Thursday, September 17

The Panhead that started it all

Chopper Dave changed my life. No, really.

I remember stumbling across his website perhaps eleven or twelve years ago and just having some sort of quasi-religious experience when I saw the bikes he was featuring. This little vintage custom/chopper scene was of course established in California, but it was all new to me and bikes like Dave's were pretty much unlike anything I'd seen before. It made me totally dissatisfied with the shovel I was riding at the time, and made me turn it into a retro-styled chopper.

Dave ended up helping me set up the GK website, and even contributed photos from events like the first Viva Las Vegas (because he wanted to concentrate purely on motorcycles). This photo comes from a set he sent me around eight or nine years ago.

His Panhead simply made me want a bike just like it. Every configuration it went through just looked better and better. I remember doing a little profile of him on the GK site and asking why no mags had ever featured him and his bike!

Anyway, thanks Dave. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now without your influence... and certainly wouldn't be riding the style of bikes I do.

1 comment:

grant said...

i was there that weekend in vegas when this picture was taken, in fact, i thinks that's when i met Dave and his ex Tami.