Boomers Bike Shop

Sportsters SUCK!! Or that’s what most guys riding their fully dressed Bagger would say. Sure it wouldn’t be my first choice to jump on and ride out to California, but they are great bike to chop up, or beat the hell out of doing some city riding. The Sportster is a great power plant for anyone building a chopper, they are cheap and reliable, even I hate to admit it but, these bikes seem to run forever, they are inexpensive to modify and are pretty comfortable with very few changes to the factory geometry. Just last week we found this cool 1996 rigid Sporty project with a Harley springer front end; online. I called the guy right away. Matt had started building the bike some time back and just lost interest in it. He ended up bringing it down to the shop for $1200.00. Wasting no time, Josh put it on the lift and started taking the springer off and swapping it for a narrow glide we had lying around. While he was at it, I had him change the wheels. Matt had some 130/90-16 front and rear on it and just wouldn’t work with a narrow glide. He put a Fatboy wheel out back and an old Shovelhead 19” up front the bike was starting to take some shape. We found a pipe in the pile of parts that came with the Chop, and while it didn’t look like the coolest pipe in the world it did give the bike a look, good or bad, but added some personality to an otherwise common looking Sporty. We sold that old springer online for $1250.00 bucks and with a few other parts that came with it, we made just about $1500.00 just from the parts. So I was feeling pretty good on having a roller Sporty Chop hanging around the shop. While at the Sins of Steel Show I decided to do a burn out in my 68 Cadillac, not my best decision, the old girl didn’t hold up to it. The rear end gave out so I was in need of a car. My buddy Joe had a nice old 95’ Camaro that he wanted to get rid of. Now I’m not the biggest fan of that year Camaro but with a 383 stroker, built transmission and a tall rear end I thought this might be fun. So I traded Joe that sporty chop for the car and some cash. Now I have a nice 1995 Camaro for sale, only drive to church on Sundays and it gets great gas mileage, if anyone is looking. As many bikes as we find online or people bringing them to the shop, sometimes you find them when you’re not even looking, I got a call from a friend of mine named Corky last winter. Corky’s dad had passed a while ago. I knew his father for some time and had some really great times with him, I also knew how much he and his son, Corky, had worked on bikes together over the years. When Corky called, he was trying to help his mom out and was selling his dads old parts off. We made a deal on all the parts; I got Josh and my buddy Terry to come help me move all the stuff. While we digging though some cool old chopper parts, which included some Ron finch parts I hadn’t seen in years, I noticed some trailers out back. What I found in them was some of the coolest trikes I’ve ever seen all were old shovelheads but one was crazier than the rest it was called the Rickshaw. This crazy trike was a Panhead wishbone frame front half with some rake to it and a Servi-Car back half. The motor was Generator Shovelhead Motor, the trans was a 4 speed. It looked like something Finch would have made back in the days of old. Corky told us all how his dad built the bike in the garage and took it to a few shows around the area. We are still not sure what to do with this bike. I think it is one of those bikes that are ”biker lore”, the ones you hear stories about sitting at an ol’ bar, with a gray beard, hearing about days gone by. Like a lost David Mann painting.