they came out for that.
And I was like, all right, cool.
Like Team Motul.
Well, one of the best parts was, you know, when he puts it
on a story, hey, give me a crate motor.
Yeah. Right.
They reached out and they said, hey, we're fans.
We love what you're doing.
We love the engagement.
Yeah, we want to be a part of this.
Yeah. And that is like one hell of a confidence booster.
Just know like, hey, the right people are paying attention.
You know, because like, like one of the persons in charge
said, like reached out, they're like, hey, you know,
I met you at the like House of Harley Industry Party
back in the day, like, oh, you just seem so nice
and talking, you know, with everybody.
Like I like how you are and watch your stuff forever.
Like, let's make this happen.
They met Jaden that time when he was pulling his balls out
in the bathroom.
That was the that was his first year racing.
He was headed to Utah for his first race.
No, that was I was having a sonoma califerous sonoma.
Yeah, because that was I rebuilt the motor for my bike
in between race 21.
Wait, which motor built the first and third, fourth, fifth.
Don't worry about it.
Harley ship hard ends.
But yeah, then it was like built a motor down
to text performance was living down in Austin area.
And then I drove up to H.P.I. to get it tuned.
I went from H.P.I.
in Indianapolis to Milwaukee
to the House of Harley Industry Party.
And then we drove all the way up to California from there.
And then that was the second VRL race.
I remember that because that that was when I was like,
I think I think we were talking.
I was like, man, because you and I have ridden
every time zone together except for the Pacific time zone.
Yeah. So I do be so sick.
We could finally do that.
I don't know what like that's kind of like a cool ride
of passage or maybe not that's the right word.
But like to be able to say like I'm ridden
every time zone with with another, you know, person
is like a cool little flex.
You know, yeah.
Next, we've done, you know, New York City
and Texas, you know, Sturgis.
If only you rode in California.
Dude, I've ridden California.
I've ridden California.
I've just never ridden the streets of California.
Doesn't count.
I've ridden two race tracks in California.
Yeah. Yeah, no.
You wore a race suit.
That's not riding.
That's racing.
I rode in the pants.
I thought about it when I was doing that Sonoma race
because I still had like D.O.T.
Ish, like street tires when they rolled out there.
And I was like, I should just go take this thing up
to the gas station or something on the street.
Like your sonoma is cool.
Like you're in a really good spot to go right
to some pretty bad ass rides.
Oh, yeah.
Because the Sonoma track, like with all the
bureaus that we did, like this Sonoma track was
it was awesome.
The only thing I sucked was like the weather
because we did it in like December, like it was that.
So it was like a high of like 54, maybe 58 degrees.
Like it wasn't hot out.
So it's like you went out on the track and like, you know,
you're kind of fighting for some grip and, you know,
I had the bike step out like multiple times
and we were like, we probably shouldn't have been racing,
but it was when the track was available and everything.
So like we went out and made it happen.
But yeah, that area and that track,
like that was a crazy cool opportunity.
So how did how did you like still like, you know,
at the beginning of every year, like right now
I'm thinking about my next year, like how's it going to go?
How how has this year been different or how has it been
like in line with like maybe your vision
for what this year was going to be?
Does that make sense?
Just as a motorcycle enthusiast
has forever had as all of it.
Yeah, you know, this year was a little bit different
because I had this opportunity with Indian
corporate to do a build for them.
And so after four solid years of really hard core Indian
building custom Indians, producing parts, manufacturing parts,
selling parts to the public, going really, really hard.
They finally really, hey, we're going to give you a shot.
Let's do this. Yeah.
And so my main focus was everything it takes
to show the world what forever I can offer.
And then from there, it was building a bike
and it quickly became a realization.
I can build an amazing bike by myself.
And I mean, we literally had like three months to do it,
you know, and that's not ideal.
So it was the definition of teamwork.
And really believing in the team that's been created here
and letting everybody kind of spread their wings
and have their own opinions
and their own thoughts and collecting all of the heads
to create something amazing.
And we absolutely crushed it hands down.
We fucking crushed it.
Super stoked and proud of that.
But the whole first half of the year was based on that.
It was failure is not an option.
This is it. This is what we have to do.
And not only do we have to build that bike,
but we had to build one for myself.
On top of customer builds and customer service
with part sales and, you know,
just bikes that are in and out every day.
So it's it's been a very tough year,
but it's been very rewarding.
And we have done very, very busy.
We have done so much.
It's been crazy.
But they dropped that 25 power plus chief.
And like, we got, you know,
the forge bike and another one.
On February 14th.
Well, the power plus chief thing got announced
to the public January 25th.
All right. So I was at drag specialties,
MVP, Louisville, Kentucky.
And that weekend is when they did the Indian dealer show
down in Florida and they showed the world
the new power plus chieftain.
And yeah, like.
So what was that?
20 days later, two of them showed up here.
And you couldn't even buy one yet.
But here we had two of them in the shop, brand new, no miles.
What world is this? Yeah.
We're like, this is crazy.
But you're also building bikes that they're potentially
it's not like you can just jump in the catalog
right quick and see what's all available.
Some of this stuff is new.
Well, the brand new.
And the bike got delivered on Valentine's Day.
And then he's like got a hair possessive.
Yes, we're bringing this one to Daytona.
Yeah, we we could we had we couldn't afford to know this.
Yeah. I mean, we literally had 11 days, 12 days, two weeks
at the very most like to actually start on a bike
and finish on a bike.
And it what it would allow it would allow us to have the first
one, the first custom built power plus chieftain in the world.
Neck right next to Kerry Hart.
And so Kerry is the face for Indian.
He gets his bikes many months in advance.
And so he's had the opportunity to get rolling on his bike.
And he kept it secret from everybody as he should.
He had to.
And so he was able to put out a fully painted dialed in motorcycle.
And we did everything to the every detail, like every bolt,
every part got modified.
The only thing we didn't do is we didn't paint the bike.
Yeah, because let's get real how when you're putting a bike together
like that in two weeks plus a paint job, like it's just not not possible.
So I chose a color that would be kind of appealing.
It would kind of be like when when people are talking about it,
they would say, oh, did you see that new power plus chieftain?
Oh, no, which one? The red one. Oh, yeah.
You're going to remember the red one. Yeah.
I'm not even really a red paint job kind of guy,
but the bike was super appealing.
So we chose that and threw a bunch of cool custom touches at it.
I'm staring at it as I'm talking.
I mean, the bike is it's been freaking fantastic.
And it looks amazing.
You know, it's it's everything that anybody would ever ask for,
unless they wanted a crazy paint job on it.
Yeah. But I knew I wanted to stack miles on it
because I wanted to get to know the bike.
I want to, you know, it's a new platform.
So I want to know what it was all about.
The number one question was going to be, OK,
you've been riding a Challenger for four years now.
How do you really feel about this?
You're not on a video, not in an interview.
Well, like, hey, the dude's sending me messages.
Should I go buy one?
Well, I wanted to actually form a real opinion on that.
Yeah. And you had to build the second one for the Ford series.
Yeah. The forage spike was a total different outlook on things like
that was like, I'll do whatever it takes.
I'll work as late as I have to.
I'll spend whatever I have to.
And we're going to absolutely blow the world's mind.
Was there like a was there like a relationship
that you had to start with the dude that you were building it for?
Like, was it more like so we built the bike for Tyler Hubbard?
Tyler Hubbard is the lead singer from Florida, Georgia line, the country group.
It's kind of a long winded story
that I'll probably just simplify for you.
We were told that we were going to build a bike for Bill Berger, the comedian.
And at first I was like, well, like, that's really dope, but also not really.
He's like a comedian that's not in a motor.
He doesn't love motorcycles like he he rides them, but he's not
like an enthusiast or at least I didn't think he was.
So we actually made some decisions on some of the color ways.
We could get into that one, too, which is a good story.
We'll tell that story.
We will tell that story.
Um, but we had this in our minds for like two months, we're going to build
this bike for Bill Berger.
And then at the last minute, they're like, well, Bill Berger pulled out.
And we're like, what's like scheduling conflicts?
Whatever it gets anything.
Yeah, it's just it's it's it's higher up things that are out of your control.
And you're just like, all right, well, we're not going to fail.
So we'll just keep going.
Well, then a week later, we got told we were going to build it
for Tyler Hubbard and we're like, okay, cool.
But I don't know anything about this guy.
The bike's like other than the paint job, the bike is like 80 percent finished.
Like I can't go back and change things.
Like we're out of time and we got to have a meeting with Tyler Hubbard.
It was a Google meeting on the on the laptop and he was cool.
It was he was dope and you could tell he was into it and he was like,
hey, as soon as we hang up, give me a call.
I'll text you my phone number.
You know, so he did and I called him right away and we talked for like an hour
and just kind of felt him out like, all right, tell me what you're into,
what colors you like, blah, blah, blah.
And luckily we were at that point where he was able to give some input
on things he was into.
And then he sent me some different logos that he does for merch.
Yeah, stuff like that.
And we were able to find to like kind of the finest
the final visual of color schemes and logos and stuff that he liked.
So we could do that for him, which was cool.
And then it got better because when we did the final video
and we gave it to him, that was the first time he ever got to see that bike.
Right. So he had seen the roller, but he had no clue about the paint.
And we kept it a secret.
I was like, no, man, you got in way too late.
We're just going to surprise you with this.
And we showed up to his spot in Idaho.
And if you go back and watch that video
on Indians, YouTube or whatever, that video was completely organic.
That was the first time I shook the news hand.
It's the when the garage door rolls up, I push the bike out.
It's the first time he ever seen the bike.
That was as a hundred percent real, all of it.
And it was cool.
He was so stoked, which made me so stoked.
And then after the short filming, we went straight to the mountains
and we rode nice.
And this dude, like I was on a stock challenger
and I'm like, this dude's never ridden an Indian bagger ever,
yet alone lifted with a big motor and killer suspension
and fully capable of anything you throw at it.
And this dude was hitting the corner so fast.
It's like, hopefully he doesn't crash this thing
because I'm going at a rate of speed on a stock height challenger
that's like good enough.
I'm not trying to push this much faster.
He was gripping and I was at that point, I was like,
this is exactly how it was supposed to go.
Yeah, you know, I mean, like you hate to build something for someone
that's just going to set it in the corner of the garage
and just be like, you know, check it out.
This is my Indian.
But no, this dude loves riding motorcycles.
That's cool.
So it's been really cool getting.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and after that, we went to one of his concerts
and hung out, you know, at his backstage with him.
And I got to go to his house and meet his his wife and his kids.
And like, he is a really down to earth person.
So, like, how is that to be weird?
Not weird. It'd be cool.
But it's also like my look would be like I would get.
Like a celebrity that like takes a liking to my my pain work.
It'd be like a band I fucking hate or some shit like that.
You know, it's like, I mean, look at me.
I don't I don't listen to Florida, Georgia line.
Yeah, it's funny.
Like when the opportunity came up, he was all Tyler Hubbard.
And, you know, I grew up in Michigan, like Bonfire's country.
Like I'm like kind of listening to the guy like back when he was just
starting to get famous, you know, not seeing, you know,
that like both respected his work and everything.
And I was like, it'll be good.
And I was like, you know, we're going to have fun with it, you know.
And then you could tell that Steve was was stoked and pumped on it.
Yeah, I mean, like ultimately, I know that it would be like,
I mean, if the people are into it, it'll be cool what they'll do.
But it's just like you just think of like, I guess you're, you know,
you're trying to just like, if I'm going to build a bike for somebody,
like I would want to be as stoked about them.
Well, that's that's why this is an interest in interesting subject
because like you could tell Steve was into it.
He's like, oh, this is really cool opportunity.
I am a skateboarder who listens to punk rock and rap music.
Like I do not listen to country.
I despise it. Yeah.
So at first I'm like, seriously, like Twitch is building a bike
for Ryan Sheckler.
Like I'm the skateboarder.
Why am I not really a bike for the skateboarder?
But honestly, what happened was I went to dinner
with one of my best buddies who tattooed.
He's been tattooing me for 20 years and or 15 years.
And he said, I hear you.
You're hardcore. You're true to the game.
I get it. Look around you.
Look in this restaurant.
You said, keep an open mindset.
How many of these people know who Ryan Sheckler is?
And I'm like, well, probably not many.
Like I'm just a general restaurant.
And then he goes, how many people in this restaurant
have heard of Florida, Georgia line?
And I was like, shit, probably everybody.
You know, and that really changed my that changed my whole perspective.
Yeah, that's that is a good perspective.
It was honestly super deep.
And it got me really pumped on the opportunity.
But then like meeting Tyler.
That took it to the next level.
Yeah. And so and now we stay in touch.
And like I said, we went to one of his concerts.
He's talked about having us build another bike for him.
It's been super cool.
Yeah. You know, something that was completely out of control.
It was up and it was down.
It was good and it was bad.
But what we didn't do is we never let like
through the whole process, we didn't let anything stop us.
Like we want we're going to keep doing everything
to the best of our abilities.
Like we've never built a bike to this level.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, literally every part got modified on this bike.
You know, and that's one bolt that didn't get every bolt got replaced.
Every single part either got cut,
rewelded, modified, recoded, like every part got coated on the bike.
I mean, even the parts you can disassemble the bike to just a frame
and every part you find is recoded.
Even though it's hidden like like a big little bagger,
like you can't see the back wheel, right?
Like no, every single part.
I even had to question myself on some of them.
I'm like, guys, it's this deep in the bike.
There's no way you're going to see that.
And that we're still like, no, we're doing everything.
Do you like the battery tray?
We coated the battery tray like up underneath like that type of shit.
Like it's kind of like somebody's bike sitting behind you, man.
Like when you're you're seeing it like this almost more
than you're seeing it finish.
So when you have all those things done on the on the bottom side,
it just makes you feel like you're more you're doing better quality.
You're putting more effort into it.
Because I mean, you could you could talk yourself out of so many things.
You could talk yourself out of painting a certain way or coating this
or replacing these bolts because they're hidden right like all that stuff.
Well, that's one thing that we never lose sight of in this shop is like,
yeah, it costs more money.
It takes more time.
But once you hit this this this level of perfection of detail,
like can't go back and we don't and we don't want to go back.
That's the thing.
So you don't ever want to take a step backwards.
You always want to keep pushing yourself, pushing your boundaries,
because like stepping it up.
We're riders.
So like our perfection of detail, like when we go that deep into,
you know, changing the bolts and that it's now to me,
it's making the bike more reliable.
You know, it's like we built, you know, the nerd glide this year.
You know, we have even gotten to that point and like that one went out to
was it homecoming, you know, took on a trophy there than that.
And then it came back and it rode all the way from here to Sturgis
and then took home, you know, a trophy on Sturgis, you know,
like having bikes to that detail and then but still like dead reliable.
They didn't get thrown in the trailer just to, you know,
do that. So yeah, the only retelling time I'm going to trailer
anything is if I have to, like absolute have to, you know,
and that's just kind of something that has always set me apart as a human.
And then when Steve came on, he's put he pushed it that much more
because, you know, Steve, I mean, like with the race and I was racing my bike,
you know, put it on the podium and then in between races, I'm like,
hey, let's go ride this bike to Sturgis and then come back and swap back over
and then go put it on another podium, like, and then it was like winning
bike shows, like in between it with this race bike.
And it's like to do something to that level of, you know, like, all right, cool.
You can make it cool. You make it nice.
You make it reliable.
And then you can absolutely rip on it.
Like the coolest thing, you know, with him talking earlier,
it's like that forge bike where you go, all right, we touched everything.
We made us that. And he goes, oh, yeah, he went out and he ripped it.
It wasn't all the bike broke down or something.
Like he went out there and he dialed and he was stoked.
Well, actually, before we finished the paint job,
I put the bare minimum amount of tins on it because I have plenty of Indian parts
are in here. So we just threw some random tins on it.
I put 300 miles on that bike.
I run that bikes back for 300 miles because I was like,
we're going to build this bike that's so over the top.
There's no way I'm going to hand it over to this famous dude.
Yeah. And then let it go halfway across the country
and get a phone call about something breaking.
Yeah. So I said earlier, like the road is the final build.
Yeah, you don't know that it's perfect until you start riding.
Luckily, on the Indian platform, we were literally at the top of it.
We've been at the top of it.
So it's we know exactly what they take, what they need,
what they're going to ask for.
And we know what may be an issue or may not be an issue.
So that bike 300 miles didn't turn one wrench the whole time.
Wrung its neck, put the tins on it, did the final little details.
Wrung its neck, took it to Idaho, took it in the mountains.
Literally never turned a wrench on that bike.
Yes, it's the day we finished it.
You know, and like it's something to be, you know, super proud of.
It really helps provide the confidence that it takes to tear a bike down to nothing
and just know, like, no matter what, we're going to have this under control.
Yeah, you know, granted that we get the time allowed to actually
put the miles on, shake it down, et cetera.
I try not to over commit too much on the deadlines and the times
that seem a little unreasonable just because we've done this enough
times to know, like, hey, I actually like any bike you see leave this shop
between myself or Steve, we'll put a minimum of 500 miles on it
before we even allow it to leave the shop.
Because she happens.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I was like, yeah, sometimes you just barely overlook
and, you know, the road will tell you, like, all right, something shook loose.
I didn't see that a problem in the lift.
It may not even be something like that.
It may even be a manufacturers problem.
You know, we had one bike that we finished.
I won't go into too specific of details, but we had one
bike be finished that was bulletproof and it was a frame off
over the top amazing bike and at mile 500, a major component failed.
And it was not my fault.
I was riding the bike.
It was not my fault.
The road made this happen.
I'm not even going to blame it on the manufacturer,
but it completely pushed us back two months.
You know, and it was out of everyone's control.
It would have happened to the owner if he was on the same road
at the same spot. Luckily, it happened here.
And it just pushed us back an extra two months.
And so but since then, even that bike is just hasn't turned to wrench.
Loves it. Yeah, bulletproof.
So has another bike in here for us to pass another bike in here.
So anyways, going back to what you asked, like, yeah, the main focus
this year was finishing up preexisting jobs,
which we had two big roadbikes that we have been doing for about a year.
Frame off balls to the walls.
Every part, every everything, every centimeter of it.
We finished one in February.
It's called the nerd glide.
That was a pretty cool bike.
I was white with the purple and pink job.
And we painted it to look like a skateboard,
which has in the last couple of years become my guilty pleasure.
No shit.
If I can get somebody to let me do my thing.
That's the definition of happy.
It was a lot of great artwork on boards.
And yeah, you know, they find a lot of inspiration in it.
You know, going back and looking at boards
is a good place to find like great graphic design.
Dude, I have it sometimes in here where you're just like,
you're talking about like paint, you know,
we got Sprigol painter and him and then you're just like, you know, a color.
And like you have the color in your mind, you know what it is.
But you're like, oh, what are you talking about?
You know, literally just walk around the shop and I'm like,
dude, that silver that's on that board, like right there.
Like that's what I'm talking about.
That silver. Yeah.
So like when you have all this, like, you know, different artwork,
there's at least four four bikes that we've painted like skateboard.
It's because of what he just said.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we're just pulling a graphic out of something or just like,
it just sparks a little interest or, you know, a little inspiration.
You're also like you're pulling from like like a part of
something that like defines you a little bit.
It's a part of myself. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's why I said it's the ultimate expression of freedom.
It's like spreading your wings and doing your thing.
Like you not everybody gets a customer that's like, hey, do whatever you want.
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, like that's it could it's actually more scary than being told what to do.
You know, and you know that you've had people say,
I did it to you when you painted a helmet.
You're I was like, dude, everyone like, well, at least tell me your color.
And I was like, I don't know.
Name a color and you're like, how about blue?
Well, secretly, I was like, I fucking hate blue, but OK, you do blue.
And all I had to do is pick one image for you.
I just see what colors I was already painting.
They know exactly, exactly.
So that's that's kind of what I've been trying to do is because that's how the
that's how we put out the best bikes, honestly, in my opinion.
Yeah. Like we'll take your input, but you know, a lot of spreader wings a little
bit and like, you know, like take your ideas.
But sometimes you're going to be like, where the hell this come from?
I'm like, well, I've had that idea for like five years now.
But this is the one that like it's important that you also like
you're you're touching all these things.
And you're and you're, you know, because the paint job then goes
with the finishes of the rest of the bike.
And so all these things have to like work harmoniously together
to be a pleasing thing.
So even going back to our forged bike, that bike, we had no clue
how we were going to paint it. No clue.
I like some ideas, but nothing was no colors were going to be set in stone.
And we literally like, let's talk about this.
We learned we were going to build a bike for Bill Byrd.
And so Steve, being fucking Steve was like, let's be a blue
ice cold bird.
And I'm like, Steve, you're literally a moron, dude.
Like what's this the dumbest thing that sounds like something you would say?
Absolutely. It was bullshit.
It was retardant.
It was the dumbest thing I ever heard.
But what he did bring to the table was he said, let's do something
we've never done before. Right.
So it started with, let's do the forks blue.
And I was like, well, we've already done blue forks, but
it's not common.
Yeah. Right.
It takes a lot of extra effort in the Indian world to do something like that.
So we sent out forks.
We're going to encode a blue.
Well, then in the middle of all this, we were like, OK,
here's what we're going to do.
We're going to we're going to change the color of the motor.
So one of the coolest parts about an Indian challenger, the power plus
platform is the motor's charcoal.
Super sick looking. Yeah.
Until you've been doing it for five years and you're like, same gray motor.
I kind of wish it was black at this point.
It was like they already had a chieftain, you know, out.
They had the street guide version, but it had their old thunderstorm motor.
And this is the first year that this motor was in this platform.
So I was like, let's accent this motor.
I was like that gray that the motor is, it's beautiful.
It's great. But I was like, let's just have a big, you know,
like this is what you want to see.
So, yeah, you know.
So what we did was we took our Seracote chips.
As you know, Springle is a big fan of Seracote Springle,
their painter for anybody who doesn't know who we are.
He's over there creeping on the side. Yeah.
He's on the side of things like I don't think or something.
That's yeah, I'm grinding.
Shut up, Springle.
You have a microphone on. Nobody can hear you.
The Springle paints next door.
He's our house painter, best friend, man, wife, all the things.
He grabs the Seracote chips.
And so we took just the team and then one random customer
who happened to be here, who we'll call him family,
because he actually has a forever forever rad security shirt.
He's like, he's like real thing.
He's like, and so he had that sidetrack.
But so we took the team and we took the Seracote chip book
and we handed it between a circle of like eight people.
And we're like, all right, we're going to paint them.
We got to pick two colors for the motor and the chassis.
Pick your favorite colors.
No restrictions.
And literally everybody like it was like we put up.
We did the hat trick. Remember the hat trick?
Yeah, yeah.
We were pinched right bikes off of people's ideas
in Sturgis and all that.
So we did the hat trick with Seracote
and everybody put their choices in a hat and six out of eight.
The choice was a certain blue color and that blue color
was the color as the color of the engine that we that we chose.
Yeah, which was called blue steel
and kind of goes hand in hand with what he was getting at,
like the whole Bill Burr ice cold blue, you know.
So it was just like a little bit of inspiration.
Yeah, it was funny.
And then actually then we learned
that which was going to build a bike for forged.
And he was building his own personal bike as well,
just like I built the red one or we built the red one.
And he says, yeah, I'm going to name my bike blue steel.
And I was like, I don't think so.
No, we did our motor blue.
And he's like, I painted my bike blue.
It's embroidered on the seat.
And I was like, Seracote, your motor.
And then we'll talk.
So that was a funny little jab or whatever at Twitch.
But as you all know,
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Custom Dynamics has been providing custom lighting solutions
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Located 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 the cars and copy style meat 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 CowboyHDAustin.
Anyways, yeah, so we we we did all that and then we finished the nerd glide.
We painted it to look like a Vision Gator skateboard, which is cool
because Gator is the the the pro skater of the model we chose
and he's been in prison for a long time for like raping and murdering a girl.
So, you know, controversy sells and then we painted it white, pink, purple and blue
and the bike was just super dope.
And yeah, we took it to Milwaukee in July for hometown rally.
He got like best of show.
And then we rode it to Sturgis.
No problems other than the one time Chris put too much gas in it.
You weren't with us though.
No, you weren't with he put too much gas in it
and it was a right side fill only and then the bike leaned pretty hard.
So as soon as he stood it up and then fired it up,
gas came out of the gas cap.
And then those who were there will be literally rolling on the floor laughing
if they're watching this because we went in and bought some hose
and made him siphon the gas out of his own tank.
And he got a lot of gas in his mouth and that was really funny.
But yeah, that bike made it to Sturgis and turned out sick.
The other thing we did for Sturgis was
we admit we just mentioned Springle.
Springle does not do you much for himself.
He works very hard when he works, you know, pain or shit.
He works very hard.
But he never does much for himself.
And so he bought himself a brand new road glide
and decided he wanted to paint it.
And we're like, hey, we got this opportunity.
We do a lot with OG Moto from Canada.
So a lot of their parts for Indians and Harleys.
And they wanted to do a collab build.
So figured this would be the best bike to do it with.
Yeah.
Sitting right over there.
So we threw every single OG part that they make at the bike
and turned it into a roller.
And we were like, all right, what do we do now?
Let's do what the average man can accomplish.
Like we didn't do a big crazy motor.
We didn't do all these crazy one-off sheet metal modifications.
We couldn't even talk him into doing a cam in it.
Yeah, no, it's got it.
I was like, man, I was like, come on, at least let's do a cam.
Yeah.
It's got a pipe and a screaming eagle to your eyes still.
You know, it's just a brand new bike.
But visually appealing is what we were going for.
And so we wanted just a marketing piece for us
for Springo for OG Moto.
So nailed that, rode that to Sturgis.
My son rode to Sturgis with me.
That's a whole different story.
And then one of our best buddies, Stephen,
on the Mustard King.
Yeah.
Rode that to Sturgis.
And so it was.
That's got to be rad.
Like going up there and just like, like you're rolling
and all your boys are like decked out and your shit.
We had 12 motorcycles there this year.
And it's the most humbling thing ever.
It's just like, it's that moment of hard work pays.
This was all worth it.
It's like the level of pride is.
I'm kind of like, I'm in a smaller version of that
boat right now because when I sold my road glide
and my low rider ST last May of last year,
all I had left, all I had was my, you know,
gold FXR right the chop.
And then now some of the project bikes I bought
with the money I sold those bikes for.
Now those things are done.
And I'm like, oh, shit.
Like I walked in my shop and I got three cool motorcycles.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I pull them all outside.
You're like, this is kind of fucking cool.
And I get that at, you know,
at this point last year, I had six of those.
Yeah.
And I was over it, dude.
I was like, I wish I could have the money from that one
and the money from this one.
And I'm sick of paying insurance on at least four of them.
Which one needs an oil change?
Which one needs tires?
It got to be too much for me.
So I've scaled it back to three this year,
which has been manageable.
Yes.
But fortunately, just, you know,
all the hard work and sacrifices to start a shop
and, you know, we've created and building a team.
We now have all that customer base.
Yeah.
And we have fans.
We have loyalty.
We have friends or customers that are not family to us.
And it's just as cool when your homie is right next to you
on a bike that you're like, yeah, I built that.
That's his bike.
But you're like, I put that together.
Yeah.
That's cool.
It used to bother me a lot because it would be like,
oh, we're going to go road trip with our homie's bike
that we just built for him.
And it's like, anything that goes wrong, right?
Like I'm the one who's turning to the wrenches.
I'm the one that's going to the hardware store
or finding a big one or in the middle of nowhere.
When Big Will Cody and James and all the fast cycle
producers, we were traveling together,
there was eight fucking cool motorcycles pulling
into town and shutting the bar down and having a good time.
And that to me, like I was always like a fucking
amazing feeling because, you know,
I got to paint a lot of those bodies.
Right.
Exact same feeling.
Yeah.
Like that the one year when I met up with you after Sturges
and got to roll with all you guys and, you know,
all the way down to New Mexico and through Colorado,
New Mexico and Texas and, you know, like the shoot.
Like there's no other feeling that like when every bike
they are rolling with is like customized to the hills.
Yeah.
Like it's, you know, I think that like,
I feel like the bike scene in general might,
I don't know, like I'm probably projecting
something that isn't true right now,
but it just feels like it got to this point
where people were
worstowing that hard on their bikes anymore.
Like a lot of factory look at bikes.
What's the work they're doing?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's gotten less and less.
Are you talking about my gray bike?
Yeah.
The poverty glider there.
I'm going to leave my orange.
I'm going to leave my orange badges
because no one leaves the badges on.
Check it out.
The orange chain.
Don't you tell.
Don't you hate those like ways
that people can convince themselves
they're lazy ideas or good ideas?
Yeah.
Well, Steve has his own reasoning for that.
Yeah.
That the bike's sick
and he's got almost 20,000 miles on that bike down.
So aside from the poverty glide.
Yeah, you're correct.
And people have been doing that.
It's it's been getting less and less and less.
It's those trends that we've all seen
since you started 20 years ago.
I'm on the year 15.
You're on year 20.
We've watched him come.
We watched him go.
And now we're watching him come back.
Yeah.
Right.
So it's real hard to come back.
I'm going to be fucking rich.
Exactly.
Just so I hear you.
You're fucking a dude.
So all right.
We're being excited about this.
Fucking true fire.
So I joke around like true fire is fucking cool.
It is fucking cool.
What are you doing?
What's your phone?
Turn your phone on.
True fire is fucking cool.
And so like I joke around with them, whatever.
And then we had homies like Soft Hill ST that we did.
I did like a little smoke.
And that we did.
We did true smoke.
You know, it was like it was kind of similar
to the old roguelac CBO.
Yeah.
The skunk.
The skunk.
Yes.
Which I'd like to hit on that
because that was part of this year too.
Yeah.
That that was that was actually finished
before this new Indian stuff that we did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yes.
But yeah.
So then like I joke around with them.
You know, I'm like a poker and prodder.
Everyone's like, you know, just like that.
And then it came around to paint that bike.
And then we're like, dude, like there's something
that we can at least introduce a little bit to it.
And then, you know, Sprinkle fucking can nail that stuff.
You know, and it's like they did the the true smoke
all the way down.
It was just that extra little texture
that's thrown in a paint job.
You know, I had graphics on the side and all that.
But yeah, true fire is coming back.
I have a helmet I'm doing for a city morgue up there.
And I think I'm throwing a little bit of true fire green
on there, which I don't think it's a great filler.
I don't know.
I mean, it is.
It is.
It's just very outdated.
It is.
It can be done right.
And it can be done off.
It got so popular that it got everywhere
and now it's nowhere.
So it feels like it could it could have a home again.
It could be used in certain places.
Not like just not overdone.
Yeah.
Not just a black vehicle with true fire.
Yeah.
Because you know what annoys me is when people are like,
well, you know, I really like a flame bike.
But everybody's doing that right now.
I was like, dude, why like you're on a bike.
Everybody bought.
So let's not play that game.
Do what you want.
It's your fucking motorcycle.
Right.
If you like the same flame job that someone else has,
man, like try to change it up to your style.
But if you if you absolutely have to do it,
just tell the dude that you were inspired by him
and fucking, you know, fuck him.
Keep going.
Well, I also think a lot of the people that you're
working for or were working for or whatever,
they haven't been doing this as long as we have.
Right.
So they're newer to it.
They're just they're excited.
They just want what's cool, what's current,
what's relevant.
They don't know any better.
Panels aren't really around anymore.
Yeah.
You know, now dude, like retro style paint jobs come back
hard just like the fucking, you know,
wines and a couple of different colors and doing that.
And that's what I was saying earlier when I got here.
You know, what Sprinkle was talking about,
like the paint scheme is kind of looking for some new like
lines or flavor to go with them kind of in the same boat.
You know, I just don't, you know, like you're the thing is
like my customer wanted a helmet based on what he seen me do.
So you don't want to go so far off of that path
that he's not getting what he wanted from me
because I'm trying to experiment with some new ideas.
Yeah.
So you have so much of your own flavor.
Yeah.
And it's hard to stray from that because I want to involve
the flavor because, you know, I want to take some of
these things that I've, you know,
in my world perfected to my style and see if I can adapt them
with some old shit that I haven't done in a long time.
Right.
You know, that might be blending the things together.
And, you know, it's just, I don't know, man.
It's just such a, we're in a,
I think that anytime flames get popular in like a culture,
whether it's cars or motorcycles is like,
that is the transition period for whatever the next
style of paint job is about to come.
It's absolutely correct.
I was just at SEMA last week and the most common paint job
at SEMA didn't matter what the vehicle was.
It could be, it could have been a Lambo or a lifted Toyota
or a, you name it.
It was just five stripes, gradient fade, red, medium red,
orange, medium, orange, yellow, dark yellow.
Right.
Like that was the most played out paint job that I've seen
at SEMA this year.
And it was, to me, it was like, bro,
we've been doing that for like three or four, five years.
Five years now.
Yeah.
What the fuck?
And then it's like, that's like the nail in the coffin
where you're like, I got to quit doing that.
Yeah.
What's next?
But I think that's where the next thing is
what you were just saying.
It's almost like a spinoff of what we used to do
but doing it in a different way.
Yeah.
And so maybe the true fire thing works.
And now you can come back with 15 more years
of experience and go, all right,
I'm going to throw this together with every other skill
that I've had, but I'm going to put that as a new element
that's okay.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Because when you probably did true fire 15 years ago,
you don't have some of the skills that you did,
you know, 15 years ago.
So you can be like, oh, true fire would fucking
some silver leaf.
And you're like, it's always about the layout.
Yeah.
Always.
Always.
I mean, you can be the best airbrush artist
on the planet with whatever you're doing.
Patterns, murals, gold leaf, striping, whatever.
Everyone has their skill sets.
But if you can't, if it can't flow from front to back
every single time, game over.
Like that's, that's the difference between the men.
That was always a big problem with like,
like full color airbrush work.
Is it just, it just, you don't airbrush on the side
of the tank and the side of the fender and be like,
it could be the best that you've ever seen.
But if there's no kind of direction, it just doesn't work.
Right.
You know, it needs some kind of like framing or some,
or a lot of times the reason why like I airbrushed the helmet
smaller chromatic, just, you know, black and white
is because it doesn't overpower the rest of the helmet.
It blends into the graphics.
And if it was a full color airbrush, which
be honest with you, I haven't done that so long.
I probably can't.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But I prefer it to be this way
because I don't want it to stand out that much, you know.
And I don't know.
I just feel like there's a, it is like a weird
like transition period where I feel like the,
the graphics are, you know, I think they're getting more,
I would say probably on the lines of how you've been doing
graphics lately, you know, a lot of your bikes.
I've been watching that.
Yeah.
I mean, I've been watching that on the Harley side
and the Indian side, even factory bikes that are coming out.
Yeah.
The last, like the last two or three years,
I've seen numerous Harleys and Indians that were straight.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'm wrong, but they were way too obvious
of something that we've been doing certain,
the way that a panel flows from one panel to another one
or a certain type of graphic.
And at that point, you're like, okay, well,
I guess I'm doing it right.
But you hate to not stick to your roots
and what you, you're into.
And you don't want to force yourself
into something you're not comfortable with.
Yeah.
So it's a weird balance.
When Harley released their, I guess their promo video last week,
and it had my picture of my lower ST in there.
Oh yeah, I seen that.
I was, you know, in my head, I was like, I mean, I was flattered, right?
And I remember the day that that shot,
the Brad Richards took that photo at a Jeff Holt show in Sturgis.
But I mean, in my head, I'm like, and like,
why don't you just reach out to me in like, you know,
because they would never hire a guy like me
because I'm not a college degree designer, you know?
But it's like, I guarantee you, I'll fucking
paint circles around anybody that works for that company.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
As far as the canvas, I know the canvas very well.
You know what I mean?
And I just feel like why would they would,
it would make sense to maybe like, slide me out.
Let's talk theory behind this stuff.
You know what I'm saying?
Well, I think that your stuff is so involved.
And over the top that they can't afford to do that on 100 bikes
or 500 bikes or 1000 bikes.
So they find like this, they find this happy balance between the two.
Yeah, you're one, it's the same thing
whenever I was working with Simpson,
the idea of making a graphic helmet
has to be something that they can make into slides.
Exactly.
Right.
And so that I understand the concept of dumbing something down.
Right.
And originally, if you piece, if you take apart
my paint jobs on baggers or the ST,
if you take apart to just a simple two-tone,
the lines is what I'm saying.
Like I'm taking your shapes and finding lines in it
that nobody else is.
Right.
You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
They're at least, you know, I'm not saying nobody is.
I'm just saying like it's unique to like my, my flavor.
Right.
You know, there's a, like right now I'm doing a road glide
where I'm literally just doing a graphic
that goes straight down the back,
straight across the tank.
And that's not something I've done.
Mm-hmm.
You know, most of my stuff has a curve
or as an angle or whatever.
They kind of contradicts the lines of the direction of it,
you know?
We do that all the time, straight through the bike.
Yeah.
Because it's, it's a push.
It's, it pushes you to your boundaries of
crap, does this look bad or does this look just right?
Yeah.
And that's, that's how you keep it fresh.
And like sometimes to me, like, you know,
I didn't grow up in the paint world and all that,
but it's like, we do have a graphic
that flows from one panel to the other.
Like it, you notice that they probably reassembled the bike
to lay out the graphic job to do this,
instead of, oh, they just had it sitting on a bench.
Like with me, sometimes with paint jobs,
like they can have a cool flame job
and it looks like they laid it out on a bench
and it's like the flame runs, you know,
parallel, parallel, and then this one panel,
it shoots up.
Okay.
And you're just like, what, what happened here?
Like, did they not, like think that this panel
was mounted on an angle?
A little bit, you know, like FXRT lowers.
Like sometimes you see it and it's just like,
it shoots up ill and you're like, that'll make sense to me.
Like why?
It sucks on FXRs because a lot of people
want flame jobs on them.
And the side covers and the lowers in particular,
it's hard to put the flames the same size.
And I hate six different size flames.
And I typically do my flames larger.
And so it just doesn't fit.
So sometimes it just doesn't make sense to do it.
To even do flames on that panel.
Yeah.
Just put a number on there or a logo or a pinstripe, you know.
We find that all the time.
And that's why we, everything goes next door,
gets based, cleared, cut down, brought back over,
fully assembled.
Yeah.
And then Sprinkle will spend one day or seven days
laying out a graphic shot, you know,
between a couple of people in here that voice opinions and,
oh yeah, that looks good.
And then you nail it on the, on the lift
and you've rolled that bitch down and put it on a,
on its kickstand and lean it over.
And you're like, oh, that didn't work.
Yeah.
That's like,
And you literally rip it back off and start over again.
It's like the, the forge bike, you know,
the forge bike graphic on it, like, you know,
Sprinkle will spend a day did it on the lift
and we're like, dude, that looks sweet.
It's standing straight up and down.
It's, you know, right there, we rolled her off the lift.
And like most of us just said, no, that's not it.
Like it was cool.
And then divide with what the paint job is,
like played off it, but just the way it laid out
on all the panels.
I know the same thing this summer.
I was doing this bike for Zackness and I was, I was like,
I really wanted to impress that family.
I'm a huge fan of them.
Right.
And they gave me an opportunity to paint a bike in.
Zack was so nonchalant in his responses to everything
that I could not tell if he was stoked or not,
or if he liked it.
And so it made me second guess every fucking thing
I was doing and the amount of anxiety I had
going through this whole process
and just wondering if he's going to like it.
And so every day we end with me going, fuck it.
It's cool. I like it.
Fuck it.
And then I go home and I lay in bed.
I'm just like, oh my God, it's it.
If they don't like it, I'm gonna, I'm over.
I'm done.
I'm a fraud.
And they got it there and they took it out of the box,
which is always scary shipping a bagger, dude,
because you never know what's going to happen on the way.
But they pulled out of the box and put it on the bike.
And, you know, both of them praised, you know,
Corey and Zach.
And I was like, fuck, yeah, dude,
because that was like a lot of stress lifted
because I wanted it to look nice.
And the thing is that he goes, he wanted to dark gray
and he goes, and I saw, I picked some colors
that I thought would work well.
And I already painted it all.
And he goes, and I was like, hey, man, it's like,
it is darker.
It does look brighter in the photos.
He goes, cool.
As long as it doesn't look like a Raiders logo.
I'm like, you know, like, fuck.
It's like exactly like Raiders logo.
You know, color-wise.
And I'm like, God damn it.
So it put me in this like very uncertain kind of mentality
the whole way.
But I didn't have the time or luxury to change anything.
Yeah.
And sometimes that mentality like fucking makes or breaks you.
And now where you sit there and you go, ah, shit,
is this the right choice for the bike?
Is this, you know, am I doing the right thing?
And you're like, this is an easy thing to do.
And you know, if you step a little bit
out of your boundaries on some shit, like,
you know, something great can come.
You're going to be like, man, I flopped that.
And that's kind of the thing.
It's like, I feel like I need to be happy about everything
that comes out.
Because if I'm happy and I'm truly in it,
I'm just lying to myself.
Then typically the customer is going to dig it
because they know that I dig it.
If I dig it, I am, you know, it's my work.
If I should be digging it, you know.
But yeah, I get what you're saying, Jim.
It's the difference between just really being artistic
versus just putting stuff together.
You know, I mean, so that's really all it comes down to.
Yes.
And like in the shop, the one thing that's cool is like,
we get to say from start to finish, you know, you say,
and like, oh, we shipped a, shipped a paint set to them
and like they put it on the bike.
Like we're sitting here.
We're like, we know what the wheels were doing on it.
We know what like forks, the tubes,
the what even style bolts.
That's the big difference between like the way
that the way the culture seems to have been
for the last, you know, a handful of years in performance is like,
this is the kind of bike that a lot of people
have been building in the garage.
They've, you know, they, that's why there's 14 different
golds on their bikes.
You know what I'm saying?
Right.
And I'm, I'm making a joke there,
but and I'm not mean to top shit because I'm not like a,
whatever you do that you enjoy, I fuck with it.
But the thing is that the level of going from you
buying a part here and there and throwing on your bike
and it's, it's got a lot of nice stuff on it
versus everything was designed and coded to match
and go together is the difference that the performance motorcycle
scene is needed.
And, you know, guys like Samuel customs in the early days
and even now still produce it, you know, there's,
there's been handfuls of them over the years that,
you know, Justin's bike, the bike shoe bill,
you know, Spadafore shop or things like that.
Like they've done, you know, these bikes have done,
but I think that the ones that get a lot of play all year
have been like garage builds by people that is a paint job
or is, you know, you know, you do your kit,
you got speedy little swing arm, some Lindahl wheels,
turbo and a bunch of carbon and Monty Rhodes can strike it.
You know what I mean?
And it or, or Lucky strike painted it.
And you have like a fail safe kit bike that is
got a fuck and look good.
Right.
I mean it's cool in itself that it's gotten to that point.
Yeah.
Oh, it really is.
Yeah.
I think I sound like I was talking about it, but yeah,
it was a negative.
But it's like, you know, nowadays, like back in the day,
like, you know, when I met Kyle,
he had an inverted front end on a road king and like
nobody had an inverted front end on a road king
and I had an inverted front end on my roadside.
You could finance that shit through fucking Harley now.
Like that shit fucking changed.
That is the thing I've been telling a lot of people
is that in the early days of this stuff,
we didn't have the parts to build the bikes
that people can build now.
And we still made shit cool with what we could retrofit
from dinos, FXRs, you know, big wool baggers.
I mean, the mid-controls we were using back days
was big wool bagger shit.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
And like I've always thought like that,
you know, whatever ending of a trend was the moment
that you can finance something.
You know, like I've seen it with like diesel trucks
and then you do this.
Like the moment when something comes so readily available
that, you know, anybody can buy it, it's like,
all right, then it's not as cool anymore.
I mean, you can finance any part you want
at forever ads.com for real, bro.
So here we are.
So yeah, let's talk about where we're headed, right?
I mean, we could talk about our past
till we're blue in the face.
We have had an amazing run at it,
doing it for a long time.
Everybody here at this table.
Next is going to be, it's going to be men versus boys.
It's going to be talent versus,
you don't know shit about fuck, right?
Like it's, that's really where I think where it's headed.
So we're at that next trend of,
hey, you're going to need to know how to cut
something in half to weld it back together.
You can't just buy everything.
And so that whole thing is going to start over again.
But I don't know if it's going to be the FXRs
doubling down.
If it's going to be the performance chopper
that's coming in with the Cruzy versus Thrashing thing,
which I support.
I think it's cool.
I think that as we get older,
we don't want to ride uncomfortable bikes.
Think about it.
We've been riding these, it's actually,
your journey has been super crazy to watch,
like your baggers, all your baggers,
your soft tail to go into the FXR chopper.
And now this purple chopper and it's like,
okay, well, but you're going the wrong way, bro.
Your back's going to hurt, you know.
But at the end of the day,
you're just following what your interests are
and things you haven't done before
that you want to try and do differently,
but putting your own spin on it.
And that's actually cool because even,
even you're invited,
like we just did Born Free Texas together.
And even your chopper didn't scream,
oh, I was built five years ago or 10 years ago.
It kind of feels like its own thing.
Yeah.
Like the wheel choice, the paint job.
Yeah, maybe that was 10 years ago,
maybe it was 50 years ago.
But like, there's certain things that you did
that make it kind of period correct
that even a guy like myself can pick up on.
Yes.
And so not to branch out too far,
but even the bike behind us right here
is like, that's the same thing.
It was like, hey, we're going to build this dyno.
There's not seen a dyno and like everyone's seen a dyno.
Yeah, it was funny though,
because when you chose to do a dyno,
it felt like a dyno platform
has just kind of been completely overlooked
for the last five years.
Well, everyone's been focused on M8 Soft Hill.
Yeah.
And so for us to step up and not do the same,
what I didn't want to do was do the same dyno
everyone's already seen.
And so I do feel like everything's headed
towards the chopper side of things.
Yeah.
Right.
We're seeing this major wave of,
you know, I'm not going to start listing all these builders,
but you've got different builders
that are heading more towards the chopper side
because they're talented.
They can cut something in half and weld it back together
or make their own backbone and cut a neck
and all those types of modifications.
But what scares me about that is I feel like
there's going to be like this small amount of people
that excel in that,
but then your average people
that we've been kind of catering to
they're not capable of that.
It's actually dangerous.
There's going to be bikes getting ruined.
People are going to get hurt.
You know what I mean?
Like not everyone should be cutting motorcycles up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I don't know how we move forward from this trend
is what I'm getting at.
Let's dive into why it's going that way.
And I would like to hear your opinion on it,
but maybe for just because I talk about this
so much, my opinion as to why it's going that way
is that we've done so many of these bikes
that that looks like new unchartered waters.
For me, the chopper idea was something I'd always wanted,
but I wanted to do my due diligence
and to understand that culture,
which I've spent the last two years
doing a podcast, learning things,
and gaining also respect from a lot of people
that built that culture to then,
to the point whenever I built that bike,
with Corey obviously, main drive,
the bike, like you said,
it has these core values of a vintage chopper,
but it has the things that looks like it would come
from the fast life garage.
And honestly, did not even, that was not my design.
It just spoke to me and I went that direction.
I don't like spoke wheels because they suck for traveling on.
And I knew that billet wheels would kind of like
solve that problem,
but also give me to, you know,
like originally the wheels that we're going to go on it were more,
like I said, they look like IROG Z wheels from old Camaro.
I wanted something kind of 80s,
and then like everything just falls into place.
You know, like I, you know, I'm still,
there's still things I want to do that bike.
There's, there's, you know, the T bars are there,
but they're chopper style T bars.
You know what I mean?
Still wanted suspension in the front.
You know, like there's all that,
but like I think that a lot of the guys
are just looking to expand their skills.
And a chopper opens that door
and provides a bigger platform to do more handmade things.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think you can't do it on these bikes,
but they're, you know, it's like, okay, well,
it's like Corey always says, like, I have a grinder,
a tull off wheel, and a welder.
I'm going to make a custom bike with these three things.
Right. And I mean,
we literally do the same thing here in this shop,
but I guess all I'm getting at is
to build a chopper, it requires talent.
Yeah, it just does.
And a lot of people don't have that.
Yeah, I mean, I just, I don't have it yet.
And that's the point of doing that.
So if you, if you go back, like, if you go back 20 years,
all the trends come back.
Yeah.
You know, you have like the seven year thing
of like peak styles and stuff like that,
but like the 20 year thing, right?
Like we're at 20 years of fat tire choppers.
Yeah.
Dining, right?
Nothing has been bigger than that.
Even performance baggers, I don't think is as big
as what fat tire choppers was.
Maybe it's close, right?
Like the racing took it to the next level and blah, blah, blah.
The parts are easier to manufacture.
So any average joke and bolted onto their bike in their garage.
But now I think that if choppers are coming back,
it has to be the guy that's been riding motorcycles
the last five years.
He's fallen in love with riding motorcycles,
not looking at motorcycles.
He loves riding because the parts are good.
The bikes are comfortable.
The bikes are reliable.
It's easy to do.
Well, if you're going to move towards choppers,
that mindset, I feel like needs to come with it.
So it's got to be a thing of like,
oh, you want to change the neck on your bike?
Well, you need to be able to find a decent setup
that you can purchase to be able to do that to your bike
rather than going to your local steel supply company
and buying tubing and buying a tube bender
and a tube nother and a TIG welder
and pretending like you're knowing what you're doing.
That's not good for anybody.
Well, it's not good if people aren't doing,
if they're not learning how to do it properly.
They'll put a lot of people in danger by just...
What have we talked about since the day I met you?
I've known you for over six, seven years.
Instant gratification.
That's what people want every single time.
Well, that's also the point of like,
while I found a mentor in Corey to take me in and show me,
and I welded a lot of things.
I did a lot of the welding on my hardtail on this bike,
but Corey still did probably more at the end of the day.
But that's what I'm saying is not everybody has a Corey.
Exactly, that's what everybody could learn from.
If they humble themselves and they step into someone else's world
and ask for the opportunity to learn.
And that's honestly how we all have to do it.
It was easy for us to humble ourselves and do that when we were 20 years old
because we needed a job, we needed an opportunity.
And so that's where I found that in this process of learning,
it's been an amazing experience being a student
instead of trying to always be a teacher.
By not having to go here and project what I already know,
but just sit here and be the guy that doesn't know shit.
And learn how to weld.
And then when I fuck up, go, hey man, how am I getting ferocity and steel?
This is bullshit.
Like I get it in stainless.
I get it in all these.
But and so you learn this stuff and then your welds get better.
And like for me, you know, like I'm the painter builder that has to like,
when you think of builders like or customizing,
have you want to look at it?
You have, if you're a mechanic, you're like, oh yeah, that's a builder.
If you're a, you know, a fabricator, you're already at the top.
But if you're a painter, like they think that, oh, I thought you were just a painter,
just like I don't know how to use a wrench.
Like I have no mechanical aptitude.
Like so there's probably a little bit of a of a thing like I want to prove myself or something.
But I mean, I have a hard time watching anybody do something
that I feel like I might be able to do and not try it.
Like out this weekend, I was hanging out with a dude that does engraving
and I was like, man, I really, I've been watching fucking videos about it so much.
Like I don't want to get into engraving.
Like, right, that's like, hey, man, send me all your shit.
But it's like power plant.
Like the dude does his own shit.
And I kind of want to like maybe hone a version of that skill to do on my bikes.
And that's the only way you get it.
I like the idea of the only way you got a helmet for me was Simpson.
You know, there was, there was barriers and there was exclusivity that was created in that.
And, you know, or you're just building your own bike and you're like
the air cleaner means something gravy.
And you're like, I'm going to do it for myself.
So I mean, I just want to keep learning something, you know,
and then applying these skills.
You said earlier, like you're applying new skills.
Like we're talking about with the paint work and this and the other.
I do agree with you that like it's not something like, hey,
you just go to the store real quick, grab a tick welder and, you know,
deep like in my, my story, like, you know, screaming, speeding fab,
like when I started that, you know, six years ago,
like I didn't really didn't know what a TIG weld.
I had a roommate at the time that was good at TIG weld.
And I was just like, you know, I was like, ah, just whatever.
I bought one, you know, with some Christmas bonus money, my own TIG welder.
And then like just started and I started doing like, you know,
side covers and literally just forced myself into the skill of just
trying to metal fabricate.
Like I've done shit with the best of the ability with other tools I had before.
But then it's like over the past six years of just trying to be like,
all right, what's the next level?
What's the next level?
What's the next level?
Like we got this bike behind it, like welded, you know,
every panel on this thing has metal modification on it, you know,
the frame, the dash, the tank, the front fender, rear fender,
and it's all stuff that I'm like, all right, shit.
Like could I have done this like 10 years ago?
I would try, but it wouldn't be to the level it is.
So it's just like, you know, always just trying to level yourself up
to a little bit, you know, there are people better than me.
Fuck yeah, there's people better than me.
But second, when I do it, I got hard in it.
And I'm like, I'm going to make that the best I can.
Yeah, I think the biggest difference is a lot of people got to learn
how to do this shit before social media.
You know what I mean?
And so sometimes when you already have a brand, a name and things like that,
it's hard to be a student again or be an entry level person at something, right?
And that's kind of why it's like good to do it for yourself.
And then hone those skills until you're ready to offer it.
Like I feel pretty proficient with welding still.
I feel pretty proficient at welding stainless steel.
And I just need to have a little bit more patience with it.
My patience is what kind of gets my welds a little off, but they do hold.
I've proven that on 35,000 mile motors and things like that.
But I'm still not confident enough that I would want to take on the role
of cutting off a neck and doing all that stuff yet.
Like I'm just not there with the confidence of that.
But I will do it for my bike.
I like eventually I'm going to have to do it on my own for my bike.
I'm not going to make that a customer's bike.
You know what I mean?
And that's just kind of like a, it's like I was telling Mike in Grant,
you know, after Born Free Texas, it's like not that they asked me or anything,
but I was like, you know, one day I really want to be a Born Free California builder.
And I want to, but I want to be at that point where I feel like I can bring something that
is unique to me, custom and cool that I'm proud of, that I feel like I can hold
my own in that arena.
Not that I can beat them all.
I can just hold my own.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
So I don't know when that'll be.
That might be two years, 10 years.
I don't fucking know.
For sure.
No, I totally get that.
I mean, you said it best just now, like the dude who knew how to do
things before social media, right?
Yeah.
And like knowing that you're good and then you don't want to have to be viewed as I'm
starting over learning something in the public light like of social media or whatever.
That's exactly how I started to, you know, over 20 years ago with cars and trucks.
And so now like I deal with it every day now with this dude,
like I could weld circles around anybody and I just haven't been doing it.
Yeah.
And Steve is so good that I'm like, here, bro, weld this.
Like I know I can grab the welder and weld this motherfucker.
We're good.
But I know he's better and he's quicker.
I got a station set up.
He's ready to rock and roll.
So like, who am I kidding?
You know, like I've created this own role of what I do now.
Yeah.
Which is more of like the visionary who has the experience and knows what it takes to do it.
And maybe I don't know every single time, but I have an idea to get us there.
That's the one that's a that's a very, I think, undervalued role in the bike building process.
Because people want to attach that skill to things like fabricating,
mechanical and things like that.
Right.
But a visionary, someone that can see the project, they can they can find the colors,
find the parts, modify the parts.
Like that that is like something that I think is so overlooked.
Right.
I've said it many times in this podcast.
I've met some of the most talented fabricators in the world.
They cannot build a custom bike that looks good.
Yeah.
It's a total.
That's one part.
Or can and or meet a fucking deadline.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Because like you got to see a whole project in your head, you know, let alone trying to
source the parts.
But you go, all right, cool.
I can't get that.
What's the next best option?
It's the same like y'all said earlier.
Like it's like you do something, but you have like a team here of people that you
trust their idea.
And I think that they get your vision and they're part of the deal.
Yeah.
But and as that goes along, the whole thing continues to it's like a giant snowball.
It keeps building and building.
And the idea or what it was or what you thought you once knew, it slowly starts to
convert.
And it's no longer just my vision, but it's the things that I've taught or shown.
But also it's me opening up and listening to other people as well.
And that's kind of the that's kind of the beautiful part about it.
And when we talk about the team, it's not it's not you know, it's not 12 people.
Yeah.
There's literally four dudes here from four different backgrounds.
Right.
And we all get too many cooks in the kitchen.
No, yeah.
No, we just have we all have our own thing and we're all really good at our
own thing and we're all good at all.
We're all good at everything, but each one of us shines above in something.
And so when you put it all together and there's no egos and there's no bullshit and
there's no, you know, cool guy.
It's for the greater of what you're creating.
That's how you can get to this point of like banging them out constantly.
And the one thing that'll hold you back is your own ego.
Just like staying trapped in your own mind on I'm the best.
I got to keep doing the same thing I'm doing, blah, blah, blah.
No, we try to keep pushing ourselves constantly to do something different to
show that we're not a one-trick pony, you know, we're going to continue to evolve.
That's why we started talking about this dyna.
Like we literally took a dyna and we're like, how do we make it into a chopper
without cutting the neck off it?
That's what we tried to grow a hard tail in it or hard tailing it.
And we try to create that vision.
And maybe we knocked it out of the park.
Maybe we still measureably.
Yeah.
But guess what?
You're not going to be mad at it.
The bike is sick and it showcases all the talents from start to finish.
But next we're going to an FXR build.
Yeah.
And I'm not going to claim to be an FXR guy.
I'm like, no, I don't know.
No, you'll be fine.
I know enough about it, but I'm not an FXR guru.
Like we're just going to...
Neither am I.
We're going to roll with the punches, right?
And then after that...
I don't think anybody's an FXR guru.
We just, we all like it.
Well, there's enough of them that are.
I don't know.
They were handing out badges for that shit or like sticky.
Fair from an outsider.
I'm not that I'm an outsider,
but we'll call myself an outsider right now in the FXR world.
There are dudes that stand out above who you kind of should look up to
or ask questions to, et cetera.
And then after an FXR, we got a soft heel over there.
We're going to cut the neck off of.
Nice.
We're going to turn into a chopper.
D-Rake, St. Louis style chopper.
A breakout.
And it's a breakout with a 240 or your tire.
Like fuck it.
A twin cam breakout.
I will kind of...
So you had mentioned something earlier about how like, you know, about...
Obviously, the idea of these performance motorcycles that you've built over the years
is it makes these bikes ride better, right?
But I'm going to give you an analogy as to why a chopper
is just a different experience, right?
And if you apply, everything has to be perfectly this, this, this and this.
The analogy doesn't work the same way you have a sports car
in an old Mercury on air or whatever.
There's different rides and they feel completely different, right?
When you're in a sports car, when you're in a Lambo or Ferrari, like you,
you want to rip, you want to go.
But when you're in that old, like the one that used to be in your garage,
I think that was, was it a Cadillac or was it a Merck?
The one that was at Dodge?
I had, well, I had a Cadillac and a Dodge, but...
But you jump in that and you cruise it and you're like, I...
Like this is a vibe.
This is a feeling.
And that's something that just finally wrote his choppers for the first time.
Dude, it makes no fucking sense because it's, it doesn't have anything.
It's not, it's not that it's comfortable.
It's, it's that it's, it feels so different and like visceral.
That it, I don't, I can't, I don't have the word yet.
And I don't have enough time on the seat to.
And I will not say that it's better than anything.
No, no.
It's its own experience.
I am not a chopper builder.
I will never claim.
I'm not either, man.
But when I started motorcycles, I started with choppers.
I had two hardtail sponsors.
They were not like dorky ass strut.
They were full hardtail, skinny, like narrow spool, front hub, narrow glide, 39 millimeter,
18 by three in the rear, like chopper, skinny chopper shit.
And I rode those bikes and I, I get that.
I hear you.
But I think, but I think what's happened is we've, we've turned these other bikes into these
amazing touring, like I'm going to ride this bitch to China and back with a smile.
I don't know how I can find enjoyment in anything other than that.
Maybe until I try and that's kind of what you, I think for me, I got bored.
I got bored with, I got bored with the, the convenience.
And then, you know, like, like Steve challenged himself to ride harder, to be faster, to, to
take it to the track.
I wanted to challenge myself as the, the, the guy that can endure something that's less
like a practical, you know, I don't have all the space to pack.
I got to be way different in the way I think about packing.
What do I really need?
Can I do with less?
And so it's not everything is counterintuitive to like being better.
It's the opposite, but see, it's a different challenge.
Yeah, it's like a simpler way of life.
Yeah.
And I just want to, I, I'm not like a, I do, I'm going to do for sure one cross-country
trip on this chopper.
Dude, I've rode it one day and I, I've been little fucking, it's hurt.
It hurts, right?
But the thing is that like, I really need to have that notch in my belt.
I get that.
I mean, as a, as someone who truly loves traveling on motorcycles,
I just don't like knowing that there's something over there.
Like a, like a low hanging fruit, something that I really,
I don't know if I like it or not.
I just know that I want to taste it.
Yeah.
And I want to say that I've, I have tried that.
I have also done something substantial in that enough to, to have the opinion about
yay or nay, you know, right?
The FXR chop was definitely less comfortable than a road glider or a low rider ST,
but it was still fast.
And it was still, I could still cruise 90 miles an hour, no problem.
And so it didn't slow me down the way I wanted to be slowed down.
Maybe that was like a good entry towards.
It gave me, it gave me an understanding.
Yeah.
I get it more.
I can see that.
So definitely because that, because that bike did turn out in the sense of like,
it looked like a, like a bad Mammon Jamma, but it also looked like
something you could get comfy and smash some miles.
I mean, it was, it's relatively comfortable.
Yeah.
I mean, it just, it's comparative, you know, I thought the low rider ST was way more
uncomfortable than the road glide until I got home from a trip and jumped on the
low rider ST from the FXR chop.
I'm like, damn, this thing is fucking nuts, dude.
Well, that's just modern technology and.
But like going back a little bit when you're saying like, oh, the old Merck versus sports car,
like I grew up as a big car guy as well.
And like I used to daily drive like old cars, you know, back in the day.
Like I had a 62 Impala bagged out, but I mean, it was my everyday car.
It wasn't my car took out on the weekends.
It was the car I drove to work.
I'm like, I didn't have anything else to drive.
I chose for it to be like that 70 Impala's.
But then I was or then I had a 68 Impala and spring break 2010.
My buddies were like, hey, we're going down to Panama City Beach.
I was living in Michigan and we're like going down to Panama City Beach.
You're like, well, what are we going to drive down there?
Like we're trying to brainstorm, you know, we're all under 21.
And that and I was like, we'll take my 68 Impala.
And they're like, I was like, no, man.
I was like, it'll just be a different vibe.
You know, and rolled down there with a 68 Impala and 22s.
I can took it down to PCB and like, you know, I would that and it's like, you know,
sometimes life, you need this, that little bit of direction.
And I feel like the chopper thing would be about the same feeling that I got would
take in a carbureted 1960s Impala cross country with your homies.
I think the like perfect.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
But I think the best thing about all this is that I think we're,
I think we're all at this transition point where we can all figure out
what what's calling to us individually right in motorcycles that we want to
challenge ourselves with a new build.
Like in whether that, you know, whether that is on another, you know,
bagger or an FXR or Dina or, you know, choppers or I, you know,
I really think that like soft-tail choppers are going to get really big.
And the, not that one, but like the, the twin cam soft-tails are so cheap.
Yeah, dude, that might be a next big wave.
And you can like cheap bikes become customizable bikes, you know, and so there's,
you know, I'm the most contradicting to who I was on this podcast seven years ago.
You know, it's like, Hey man, like I'm at a point now where like I want,
you want something different?
I want the performance bagger, the T-Sport still, I still have a T-Sport fever,
a certain type of FXR, another type of FXR, and then a hard-tail chopper.
That's like my garage.
And an Indian.
Yeah.
And like, I got a, I got a buddy who's got a, you know, 82 or 82 or 83 shovel FXRT
tells me, he goes, dude, this is the funnest bike to ride on a 55 mile an hour road.
You say, I don't want to ride with anybody else, but he's like, but when I'm by myself
and I'm just vibing and like this thing, like I'm not trying to go 90 mile an hour
and keep up with anybody, but he's like, just by myself.
He's like, it's a funnest bike.
And that's the other thing about like a lot of the chopper dudes that I've
met, they're not like standoffers like, Oh, fuck you guys.
You know what?
So dude, they're riding bikes that 55 to 70 is like the best that's the vibe.
Dude, you know, on these bikes, man, 70 miles an hour, you're like,
stuck in that weird spot between fifth and sixth.
Yeah.
It's like, dude, I can't, my bike does not live here.
Right.
So you're, and then cruise on the highway, not in six gear is just weird.
I don't put it in six gear unless I'm above 80.
Oh, yeah.
So I mean like,
so I mean, there's just like, it's just a, it's a, it's a vibe thing.
Like with the, you know,
like you can get that with like just, you know, how different vehicles are.
And I feel like we've been doing kind of like what we've been doing for so long.
And it's like, you know, every once in a while, you want to switch it up.
Hey, you know, it's like the cat that sits at the door and wants to go outside
and it makes a 10 foot outside and goes, fuck this, you know, maybe you're
going to be like, Hey, you just pick it through there and you go,
now I'm going to go back to what I am.
See, no matter what, I'm still going to get another modern bike because I do
want one and I do, it serves a lot of purposes for me.
Right.
You know, like I said, just be able to jump on it and rip and go and not have to do some,
you know, 20 point inspection check sheet.
You know what I mean?
Like that's like, it's kind of nice to have like, you know, I got my 24 road glide where I'm just
like, Oh, well, if it wasn't cold, but you're like, Hey, let's go to California tomorrow.
Like, I wouldn't even think twice.
I'd be like, Did I change the oil?
Like, should I change oil before I leave?
Should I do it out there?
Yeah, I don't think.
I think that's my biggest standoff is like, we stay so busy here, especially like,
it's seven days a week, if I can do 12, 14 hours a day, usually.
And when it's time to unwind, that's the last we want to deal with is the 20 point checklist.
Yeah.
And so I feel like it also kind of has a vibe on just like where you geographically are,
like living, you know, like chopper, like that throws over here.
But it's like, if I had a chopper, like, I want to be fucking downtown,
like ripping through some fucking city streets on a chopper.
Big ass potholes.
Yeah, fuck yeah.
Here on these roads, just just crude, just just carved these damn roads in.
Yeah, it definitely probably has something to do with where you're located for sure.
I mean, I'm not trying to go to St. Louis City and get murdered.
You know, that's a good point.
Like you said about like, I used to say it's about dudes that want to travel.
Like if you only have two weeks of vacation, right?
And the trailer makes sense to go get some distance, drop the trailer and go ride.
Yeah.
For your buddies, you all load up and you drive through the night, you take a nap.
And next thing you know, you're on the.
Just have a seat where let us call you a pussy.
Yeah, please.
Well, the other part for me is has has been, you know, like creating parts
and then manufacturing parts, whether we build them by hand here
or we hire them out and have them.
You know, we'll do a lot of CAD drawing here and 3D print it all, test it
and then have it cut out of billet and then test that.
I can't really come up with that.
Those ideas, those parts, unless I'm riding these bikes.
Yeah.
And those bikes are modern bikes.
It's the latest and the greatest.
Yeah.
So it's like, you got to stay on top of that.
There's not a lot of place for finding inner piece of what's going to make me happy
deep down inside of that one chopper I never built or that one modification I never did or whatever.
You know, I've just been caught up in that for the last few years.
But as time goes by, the trends are changing and that means the customers are changing.
And so now I'm starting to kind of see that a little bit with what people are asking for.
And we'll find a good balance between the two.
Yeah.
I mean, you're good at staying true to like how you feel and who you are.
Fully adaptable.
Yeah.
I mean, we're going to go wherever the trends take us because I don't know anything other than this.
So we got to adapt or die.
But in the meantime, it's been a really fun journey.
Just trying to get to know like, okay, what's the thing?
Like I just learned this on FXR Tour.
Like I just did my third year of FXR Tour.
And I really paid attention to all the FXRs this time of why are they welding up this
hole but not this hole?
Yeah.
Right?
Like those little things because that hole is really dumb and it should be gone.
It's about the one for the crash bar on the rear for all the braces.
Yeah.
Yeah, you asked me on mine at the one time.
I found an FXR with factory rear crash bars and it bolted into the top hole up
behind the triangle, which I understood.
But then it literally was a tube.
Like it was a tube on a tube with a U-bolt and it just clamped the crash bar to the frame.
And I'm like, oh my God, that's like crumbling and paint's coming off.
And it didn't make sense to me.
So diving deeper on the FXR thing, which is where we're headed next on this other
build back here is trying to like pay an homage to what is right for FXRs,
but also kind of doing our own little spin on it.
Yeah, yeah.
And we want to just do like old school with a little modern touch and kind of make it like
almost like a Rastom on basically without going, you know, we're not going to do an M8.
Like the hot rod guys, we do like an aluminum LS47 or whatever it is now.
We're just going to try to keep it a little bit true, but keep it fun and new.
So I think that's where the trends are headed, you know, with this, all the things we just
talked about with choppers and fabrication and scratching the itch that you never knew
was there or whatever, like doing what's the latest and the greatest, but still kind of paying
attention to what's been done in the past and be respectful to that.
Yeah.
Right.
And I think that's where it's going to head.
The thing with like cruising and scratching was cutting up soft-tail choppers or M8 soft-tails,
turning them into choppers.
That was a cool way to do that just to show people like, hey, we have some talent.
Here's a new bike.
Here's what you could do with it.
Yeah.
I'm about that.
I think that's really cool.
And I see probably some of that happen in a year or two.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that'd be cool.
And I think that's, I mean, it's just like you, like when you watch the videos with like
Ryan and like Ryan knows how to weld, he knows how to fabricate, you know, but he was still
humble enough to bring somebody in to help do things that he felt like the guy was better.
He'd say they would land finding the guy to do the frame.
I mean, that's part sometimes being a bike builder or being the person that's,
you know, like the people in the world, like that's all bike builder,
just being the designer, the creative of this bike.
Knowing that you won't fail.
You have to, it can't be stopped.
You have to be able to like bring the right things together that you're the producer,
you're the conductor of it.
And, you know, like if you have access to someone that can fabricate and do stuff like that,
and you have a production going, it makes absolutely perfect sense
to have the professional do the professional thing.
Because your job is to provide the best quality
finished product for the customer, right?
Not be like, oh, well, you know, it's all shit, but I did it by my hand.
Yeah, exactly.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Or the latter is like somebody that's actually good at it does it all
but lacks any vision or ability to bring together a good looking bike.
Or does one every two years?
Have one every 12 years.
Exactly.
I think that's like the one of the things with like just growing up and growing older is like
you just start to learn you're like, hey, I can do this, but I might not be the best at it.
So I can trust this person.
This person is going to do exactly like what I need.
And you can be more productive by, you know, farming some stuff out of your hand.
So, you know, like some of the biggest, richest people, like they don't handle
every job on the way down of a business.
They go, hey, you handle this, you handle this, you handle this.
And we're going to make, create this big whole picture.
You know,
the pushback is usually from people who are doing all the work,
but their bikes aren't getting the attention, right?
And so the thing is like, well, I did all the work.
Well, that doesn't, that doesn't automatically mean you deserve the attention.
At the end of the day, if a bike is cool, a bike is cool.
Period. You know what I mean?
Like the test of time is like, put it out here.
Is it sick?
Is it not?
Yeah.
You know, is it, it's cool.
Did you, did you nail the vision or did you not?
Yeah.
You know, and yeah, if, if, if for your personal challenges,
you want to try to be responsible for more and more each time,
dude, that's awesome.
But the other day, the customers want the best shit.
That's it.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's different when you own a business and that's your
responsibility with employees and people rather than just your average dude doing it in his garage.
So, but yeah, I'm excited for the future.
And I really do feel like we're at this turning point of from when I first met you,
like, like I said, we're on, we're almost on year seven of knowing each other, all of us.
Yeah.
We were right at, at that point.
I met you because he got pulled over and I said, I ain't pulled over for the cops.
And then I pulled in a gas station and then you had me up and you're like,
oh, are you at this gas station?
And you're like, yeah, you know, and then you'd be like,
you meet him at service that year?
Yeah.
In 2019.
And then it was literally when
That's when I met you.
Like in person, person.
Yeah.
It was when you got pulled over.
Yeah.
And then me and average life of Bob, we ended up pulling in a gas station.
He had me up with a message and then you're, where's Jay?
So I was like, I don't know yet pulled over up the road and then you just like
dipped out and then we didn't see you till like Wednesday night or something.
No, we went to a, that's the night we went out.
We went to a, I got pulled over and then we went to Clemshouse and I dropped my bike
and I couldn't pick it up.
And I had to pick it up.
I still got that scratch bag in the shop.
And then it was like the next night and then because Bob got a ticket and you got
a ticket out there and you guys were both like holding your tickets.
I didn't get a ticket.
I actually met you at Born Free Cali 19.
Oh.
You had, I thought you owned your silver, your white and silver bagger.
Oh yeah.
At the time.
Yeah.
And I messaged you and you're like, oh no.
I was like, yo, your bike's here.
Where are you at?
And you're like, oh, I sold that.
I'm not there right now.
I tried to meet you.
So 19.
It might have been 18.
I don't know.
Now 19, I went to Born Free in 19.
18 was the only year, was the year I missed Born Free.
And I sold it.
I sold that white bagger in May to a dude that lived in Riverside.
So yeah, that's probably what it was.
So anyways, we're going on 10 years here.
We've watched it from its infancy.
Tried to kind of been like at the forefront,
like the gatekeeper, the trendsetter from whatever,
from the paint to the modifications to the mileage
to the racing to the all of it.
I was telling someone yesterday we were talking about the camp out.
Right.
And what it was, and they were saying something that's like,
oh yeah, it was really good for FX.
So I was like, no, no, no.
The camp out was really good
for the performance bagger community.
That first year you came down and I met you.
It set a tone.
And then every year it was like the performance bagger meet and greet.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And then when you started showing up and my machinist and then Craig
and fucking all the dudes on the East Coast and then,
you know, like two people on the West Coast the entire time.
But it's like, but it became that it gets to a point
where like the baggers that were at the camp out,
that were riding their bikes to the camp out, getting rained on,
riding in on the campsite and then ripping the Talamina.
Like that's to me, that was the part of performance baggers
that I was in love with because.
And I mean, a lot of the reason why I wanted to end the camp out
was when it started trending towards more and more people
getting RVs and houses and you get these groups of people
riding across the country.
And they're going through the beginning of the camp out
and seeing all these little individual parties at RVs
instead of the one by the fire where we would all be like,
oh, it's the fucking dudes from Boston, you know, coming through.
And you're just like, as soon as they park, you're getting a beer in their face.
Yeah, that was.
I made it the first camp out and I made the last camp out.
There was almost one year that I missed and you were very disappointed in me
because it was like, you know, Kyle had a.
Was that for you?
You spent like six hours there and then went back home.
Yeah.
You were like an overnight run.
Dude, just like I had the O3, that purple wheel O3.
And I was waiting on parts.
You had a whole meet up with people in St. Louis
that you guys were riding down there.
And I'm like, I'm still waiting on parts.
And then I had a race in Utah the weekend after.
So I'm like, dude, I put a post out there.
I'm like, I ain't going to be able to make it happen.
Dude, parts came in that list right there.
You know, I ended up getting it.
And then it was about 11 p.m. at night.
And I was like, all right.
I was like, if I don't leave now, like I'm not going.
So I literally like, I took the bike, you know,
half mile up the road, turned around two miles up the road,
turned around, came back.
I was like, feels good.
I walk inside.
I grabbed clothes.
I shoved him in the bag and I took off.
And I made it to like middle Arkansas to like 230.
We got pulled over.
We got pulled over for Baja headlight.
And then woke up, enjoyed my way in the next day,
rode down the Talamina, you know,
rolling the camp out.
Everybody's around the fire.
Like, oh yeah, blah, blah, blah.
And then, you know, had a good time.
And then the next day, the next morning, whatever is that.
And I just woke up and I was like, all right.
I should probably head back.
I guess I have a race in Utah the next weekend.
Like I made it here, check.
Yeah.
And then I came back and I finished my bike and then whatever.
But like the early campouts, dude, they were fine.
Like the very first camp out when you're just talking about
that, like I came down from Michigan.
From Michigan to the camp, I think it was a thousand miles.
And then, you know, I came down for Ken.
I remember you leaving, dude.
And we just listened to the, you go to the gears
through the canyon.
Yeah.
And just me showing up, dude, I showed up to the first
camp out at two in the morning, three in the morning.
And there was three or four people up by the fire.
Everybody else is already drunk and passed out.
And they're like, who are you?
You know, I'm like, I don't know.
Like one guy's holding a flashlight while I set up my tent.
And then the next day we went out on road and I still remember
sitting in a, like I was done at the other day in the next
night.
Like I go in my tent and I'm just like laying there.
And then like Joe Kidd and FXR Mike, they ended up walking
around.
They're like, what the fuck is this bike?
Like, look at that road glider and birdie friend.
They're like, I don't know, but I heard he rides
pretty good.
Oh, I guess that's pretty bad ass.
And like that to me was like.
Yeah.
Hi.
You know, that's, that's what it was, man.
And, you know, then like all, all, you know, the, the
smokey mountain stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, another one of those, the smokey mountain stuff,
you know, it just, it just got big.
You know, the whole thing, the whole, the whole scene
has gotten so much bigger than, than our part of it.
There's so many events.
Like cause even back in the day, like we had like our
events and our stuff that we were creating, you know,
your camp out, I did the up North camp out and just
next thing you know, it's like, you know, smokey
mountain, whatever, smokey mountain, v-twine
visionary, whatever thing.
And then it became a whole week and then people
are showing up like a couple of days before and that.
And it's like, there's so many events and we
can't juggle at all.
Yeah.
I was like, you got to be homeless and, you know,
rich just to make everything happen.
You know, nowadays, like there's so much that
we can do.
It was like everything had a smaller vibe.
I'm content with what I got to experience in a good way,
but also okay with that chapter being closed.
Yeah.
It was great.
Like I met some of the coolest people in my life
with some of the most random trips that I just
made happen, you know, like sleeping on someone's
couch or, you know, putting it up in a tent, you
know, like, I wouldn't trade that shit for the
world.
At first that 2019, we all got together for
the first time in Sturgis.
Yeah.
Because, yeah, that year.
The photos of you and your ass hanging out.
Yeah.
Because like I met up with you and like on the way
because you were coming from Texas, I was coming
from Michigan and then you're like, meet me at
Omaha.
So we met in Omaha, did that podcast and
spat cycle, then rolled in there the next day
and shit.
Like I just found out that I'm so glad I got
to experience that, you know what I mean?
Because it was the first like bike scene that
I felt like I was kind of like,
it was like my generations.
Does that make sense?
And you know, it's, I'm stoked to where it's at.
Like seeing, you know, the rate, you know, we
were talking at dinner tonight, seeing the, you
know, MotoGP is going to have the exhibition
with the Harleys on there and stuff.
Like that shit's cool.
Seeing the people that drive through my small
ass town on my suburb of Dallas that have
these bikes, that all these, that I could
see their parts and they have the t-shirts
of the people that I know that I have no
idea who this fucking person is.
You know what I mean?
Like it's so big that it's like people are
finding it in all these other channels now
and it's just, it's rad.
It really is rad.
But it does feel weird.
But like, I was a Sturgis 2019, Sturgis 2020,
like if you were on a bagger with
t-bars and like you see the other bag
with t-bars you point over and you're
like, that's my guy.
That's my dude.
I don't know who you are, but we're
now friends.
That's just how this works.
Yeah.
It was the thing.
It was cool to be a part of it.
Yeah.
I was about to say I was at SEMA last week
and I've seen at least four forever ad
t-shirts walking around SEMA.
Oh, that's sick.
It's hell yeah.
Mind-blowing.
You know, like we're at a car event
and there's people that get it.
People that know who we are and know
that we're a part, we were a part of this.
Yeah.
They're car people, they're bike people,
whatever.
You know, it's cool.
So.
Yeah, I like where it's.
I mean, like I said, I don't hate it.
It's just like when people, when I talk to people,
I was like, you should understand that I'm
still processing how I feel about it.
Yeah.
Good or bad, I don't know.
But I do enjoy it.
I do enjoy where it's going.
But I still had, I mean, just let me have my
like feelings towards this.
Like it's uniquely different to have been
a part of something like this and then
see it kind of evolve in the direction.
I think it's a bad direction.
It's just, like you said, different.
I would love for the people, you know,
if they're just coming into it with, you know,
the baggers and doing that thing to experience
the shit that we did, you know,
where you go get with your homies
and you're like, hey, we're going to do
this cross country trip.
But when we get to these twisty roads,
we're going to have a fucking black.
Like these bikes are set up that, you know,
when we're in this valley and areas,
you know, mountain pass in Colorado,
that we're going to nail it down,
even though we're loaded down and it's going to be a,
and then, you know, get a hotel room that night
and, you know, get a party.
And then the next day you're like,
we're going to smash more a couple hundred miles
so we're going to have a blast.
Yeah.
Like as long as people are still
experiencing that part of it,
fuck yeah, let's go.
Yeah.
You know, because that's what it's about to me.
Like is that's, that's why I made so much sense.
You have the best riding machines that can tour on it.
And so you can ride with your shit on it
to the spot you want to go
and then go enjoy the experience.
Yeah.
You know, so I don't know.
It's cool where it's going.
Yeah.
I, you know, no gatekeeper or anything.
Like I'm just, I got to experience it very early on.
So like there's anything to be jealous about.
It's like, shit, I've been doing this for years.
Like, I got to ride a performance bagger in the 2010s.
Yeah.
You know, what's weird is like,
I've met people that are in this,
in the bike industry or bike scene
or whatever like level you want to call it.
And that are like people now in it, you know,
whether they're, they have small brands
or influencers or whatever.
And you talk to them like,
I think about these things we're talking about,
like that camp out one or 2019 2020,
which I think was like 2020 and 2021 was like peak
performance bagger.
Yeah.
Like our small group of people we all knew.
And I think like there's people that I'm meeting now
that are just now getting into,
like they, they had,
they didn't get their first bike till 2021.
Yeah.
You know, and they had big YouTube channels.
You know what I mean?
And I'm not hating on that.
I'm just saying like, it's, I forget that there,
it's, it was five years ago.
It was seven years ago.
You know, like you were saying a while ago,
because it doesn't feel that long.
You know, it feels like, you know,
we told the story to nauseam,
but it feels like seven years ago
or no 2020 when I come and do the podcast with you
for the first time at your house in Illinois,
then rip up and get a 131 put in my bike,
then take a ferry across to go meet this dude
on the other side who's waiting with, let's go.
And then we ripped a fucking grand rapids and party.
And then, hey,
I think we should go to New York tomorrow.
And putting up your phone,
like you're saying that to me like whatever,
but it's you calling Brita to be like,
Hey, I think I'm going to take a detour.
And like Steve really wants to go to,
go to any and Larry block party.
Is that okay?
It was just, I don't know, man.
I'm just, I'm very thankful for all that.
It was, it was, it was for his best of time.
Still is.
Yeah.
And we got more shit in him, you know,
you were talking earlier, you're like,
fuck, I feel like this is the least amount of riding
I've done this year.
And I, I'm kind of on the same boat,
but then I also looked at the odometer and, you know,
my gray bike and I'm like, shoot, I still smashed like 10
or 11,000 miles this year.
Yeah.
Like most people like won't do that in like fucking six years.
I was feeling guilty about the new chieftain that I built
because it, I just hit 6,000, I think.
But I have another one that I've,
I've already did another 5,000 on that one.
Yeah.
Both got me beat.
Yeah.
Like, I think that my eight miles this year is,
I only, the only trip I did is from here to California and back.
And that was like, and it was a straight shot.
Like I was 20, like 10 there, eight back.
Yeah.
So I mean, I think my mileage this year is probably sub 5,000.
And my average was probably about 25,000 for the last year.
Yeah.
I ran a good solid 20,000, 15 to 20,000 a year for a year.
Yeah.
So for me being 11, I'm definitely down,
but you've also seen almost every state already.
So.
Yeah, but.
You're good.
I want to see it every year.
Right.
I mean, let's go.
What are you waiting for?
So, I think that what I'm taking from this conversation is,
Steve is going to be 36 in two days.
Yeah.
Happy early birthday.
By the time you listen to this, I'll already be 36.
His whole ass.
Have you believed that?
His whole ass, motherfucker.
But you and I were in our 40s.
Yeah.
Early 40s.
Early still.
But we got kids.
They're grown.
All that.
And what I have been focusing on this year is
what's next for my kids.
So we've been pushing that on the kids lately are my two sons.
Yeah.
And now I'm starting to view motorcycling in a different way.
Rather than what's the next trend?
What am I going to build next?
I'm actually trying to find ways to like,
how do I get my kids involved with this?
How do I keep finding happiness and teaching them the ways?
Yeah.
You had two big milestones with that this year.
You did a big trip with your kid out there,
and then you're not to quickly jump over that and go back to it.
But FXR2 or your other kid rode the whole FXR2 or with you?
Yeah.
I'm not necessarily trying to turn everything onto my attention,
but like what we were talking about with like the Forge bikes,
Springles bike, the Nerd Glide, we started talking about Homie Softtail.
We built Homie Softtail, brought it to Daytona.
That thing was amazing, and he got his bike in Sturgis this year.
So Sturgis was our big milestone.
Yeah.
We had our Forge bike there, and we brought the whole team,
whether they're blood or not blood, like our team was there.
We had like 12 people on the house, rented a house, and our son rode with,
and he was 18 years old.
And he rode a really sick Softtail that we put together,
and he rode up there with us.
He spent the whole Sturgis with us.
We took him out to all the shows, all the events,
got to meet the people.
He went to the parties all of it.
And then for some reason, that trip disintegrated.
It was a shit show.
My old lady got sick, had to go home early.
Somebody wrecked, couldn't walk.
Another person hit a deer, decided to go home.
Steve got sick, had to take three days off.
Like the whole trip fell apart.
And at the end of this 12-day trip,
oh, a truck blew up in there too.
During this whole trip, at the end of it, it was me and my son.
And I was like, well, I guess we can go home
or we can go ride motorcycles.
What do you want to do?
Ah, fuck it, you don't get a choice.
We're going to ride motorcycles.
So me and my son, we took off and we had it out west.
Did a big, big old loop out west.
Done it, I've done it twice in the past,
but, or no, once in the past.
And we went and did Beartooth and Big Horn and Yellowstone
and Utah and Moab and Colorado, a million-dollar highway,
all that.
We did a 1K in a day together.
Damn.
4,000 miles, me and my kid.
For like, we left on Saturday, got home Friday.
It's like five or six days.
And then that led to like,
shit, maybe there's more to motorcycles, for me.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe it's more than just the 2019 trip.
That was so epic.
Or the Smokies trips that were so good or whatever.
And so it's kind of got me looking in a different way.
And then this year, we, I went and did FXR tour with Steve.
And I looked at my 14-year-old, who is my other son.
And I said, hey, you want to do FXR tour?
And he like, kind of skips cool.
And I was like, yep.
And he's like, okay.
So we went and rode 1,000 miles with my 14-year-old.
And he was the only two-up passenger ever for the whole tour.
And he was the youngest to do the whole FXR tour.
And he had a blast.
We took my 14-year-old to the CatSlam.
We had him in a bar.
We took him to the bar.
Yeah, the casino.
We took him to the casino.
He was around fucking Jetty, who was gambling in the parking lot.
He was around a bunch of hotheads.
He had to watch bikes blow up.
He got to watch people crash.
He, unfortunately, got to watch somebody lose their life.
Like it was the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows.
And our buddy, Mikey, said that.
And I was Instagram post.
And looking back on it, it was the worst time of my life.
But it was the best time of my life.
And I got to experience that with my son.
And so now it's like, where do we go from here?
I don't want to push him too hard.
But I'm also like, well, how is he going to say no moving forward?
You know, so now, yeah.
So now I'm like, how do I cast that torch and get them more involved
and get them to understand like, hey, this is why your dad's
been doing what he's been doing his whole life, you know?
So that's been a special thing for me this year, too.
I didn't plan on it.
It just kind of happened.
Yeah.
But it all happened in one year.
That's been a really fun thing.
And now I'm focused on the future.
That involves my whole family.
Yeah.
You know, and not just my immediate family, but the whole team.
You know, Steve, Sprinkle, our dude Matt, who's
Matt's an anti-social guy, but a huge part of this team.
You know, our crew, like, there's so much for the future.
We're so busy.
So much coming.
So now we're trying to put all of our heads together
and do all this together.
And it's been super cool.
Like, because you know where I started, you know?
You said a good point.
I think what we've all kind of talked about tonight
is essentially that we've all got to have this thing
together where we kind of found this style of motorcycle
and it brought a lot of us together.
And, you know, but we're all just growing up.
You look at what one thing provided.
Yeah.
Right.
And it's like it's like a lifetime friendship,
lifetime of friendships and relationships.
The best way to look at this is like, you know, it's not that
it's not that the performance bagger has to be
what I ride every day or you ride every day or you every day
for us to be friends, right?
It's like, man, we found each other doing this cool
shit and then you go racing, you're building bikes
and your family's growing up and getting here now.
I mean, when you're first, you know, your son,
your fortune was little whenever I first met him.
You know what I mean?
And so like your kids are growing up
and your wife is involved heavily into the brand now.
And, you know, you're definitely going to be like swayed
to do things and make decisions that are going to be
beneficial for the entire clan now, right?
I'm going my path, you know?
Everybody, you know, everybody's doing their thing,
but I think that the best way for us all to be,
and I'm trying to be this way,
and I think everybody else is as well,
is just stoked for each other.
They're still doing podcasts to like, hey, man,
like we are going to reminisce about what we did
a long time ago, not saying we won't do anything else later.
But, you know, like it's a special time,
you know what I'm saying?
Like we're all just watching all of us grow.
Like when I first met you,
like there was no screaming, speeding fat, you know,
doing that, like that stuff came out after the fact.
And, you know, and still whatever,
six years later, still doing it, you know,
and now up here with Forever Rad and, you know,
watching him grow, like, you know,
I've been here for, what, three and a half,
you know, coming up on four years,
four years, like fucking watching this
and helping him do his shit,
and he's helping me do my shit,
if I can, you know, grow together.
This place is like literally
one of the radish shops, bite shops, right?
But I still, I would love to have your shop at your old house.
It was dope, right?
The garage in the back, perfect size.
Bro, imagine like you spent some time there.
Yeah.
And then imagine, imagine if you own that.
Yeah.
And then you stepped into this.
Just selling my space.
I mean, you filled it up nicely, but, you know.
I'm at the point of putting another building up.
Yeah.
Like I were at that point,
you look around this shop, I'm not going to start counting,
but like, rough count, 18 bikes in here right now.
Yeah.
There's five more coming in the next week,
and I'm bursting at the seam,
and I'm like, I need more shelves.
And it's not like, just bikes needed like small, tiny, like,
no, these are all things like, big, full builds, like,
these are heavily involved.
Yeah.
Projects, right?
I literally have, you know,
we didn't talk enough about Indians tonight.
Yeah.
But there's a 2025 Indian with two miles on it right there,
right?
And it's balls to the walls, balls to the walls, open budget,
do your thing, knock it out of the park.
And I got another one coming on Saturday.
That's wild.
You know, and it's, it's so humbling, hard work pays,
and we're focused, and now we're like,
where do we head from here?
Do it.
Maybe we need another building.
Maybe we need to, I'm starting to look at the bigger
picture, but not go too far.
Because start, start, start like looking at Pinterest and
Instagram on the Japanese shops, because the way they,
they, they take small spaces and make it real big.
So you'll learn how to like, condense things down and,
and figure out how to work in, in lists.
Well, there's ways, you know,
but even another building just to take some of our finish
bikes.
I mean, yeah.
Crane.
Crane.
I don't like working on a bike on the ground.
Well, we, we have room for more lifts.
We do.
We could get more lifts, no problem.
But we have like six or seven bikes in here that are
finished that just need to get the hell out.
Go sit over there.
Go, go sit over there and look pretty,
and we can stay more productive.
So, you know, we're kind of entertaining that.
Meanwhile, we've expanded upstairs,
you know, not a lot of going up there in the,
in the top.
Isn't it like this, this entire whole area?
Yeah. It's the whole building upstairs.
You know, it's 50 by 75.
And then it's a little narrow at the sides because of the
the, yeah, because of the, yeah.
Yeah. But we have a full office.
It's probably 20 by 20, 20 by 30.
It's big, roughly, maybe a little smaller.
But then the whole length is storage.
So it's OEM takeoffs.
It's FTR front fenders.
It's things we're going to need in the future.
You know, to make money, you have to, in the part scheme,
to make money, you got to spend more up front
to make more in the long run.
So it's about bigger purchase orders,
ordering in quantities,
and then that leads to needing warehouse space.
So it's instead of ordering, you know,
we'll move five air cleaners for SNS,
for Indian challengers every week.
So instead of ordering five or ordering 10,
then you hit, once you sell five,
if you have five left, you order 10 more.
By the time they show up, you're back down to five.
So it's like this constant in and out.
It's this influx of spending money to make money,
to keep spending money, to keep making money.
And we're doing that now with all these collaborations
with SNS, with HPI, with Saddleman, with Santoro,
with Hoffman Designs, all the biggest and the best named
in the industry, who we've been, excuse my language,
we've been fucking with since 2016, 2017.
Right when we all met each other,
you know, they were the founders of what they created
and we got on right away with them
and we've been with them this whole time.
So we've been like doubling down with them.
HPI is like super special.
How many times does Steve say Jimmy tuned his motor today?
Five different motors, Jimmy's tuned it every fucking time
because that's our dude.
So it was an O-brainer.
Like let's do something with HPI, you know?
And that's going to be our next drop,
probably in the next couple of weeks here.
We're bringing Indian HPI pipes.
Like what?
Nobody can do that besides what we're doing.
So it's cool, man.
It's super humbling.
All the meanwhile building Harleys at the same time,
like some of the sickest Harleys out there.
So we're pumped and excited for the future.
I don't know, nothing's awful in that.
Yeah, there's a lot.
You know, I mean, we didn't touch a lot
on some of the Indian stuff tonight
or some of the potential Harley stuff
in the future as well.
You know, whether it's me, you, both of us,
Steve has a lot of Harley interest as well.
So I mean, I think people from the corporations
are starting to finally open their eyes a little bit,
pay attention to what actually sells,
you know, people that actually ride,
people that have actually work on them,
have outreach, have experience.
You know, they're starting to lean on dudes like us.
And that's going to open some doors for sure.
You know, so we'll see where that takes us.
And we're just going to continue doing what we're,
what makes us happy.
As long as we're happy, that's what matters.
So I'm happy.
Exactly. That's what matters.
So I mean, like two years ago, you're like,
I'm going to quit painting.
Oh, I still want to quit painting.
I'm only going to podcast.
And I'm like, Jase, you're too good at painting
to quit painting.
I'm just, yeah, well, if it wasn't killing me slowly,
it'd be funner.
But no, you got to put your mask on.
You got to bring back fucking true fire.
Bring back true fire.
It'll bring this whole thing.
True fire.
You're going to spray some little stencil lines.
You're going to be like, man, I love this shit.
We'll see.
I am excited to get in the shop.
I mean, I have, it's been like a couple of weeks of shows
and events.
You've been in the shop or even crushing it.
Yeah. It was four months of solid in the shop.
And now I'm ready to, you know, the thing is like I,
you're in the shop and then you're, you're building something.
You're also recording it.
So you have to go like edit YouTube videos.
I have a whole, like everything on the entire chopper build.
Like I have it all recorded for, you know, a series of YouTube videos.
And Cole, that'll be fun to watch.
It's like, it's, I think sometimes people probably may look at
operations they see on Instagram.
And they think it's a lot of people.
And I don't want to downplay the help that I have from friends
that come in and help me here and there, like run the podcast or, you know,
you know, my buddy has mad designs that helps me with like certain projects
around the shop.
But for the most part, it's me by myself every day working 12 hours ish on paint work,
going home and for another five or six hours working editing videos and editing that shit.
Then sketching paint jobs is really, you know, did that self motivation on those things
is a fucking real thing.
Like when it's just you sitting there, you're like, all right, cool.
I know all this stuff I have to do, but then just to get yourself.
It's like that one, it's like they say that, that, that, you know,
the first thing you do wake up morning, just make your bed.
It's like those, when I have a like a procrastination problem,
I start trying to find the simplest things I can do.
So you're like solve some things to get something.
And then that gets the ball rolling.
But like, you know, the thing about like cutting the videos and making all that stuff,
man, like it's when you get out of practice, and you could probably attest to this.
It's like to get back on that hamster wheel to do it.
It's, it's kind of a lie.
And sometimes I have to go watch my old videos to remember that I know how to do it.
Yeah.
You know, yeah, because like that's a big thing.
Like, you know, everybody knows me.
Like I was doing YouTube and all that stuff, like decently successful.
But then it was just like, you know, on top of, you know, trying to run my business,
helping him and doing this and doing racing.
Like I had so many opportunities where it'd be great if I filmed it, like all the way through.
But it's just that one extra aspect that I was like, dude, like, I don't know if I can do this too.
You know, just people like, oh, it's just, you know, just film it and just post it.
And like, you're like, you don't know how much time you put in the editing.
Like, like when you actually go and do it and you're like that 30 minute video that you watched,
I watched it six times, making this video.
Yeah.
You know, that's just three hours of watch time on top of a couple of hours of editing.
Like you don't think it's that big of a deal.
But like, I tell people, I'm like, Hey, you think like, whatever, like go make me a five
minute video just to entertain me to the end.
I would talk a little shit here and say, go watch anybody making videos every week
and tell me it's worth your time.
Because there's videos coming out every week that you that are 30 minutes long,
45 minutes long, and you I'm just looking for something interesting to happen.
And it's like, just, just like the algorithm wants you to put it out.
Yeah.
It's like, I would rather wait and see your shop towards video or the video with y'all,
y'all son when y'all did the bike.
Yeah.
It's those things are what like, I just don't fucking waste my time.
You know, I want to support you.
I don't, I'm so over fucking clickbait.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's been really difficult.
You know, we started a YouTube channel at the beginning of the year
and we did really good with it, but we're not filming it.
We're not editing it.
Yeah.
I'm paying someone.
And so in the same respect of what the effort takes, right?
Like what you guys know that I don't know because I don't, I don't do that.
All that amounts to me is this much money.
Yeah.
Every single time, every single month, now it's an expense.
Can I afford it?
Yeah.
Oh, shit.
I got bills to pay.
I shouldn't do a video this month.
And here I am.
Yeah.
And I'm like, well, should I pay my staff or should I make another video?
Yeah.
And it's like, I know I'm a fucking hustler, dude.
I'm going to survive and so are my people.
And we've, I've slowed it down on the YouTube stuff and I'm not going to quit.
Yeah.
Definitely not going to quit, but it's also like what you just said.
Like, I know what, what you just said.
I know why you said it.
Yeah.
It's, I'm at the same point.
Like I don't, I love all the dudes that I watch on YouTube and I'm not going to belittle any
single one of them, but like I don't need to see the same thing over and over every single week.
So, but trying to, to find that balance of what's fresh and new, even if we just
keep doing what we've been doing, I still am like my own biggest critic.
I'm like, I don't feel like this is what people want to see.
Yeah.
Do you want to see it?
That's, that's a problem.
If you don't feel like you enjoyed watching that, I know it's subjective because it's
yourself or your brand or your whatever, but I mean, you just know.
Like I, I feel very good about every video I've made this year because I feel like,
A, you're, there's nothing that's that boring.
And if you actually pay attention to the whole thing, there's, there's comedy in it.
There's, there's some tidbits of information like there's shit in it, right?
Yeah.
And I just feel like I watch a lot of videos where I'm like,
like, I don't want to say I'm doing too much.
I need to do less because nobody else is doing this much, right?
But that seems, that's counterproductive.
I'd rather just continue to uphold my standard that I want for myself and you know, try to,
I mean, I put, I put out more videos this year that I did the year I started doing the videos,
which was 23.
I only put out like one video in 24 and I wanted to get back into it this year.
I kind of did, but I, I understand how to do it like efficiently now,
but I have a couple of videos that I recorded that I didn't record it efficiently, right?
Or bottlenecks could they get past the worst part about this conversation,
in my opinion, is my shit is over the top cinematic, the right lighting, the right editing.
It looks like a movie.
Yours is kind of a step below that.
It's very much self filmed, but very well thought out very much to the point.
It's going to be from this point to this point and it's going to hit all the topics
where his stuff was a hundred percent.
Hey guys, I'm S Chamberlain 5150 straight vlog status.
Everybody loves it yet.
Here we are three different styles and we're all still battling ourselves.
Think about that.
Yeah.
Think about that.
When I realized that I'll give you my, my take on my stuff.
So the, the first two videos I put out this year was a,
it was a recap video of 24 and a shop tour video.
In the shop tour video, I used my big cameras and lighting and tried to make it look good
and tried to have a, tried to be a guy on camera.
And I'm not really good at that, but I am good at just like,
I'm better at just like kind of writhing, but trying to do it with a,
with a subject in mind.
We're going to Born Free.
Hey guys, we're leaving Born Free where I'm doing my trip to California,
those kind of things.
It, if I just record the whole time, I'll have a video when it's done and it's so fast
and easy to edit as opposed to when I was making like my shop tour video.
I'm trying to think what's important to put in here about my past so that it's not too
much information, but it's enough to kind of give you a gist of where I came from.
Right.
And to get to the point and show you around as to why I put the toolbox there and this
there.
But that would be more of the vlog status video.
Pretty much just rolling with the punches.
Yeah.
And that's what Steve did.
Yeah.
And that's really what I feel like worked the best.
Like it's, it's something people can relate to a little bit.
You got to do things that are repeatable.
Yeah.
I had it like when I was doing it, like as I was recording, I was editing the
video on my head.
So I go, all right, cool.
So if I over-recorded.
When you were, when you first built the bike and it was the blue.
Yeah.
That build process and then riding up to, to, uh, Laconia and the wreck and all,
like that whole phase was, you know, that she was on spine because you were doing it
and you were knocking it down and getting it done every month.
Yeah.
And it was like, as I was recording it, uh, like I was literally editing it in my head
because I was like, I'm the guy that's going to edit this.
So like as, you know, I take stuff down, I go, all right, somebody needs to know.
And I'm like, I'm building the video in my head.
Yeah.
As I'm, you know, literally spitballing it out.
So like when it came time to edit it, it was like, all right, two pretty quick.
And then the part where I really fell apart on it was when I started trying to add
like GoPro footage to it.
So I was trying to get the riding footage, but then it was like adding GoPro to it.
And then it turned into like, all right, get the, the footage off the GoPro.
Go through it.
If you have 360, you got to edit it.
Now, now I have this clip and that was four steps where before it was like,
I described my camera and I just made it happen.
And then it just, I got myself where I was trying to elevate it.
But then it became just too much.
And then I was like, and then you just get overwhelmed.
And you're like, I'll do it tomorrow.
Yeah.
People can understand it.
Like, like YouTube video, like even like mine, when they do well, I'm not,
there's not money on it to the point where it's like, this justifies it.
Yeah.
You know,
Bro, I have a YouTube short with five million views.
I made like nothing worth talking to the camera about.
Seriously.
Like that's retarded.
Yeah.
And that was getting lucky one time.
Yeah.
You know, it wasn't consistent.
You don't do it for like, it's so like far fetched on with it,
the money of the actual ad revenue.
Like, I first started making money on YouTube in 2009
because I posted a video of me banging the wheelie on a V-rod,
whatever, and a bunch of people watching.
And, but there's so much other back avenues that it like works out in.
Yeah.
But it's so hard to just figure out that it's worth it when you.
It's don't see the monetary value.
It's the slow, it's the slow drip of the duty as the website.
I'm a good example of that.
You go to Daytona.
Hey man, like one dude pulls you aside.
I love watching your YouTube videos.
And I'm like, oh shit, you watch my YouTube.
Cool.
That's sick.
Thank you.
Did you buy parts for me?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
But meanwhile, there might be some dude that bought all of his
parts for me.
Because he showed his YouTube to his homie.
Right.
And your YouTube to his homie.
And he goes, oh, shit, like I'm going to support that.
So it's like, yeah, it's that she is our own worst enemy with this whole
fucking, you know, content.
We just kind of like make sure that you're doing something because you want to do.
Yeah, like you said, you're not doing it for the money, but you're doing it.
Like, I feel like I get, I have a unique.
You have something to show the people.
Yeah.
So do we.
Yeah, exactly.
So that's why we want to put it out there just to be like, hey, check it out.
I'm not the average dude doing the average shit.
Yeah.
If you want to pay attention to it, here's your glimpse into it.
But when it starts to cost too much money or too much time, which equals money,
then it's like, it was easy.
Everybody would do it.
It's the first thing to cut out.
So you go, it's stressed me out.
Suck it, you know.
And it sucks to say it's like, I fucking really, really enjoy doing the
YouTube when I did it.
My goal, one of my biggest goals for next year is literally to have that
figured out to be consistent enough.
Like I'm not promising some ridiculous amount of videos every month or week.
I just want to be consistent enough to where when I know I have something to
show, I can record it, get it out.
And I have a backlog.
And I want to get past that.
I want to get that done.
I want to pay my debts with that shit.
And then come next year, you know, we're starting to bike build.
We're recording parts.
We put a video about that.
We do the Polaroid.
Now we have another video.
We do this.
We do that.
So it just kind of flows.
And I don't, I can have the experience and go straight to editing.
And the way I record now is I'm mindful of like, okay, I got this.
I got that.
And I can just kind of roll it right into it, you know, and not go,
not get bottlenecked or overwhelmed with all the things.
Yeah.
You know, because it isn't like, I don't, I'm not making a YouTube channel
because I think I'm going to be Mr. Beast.
Right.
Making money off of it.
Yeah.
And, and that's, they can drive it towards the other things I do.
It's fun to just put the shit out there and be like, look what I can do.
I like it.
I like the creative out.
The content is fun, is fun for sure.
But I think that the big thing between that with, you know,
the three specific people sitting here is that
we're not just trying to make money on YouTube.
Like we're, we're able to paint some shit, build some shit, ride some shit, whatever.
Like there's a lot of different, we're not just going to be YouTube stars.
That's not what we're trying to do.
We're just trying to expand the audience.
We're artists building fucking motorcycles.
Yeah, exactly.
We just had some of the show, like you said, so.
Exactly.
There is something to show.
So is there anything else you want to talk about with Indians?
Because I feel like you shit the bed this time.
No, I didn't want to bring any of it up.
I don't know.
I want to make sure the camera's still recording to be honest with you.
You better go check.
Fuck hell.
You're out of the battery.
Oh yeah, we're still good.
Oh, we're good.
What time will we be at?
2.29.
Let's talk about Indians for 10 minutes.
Let me go pee real quick and then we'll talk about Indians.
Okay, we're going to talk about Indians.
All right.
Well, you got to carry this conversation.
So I'm ready for them to go take a piss.
So, well, they're going to hear me pissing on my microphones.
You wrote an Indian.
That's why I pulled mine off earlier when I took a piss.
You wrote an Indian for a year.
Yeah.
Would you write another one?
Yeah, I didn't have a bunch of people ask me
because like, you know, we,
we got those challenges through Music City and everything.
And, you know, I rocked one for a year
and a bunch of people like asked me and like,
because it just kind of went away.
So like, you know, wherever.
And I liked the bike.
My biggest gripe with it was it was a 2023.
So between the 2022 model and 2023,
the change that you see, I'm on it,
which you know, but they don't.
Right.
We couldn't properly tune the bike.
And then it had little weird, like throttle sensitivity issues
and like couldn't get over it.
So I guess I just kind of gave up on the platform a little early.
So it was a little frustrating.
But dude, I put, you know, 15,000 miles on that bike
in the corners.
Great.
You know, we did the little lift.
Like I never even got to experience
shock cartridges.
The rear shock was always good.
The front was a little soft, light on the rebound.
Chassis-wise, it felt great.
The Indian really needs to work on the footboard systems
and the levers.
I know Crowe says, you know,
their stuff that they came out with,
but I'm a tall guy.
And I was still like, I didn't like
the amount of stretch that you had on it.
We did the T-bars and the pullback plate,
which was, you know, when I had that set up,
it was great.
Brakes for an end.
Like they're great bikes, you know?
So I like, I don't like to talk shit on the Indian.
I had a year of experience in it.
But there was just a couple little gripes and,
you know, at the time,
so now you can tune to 2023, you know,
so it's not an issue.
So that can, you know, be worked out.
I still feel like, I don't know,
should we say this on podcasts,
but like be a product that just completely
redesigned the floorboard setup
because it sucks.
Maybe that's what we should do next.
I've had that idea in my mind for a while,
but I'm just like,
like, can I make it happen?
Coming next to foreverad.com,
new floorboards set up for Steve Chamberlain.
How did you feel about the Indian?
Because let's talk about it.
You went to Vegas,
and Ian invited you out there.
You got to ride all the new bikes.
Because you were an influencer.
Big influencer.
Come on, dude.
Big chopper guy.
First off, I thought it was a joke
that they actually invited me.
I literally, I didn't respond to the first email.
And I did see it with Adam
that was responding to me.
I was like, I don't know if he knows this
about me, but I'm not interested.
And then he emailed again,
he was persistent.
And then I was like, you know,
I feel like, man, I finally have an audience,
even though it's not the way
I wanted an audience with Harley,
but I have an audience with Harley.
So I sent my contact with Harley.
Hey, look,
India is reaching out and wanting to send me out.
And I feel like it's a great opportunity
to go try the spikeouts.
I feel like I should take it,
but I don't want to run any progress we've made.
And he's like, don't worry about it.
A lot of our influencers go out
and do the test rides for India.
And so I was like, all right,
I want you coming back next week
and being like, oh, well, fuck that guy.
But first off, I mean,
the thing about it is the experience
of the way they treated everybody
and bringing them out and brand amp.
That was badass.
I've never experienced something like that.
Riding the bike, I mean, it's,
it is a motorcycle.
It does feel different than Harley.
As a first of all, I rode a water cool between, right?
That was different.
I don't, I can't have anything
to compare it to other than itself, right?
It is, it is like the,
that one did have a wider bar stance.
It was, you know, like,
you gotta say like, that's the first gauge bike I've ridden.
I haven't, I've been riding bikes
with no fucking gauges for like a year.
And so it's like, well, it's like,
God damn, this is a lot of information.
Right.
It's like locking the front brake when I stop.
So it doesn't roll down a hill.
Like I was like, that's kind of convenient.
But I think that like, ultimately,
you know, I didn't have enough time
on a bike to say that it's sick.
It's this, it's that.
It fucking rips.
It rides.
It stops.
It handles.
When I rode the Challenger,
we got in front of the pack
and we were riding the Valley of Fire
and it was just like rev limiter the whole time.
Just all big sweepers, right?
And it was, it was sick.
And I think that the, the one thing that I,
I recorded this entire experience, right?
To make a YouTube video about it.
And I, I just in my head,
I'm like, you know, I like the bike,
but I just don't think I'd walk into an Indian dealership.
Fair.
And I kept saying like, I,
This is because of memorabilia.
No, it's not.
I think it's because I'm from a different world.
Like I customize motorcycles.
And so when I, and this might sound super pretentious
that I'm sorry, but like, I'm like, well, if I,
I'm not going to walk into a dealership
and buy one of these and do all the things
I know how to do to it to fix it up.
When I don't, I don't know that I want one.
If I'm going to invest my own money into something,
I want to, I want to make sure it's something I want.
And I want to make sure that if it's something I can resell,
if it's done, and I don't know what the,
the resell market is on Indian challengers.
So there's just a lot of things that I think that my opinion
and read, ultimately why I never put a video out
is I don't think I had a valid opinion,
but I will say that because I rode one
and because I now have the,
can say that I've actually tried it,
then I can't talk shit about the bike
and say it's a piece of shit because it's not, right?
That's, that's, yeah.
This is the best thing you could say probably.
I'm with you on the dealership thing.
A lot of them are multi-owned by a lot of different brands.
So none of them are a hundred percent Indian.
Yes, or?
Yeah, even, even though even our duty at Music City
was like, hey, like Indians, they, they sell,
but we can do more.
And he brought a different company on
and he's counting with that company, you know?
So it's like, yeah, it's, it's a different thing.
What do you, what's so,
I think that there was a lot of confusion
that people hearing about the buyout or the sell,
not buyout, they're selling the,
the, the brand that they thought it was a desperation.
So as opposed to a free up money sell, right?
Yeah, I probably shouldn't say too much on it.
It's a little too soon.
I know a lot more than the average guy does at this point.
I think Lockhead did a video on it.
It was pretty spot on.
Okay, I haven't watched it.
I should, I will.
But I think that right now with Polaris owning Indian,
they, I believe are going to focus more on the off-road side
because they, they really made a name for themselves
in off-road.
And I think over the last 10 years,
there's been competition and maybe they're,
maybe they're falling a little bit behind
and they need to catch back up to that.
They need the capital to be able to reinvest.
Yeah, they probably viewed it as,
hey, we revived this Indian motorcycle thing.
We put it back on the, on the map.
They still have ownership of it.
Did you?
Yeah.
It's, and it's doing really,
Indian in itself is doing well.
But I think Polaris probably wants to focus more on them
themselves a little bit.
But Indian is doing well enough to where Polaris is almost like,
it's like kind of like raising your kid.
It's like, all right, go on.
Yeah.
Do your thing.
See if you're going to make it or break it.
You know, and the new owners of it,
yeah, they're, they're excited.
They're open to ideas.
And I think there's going to be probably a whole new face
for Indian motorcycle moving forward.
I think it's going to be a little bit more raw,
a little bit more gritty, more biker,
rather than whatever the public has been viewing it as.
That's one of the things I had said to one of the guys there
when I was on the deal is like,
I feel like a lot of people do that are in this space
between Harley and Indian are buying based on like
the culture that they're accepting.
No man will ever admit that.
But they do, you know,
oh, if I buy this bike, I like the tall sock boys.
You know what I mean?
I want to be your average motorcycle rider is a weekend rider,
not a long haul rider.
He's not a daily rider.
So he's the guy that wants to put on the costume for the weekend.
So that's the truth.
So I think that the one thing that Indian,
what I will say in Sturgis this year,
I saw a lot of challenges this year.
A lot more.
It felt like the Florence Bagger thing we're talking about.
We're like, oh, there's like three of us.
Now there's like, there's a bunch.
There's packs of Indian challenges.
And so I think that there may be some kind of devoted effort
to create some Indian specific events.
If they're not already, I haven't heard about any of them.
So, you know, whatever.
But those kind of things to create some kind of tribal
kind of, you know, bond with each with the owners.
They definitely do their own events.
But it's not based on the customization
or the aftermarket support
in the sense of like Harley will back mama tried
or born free or et cetera, et cetera.
I think we might see a shift in that with the new owners of it.
Because we have to get into the cultural side.
Because think about all the Indian owners
who want to go be a part of this American motorcycle,
you know, lifestyle traditional stuff.
And they don't see representation of their brand anywhere.
It's like an identity kind of like,
kind of like your dad left home and to get cigarettes.
Fair, fair.
I mean, you know, we're at the forefront of it, definitely.
Agreed.
And everything I'm saying right now, I think is not harsh.
It's just like, yo, like these are.
Oh, I deal with it.
This is who we are.
I deal with it every day, all day.
We're the biggest fish in the smallest pond.
Right. We're at the forefront.
There are some other companies who are doing a very good job of it,
just like we are.
And even as a collective, if there's three of us or five of us,
it's still not enough.
Yeah.
Right.
But the thing about it is that there's not enough consumers
for even five of us to provide to.
So it's very much the big fish in the small pond mentality.
And it's not necessarily about beating Harley Davidson.
Like that's never possible.
It just is what it is.
But it's it's entertaining an idea of something different
and doing something that most people are not doing.
And then holding on to it because when you ride the bike,
it sells itself.
The one thing Indian can do that Harley can't is they can innovate
in a way that Harley gets pushback for doing so.
Indian coming out with a water cooled motor is something that
Harley wants to do, I imagine.
But they can't do that as a fail swoop.
They had enough pushback to just the M8 on Harley.
M8 people are like, ah, it doesn't shake like my old twin cam.
I heard that shit when the M8 cam.
Well, so this is one thing I was talking about with some Harley folks.
This is like your biggest enemy is also the place you invest
to most of your marketing.
YouTube is a place full of like the people that you're supporting
as like, you know, in individual creators,
which is always great for a big brand to do that, right?
But it's also the source of all the negativity about your brand.
You know, everything that your CEO does or doesn't do,
there's 400 channels of some dude in his garage.
Yeah, I'm just saying.
Yeah.
You know, just like it has a spiel of why the RR was stupid for them to make
or why the soft-tail low rider ST is such a dumb bike,
bring back the fat boy or whatever the case may be.
And it's like, these are like,
Harley's damned with the new Dems, they don't.
And what I'm getting is the Indian doesn't have a stigma
that they have to stick with them.
They don't have a box that they're not allowed to get out of.
So they kind of, you know, they can be a little more reckless,
a little more, not reckless, a little more lucid, loose, maybe.
I don't know.
Yeah. I mean, when you're that big of a brand,
you're going to be open to the criticism from both sides,
whether it's the best or the lowest.
And in that sense, any exposure is going to be good exposure at the end of the day.
So for us, it's on the Indian side of things.
It's more about this new shift in ownership,
is more about like bigger opportunities,
not being held back so much by what the company's been for the last 10 years,
but looking towards the future and just staying,
I guess, more optimistic than anything.
Yeah.
But we're going to be leading into that instead of giving up on it
and see where it takes us.
I don't think it's a bad thing with this.
So I think if anything, it'll just,
it's just the internet exacerbates those kind of things into something bad.
Well, I mean, at the same time,
like private equity companies is a thing, you know,
and I feel like if they don't see the return of investment
that they need to see that we might be in trouble.
So I think what it's going to do is it's going to push guys like me
to go harder than I've ever gone to believe in the brand
and believe in converting people and just everything that we do
is about getting people on motorcycles,
just going out to try it and then buying one.
And then as soon as you do that, we got you covered.
You're good.
But we're just one company.
So it's hard when in the Harley world,
you got 30 or 50 companies that have your back, you know,
people want variety.
They don't just want the one company every time.
And so I deal with that stigma all the time.
A lot of people will refuse to support us
because everyone supports us and they want to do the opposite.
That's just how it goes.
It's like, I'm not going to wear DC skate shoes.
I want to buy at least because everyone because Rob Dyrdek has DC shoes here.
It's there's nothing you can do to change that.
Yeah.
So that's why what we try to do different for most of those companies
is all the things we talked about tonight was like riding your motorcycles,
getting getting out there, getting to know people,
having experiences, not just being some company on the internet.
That's just selling you parts, you know,
have put a face to the brand.
And, you know, Steve did it all the time when he was riding his Indian.
It was, oh, yeah, you're curious here.
Go ride it.
Here's the key and send people out on it.
See what they think about it.
Try it out.
Like I don't have smack to talk about it.
It's another option for somebody, you know, type of thing.
So it's like, if we went back to how my 2018 was when I bought it,
and then, you know, the 2023 Challenger.
So even if I went from a 2023 Harley road ride to a 2023 Challenger,
like when I had it, you say stock for stock, I can't change shit.
You got to ride them thing to Cali tomorrow.
I probably would have jumped on a Challenger.
Yeah.
When they came out with the 24 road ride, I was like,
all right, Harley stepped it up a little bit.
Like things changed, like the motor, you know, a little bit better,
the interface with all that.
And they said, all right, they're, they're rivaling back, you know.
So neither of them pay me, you know, so I can give you an honest opinion on it,
you know, so it's like the new Harley is really good, but the Challenger doesn't
suck, you know, or, you know, the chieftain, he let me ride the chieftain.
I rode the forge bike, you know, for quite a few miles.
They're great bikes.
Yeah.
I won't judge you for any, anyone that you go on, you know, like
whatever fits you and your riding style, like, let's go.
You know, people, the biggest gripe with, you know, challengers and Indians and all that.
Well, it's not as customizable.
Well, here we're trying to make it so you can do the stuff that you want to do,
the stuff that you want to change and all that, the stuff that makes it
better, a little bit more suited to you.
That's probably why you're also seeing more challenges come through here,
because the aftermarket is growing.
And that's a lot, the part to what you've been doing and giving people
options to get something unique.
I mean, I think American V twins period is about self-expression.
And yeah, for some people, that's some skull hand mirrors.
Right.
You know, and for others, it's, you know, an all out
balls to the wall kind of build, you know.
Yeah.
And at the end of the day, it's like, you need, you need some form of
aftermarket, but to have an aftermarket, you have to provide consistency with your
products long enough to, and you can't be changing shit every year.
Like that's the other problems.
Like people on the outside looking in, if you change the bikes every year
and you change massive parts in the way they work and they interface,
you will never have an aftermarket because the aftermarket cannot keep up with
creating new designs every years.
So the reason why I'm hardly so customizable is that I have parts that
will fit on my 82 and my 20 fucking four.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And there, I mean, that's, that's, that is literally opens the door of
aftermarket because you have an incentive to build something and make
something and your R and D doesn't, you know, it can, it can be applied
to so many models and so many things, you know.
I watched that happen in the sport bike world.
You know, sport bikes were.
Oh, they were, everything was changing just every year.
What's the next?
It was up until 2006.
It was, it was very like a lot of the, the models, you know, a high
of Boosa and a Jixxer 600 had a lot of the same components.
You know what I mean?
You could technically put a Boosa motor in a, in a 600 frame, I believe.
I might be wrong.
I could spend a long time.
But anyway, you, you could do a lot of shit like that.
But in 2007, they started changing the suspension up like multiple times.
And so the aftermarket company stopped making lowering links and
all these different things that used to do these bikes because it was like,
now this is, we just, we have one year designs.
Like that doesn't, that's not beneficial.
That's why the 2006 dyna is such a bastard year.
You know, there's one, the, the 07 seat doesn't fit, the 05 seat doesn't fit.
You know, it's like, there's things about that bike, or the, there was a,
I think the 07 bagger was a bastard year or 08.
Oh, between 06 and 08 was a cluster fuck on the Harley bagger.
Because they were going to six speed and a different like five gallon to six gallon.
Exactly. Yeah.
There's a lot of things that make it hard to make parts for it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then it's like the, the 2025 Indian Cheepton came out and basically from the tank back,
like that was a challenger.
Yeah.
So everything that we figured out on a challenger, you know, rear fender bags,
you know, all that feet controls, like all that stuff was, and then just, you know,
basically the fairing changed.
So like when we had to, you know, throw that one together for Daytona,
like we already had our challenger formula.
You have like what we did and you know, a couple other little changes,
but it was like a lot of that stuff just kind of coincided.
But like you had the other chieftain that had the air cooled motor in it.
Like that one had a different rear fender, a couple other things.
Obviously it had a different frame, you know, so like those were that.
So like when that one came out, we're like, hey, it's an all new model,
but it already kind of had a little bit of aftermarket to it
because they basically formed a new model out of it.
Think about, think about the Harley's whenever they went from,
you know, the old style bags to the Rushmore bags.
Yeah.
You know, having the lever instead of that old latch system that you could still
technically put on the older bikes.
I don't fucking miss that latch system.
So terrible.
That was the all time high of everybody's bag list.
Yeah, I did.
I lost so many hats on my old like 2001 Red Glide.
From the right side.
I think the challenger, the Indians, it's all like the competition is necessary.
And like I was just saying a couple of minutes ago,
like I feel like Harley had to step up their game because the Indian was good.
Yeah.
You know, so like it made this is friendly competition across support.
You know, like if anything, I'm sick of dudes on YouTube that are like like
rage baiters or fucking doomsday folks just like they try to like capitalize on all
anything negative about motorcycling, whether it is the Indian getting sold
or Harley's new CEO or Harley doing a 130,000 hour bike or whatever it is.
It's like, why are you making content to to sow the seeds of like uncertainty and
dissent and negativity to these brands?
Like, do you want them to sell so that you can have YouTube views?
Yeah.
Because if they fell and you're helping that happen, for what?
Like dude, the last CEO did a lot of great things for Harley.
They really did.
A lot of great bikes came out of that fucking regime or if you want to call it.
Dude, there's so many sick bikes that came out.
Let's just say since 2017.
Yeah.
You know, like since 2017, like ST, the low rider.
I mean, that's hardly ever been aligned with the culture.
Yeah.
This last time they were.
Now, if you're 60 years old and you aren't into like the performance trend that's going,
then I get you feel like misrepresented.
Right.
But how the fuck is a brand supposed to like continue to evolve if they're only
building bikes for one demographic?
And it's the one that's probably on their last bike.
Yeah.
You know, and it sucks to say that because those dudes should be stoked and
we're trying to carry the torch, you know, like we're out there trying to
do the shit that they used to do.
And instead, they're just motherfucking us.
You know, their motherfucking the type of bikes that it's like they didn't make
fun of like when we put T bars on these things.
Yeah.
You know, they're back in the day.
They were stoked when the Evo came out and they didn't have to deal with shovel heads
anymore.
And then nowadays they're like, oh, shit, fucking MA came out.
Like, fuck that thing.
It's not like my old stuff anymore.
But it's like, dude, you 25 years prior, you were, you know,
I guess what I would say about the YouTubers to wrap that segment up is like,
man, it just just go make your own content.
Go out.
Go.
If you're going to make a YouTube video and you're just going to sit there and like
tap in, you're going to watch the S&P 500 to see how Harley's doing and just
keep it like, dude, go where do you live?
Show me the fucking rides you have or the the the cool taverns or bars or
restaurants or food or.
Right.
Get it.
Bring value to this instead of just negativity.
Like throughout my YouTube and like I've had so many people have come up to me
over the years and said, like, you're kind of a reason why I went and got a bike.
Like I watched the stuff that you did on it, you know, and all that.
And like they got, you know, stoked about it.
And I was like, oh fuck yeah, you know, like just watch me go on trips.
You know, people that were on there just, you know, soft tails with big
old A-Pangers and they just kind of go do some bar hopping.
Next thing you know, they're crossing city lines and they're, you know, I'm like,
yeah, cool.
Guess what?
Colorado's sweet.
California's cool.
Like, yeah, I haven't ridden there on the streets, but
but it's cool.
He's like traveling around like going up to Laconia Bike Week, you know,
going through the Smoky Mountains.
Like, you know, people watching some videos and just out of complete
jealousy that they're like, I want to experience this.
Like, why the fuck is this guy going out and doing this when I can do that?
Yeah.
Like, I can go do what you were doing.
Like, I feel like the most success comes from just making some people jealous.
You know, be like, hey, yeah, I'm out there doing that.
Maybe saying jealous is like the wrong word.
You just, you're showing people something that exists that they can obtain.
Yeah.
You know.
And I mean, it's, it's jealousy.
Sacrifice.
Jealousy is a negative word.
So it seems like it's a negative influence or nowadays.
It's like any way you put it, you know, just we've been out here,
we've been doing fun shit on fucking motorcycles for years.
You want to go do fun shit?
Guess what?
Take the step.
Let's go.
You want to do an Indian?
You want to do an hourly?
Don't care.
You want to make your bike cool?
We can help you make it happen.
Like, what's your dream?
You know, we can make all of that happen.
Can I get to keep the fuck up?
JTFU.
Let's go.
All right.
You boys done?
I think we're good.
I'm gonna get this out.
It was a good podcast.
That's Chamberlain 5150.
I want your screen was being fab.
Did you turn this off?
No.
Oh, okay.
No.
Hey, that's Steve.
Steve.
Steve Chamberlain.
That's Chamberlain 5150.
He doesn't make YouTube videos anymore.
Check this deed out at the forever ad YouTube channel.
He's a quitter.
For real.
I'm on everyone else's YouTube.
For real.
You know, you watch...
You're like the Easter eggs.
I just like pop in.
Just there.
Where the fuck's this guy been?
I'm just like, I just do my own thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I appreciate it, man.
It's been fun.
It's been good catching up and, you know,
seeing the growth of this place, it's always inspiring.
Get more skateboards, man.
They're everywhere.
Dude, there's at least 100 upstairs.
He's going to make like a whole another row.
We're about to do a second.
We're about to do a second row.
Yeah.
So we're...
I'm almost up to 500 now, which I'm not afraid to admit.
I'm an addict.
But I don't use meth.
So there's...
Yeah, there's motorcycles and skateboards.
So, yeah, man.
Lots of big shit coming up.
We got a full ass shop.
Yeah.
Stay tuned.
Steve's killing it.
I'm killing it.
Sprinkle's killing it.
Sprinkle left.
See you, Sprinkle.
He could have been on the podcast.
I don't...
I had another mic.
I don't know.
That's fine.
He would have just giggled the whole time.
I was gonna say, last time he was on the podcast,
and I had to sit there and...
We'll get Sprinkle and get him to have a mic.
We'll get him next time.
Yeah.
He can't be like,
I'll do a podcast with him tomorrow morning.
Because he won't wake up before then.
True.
Well, the reason I was like,
I want to do a podcast with you and y'all separately.
And then the more I thought about it, I was like, man.
Dude, I drove 700 miles today.
You had a long day.
And then a little bit.
Three in the morning.
I left at 3.20.
I made it to Speed Dealers at 10 a.m.
Did a two-hour podcast, had lunch,
hopped on the road.
I spent half my middle of the day,
and dude, I had a coffee this fucking big
from Dunkin' Donuts before I got here.
Cheater.
Exactly.
And then, dude, I'm just like...
That's a long ass day.
I was kind of looking forward to doing a podcast with my wife,
because the whole working with your spouse thing
would have been cool to hear both sides.
Yeah.
And we would have probably argued and screamed
and yelled at each other.
People like that.
People like that.
I mean, you've been working.
Like an American chopper or some shit.
Yeah.
This is OCC.
Yeah.
Yeah, don't get me started on OCC, brother.
Yeah.
Bro, I went down to their shop in Florida almost a year ago.
It was like a $5,000 trip.
It cost me a lot of money.
And they were like, oh, here we're going to film this TV show.
Cool.
So I brought a Harley and an Indian.
And now they're not even going to show it.
They're like creating a whole new TV show.
Yeah.
So a mile of five grand.
Oh, that's gay.
Chopper shit.
Okay.
Anyways, hey, good times.
Thanks for watching.
We'll see you next time.
I hope you guys enjoyed that episode.
Had a great time talking with Kyle and Steve,
old friends.
Always love getting together with them.
And hopefully you guys are getting ready for the holidays
by checking out some of our sponsors.
They got great offer codes down in the links below
to save yourself some money on some cool parts for your bike.
Also, don't forget about our Patreon
if you want to support this podcast
and help us keep it going into 2026.
Your support is very, very needed.
So I got another great podcast coming up really soon
with Clean Moto.
We talk a lot of FXRs and performance in that one.
I can't wait for you to hear it.
So till the next one, you guys have a good one.
Peace.
About this episode
A deep dive into the world of performance motorcycles with Steve Chamberlain and Kyle from Forever Rad. The conversation spans the evolution of performance baggers, the impact of Indian motorcycles, and personal experiences on the road. They discuss the challenges and triumphs of building custom bikes, the importance of community, and the future of the motorcycle industry. With anecdotes from their rides and insights into the culture, this episode captures the essence of what it means to be a motorcycle enthusiast today.
Kyle from Forever Rad, out of the St. Louis area, has been pumping out high-quality, performance-focused motorcycles for many years now! One of the first to take on the Indian Platform and since then has built some of the baddest Indians to rip the streets! Also on this episode is one of the fastest guys I have ever ridden with, Steve Chamberlin. On this episode, we talk about indians, Harleys, and the past, present, and future of the Performance bagger!