I think you could do the same thing with a roomful of corporate executives in search of a theme bike to promote whatever they think is best promoted by an extravagantly customized motorcycle that will never ever see the open road. Again you know, super long, super low, radically raked forks requiring 24”-over tubes minimum, no wheel lock to speak of, 124” minimum displacement engines with a zillion unneeded horsepower, a seat that only a man who is about to pass over to the next life wouldn’t complain about, acres of air brushed corporate graphics over a multi-layer paintjob only a big corporation or Barnett’s Jack Cofano could afford, and lots of silly, self indulgent corporate knick- knacks spread out over the build or kinda incorporated into the design.

 

   That’s exactly what we’ve got here with a Nationwide Insurance showpiece/theme bike that those design-daring corporate boys and girls okayed after possibly being forced to watching all the episodes of the fifth season of American Chopper back to back with no pee breaks. Actually I neither like nor dislike them, I just take them for what they are ─ corporate theme bikes built to a design that lets you know it represents a corporate entity in a heartbeat. There’s nothing wrong with that as they’re never intended to hit the open road, but for meetings and awards presentations and static lobby displays and photo ops, etc. until they either end up being raffled off for charity or given to a 50-year employee who’s now old enough they can’t swing a leg over it.   

 

  Now I better make myself perfectly clear here and make sure you understand this is not any putdown of the builders, Savage Cycles of Frostburg, Maryland. Sean Snyder and his crew do a wonderful job of constructing a bike and just happen to have successfully done a lot of corporate bikes as well as regular old customer bikes like this wild V-Rod we previously featured on Barnet’s Magazine Online. Oh little things like a Jack Daniels bike, an Axis of Steel event bike, a Resident Evil bike, and a bike for the Green Lantern movie to name just a few. Hey, Sean’s got a good thing going and Savage Cycles does a nice job building and finishing off a theme bike while capturing that more elusive than Bigfoot corporate spirit. Hey at least they aren’t on TV trying to make this seem like high art although they did make a pilot for a show that I don’t think has or will come to fruition as it was done back in 2009.

 

  Obviously a neat little Harley Evo bobber is not going to capture a potential customer’s attention in a show display and Nationwide was smart enough to know that and take advantage of it. Just like at any bike show anywhere, the three “O”s (outrageous, outlandish, and over the top) bring ‘em in for a look/see every time. There’s probably even a strange familiarity to the shape that makes a non-motorcyclist as well as a motorcyclist immediately comfortable. “Hey that looks like the bike OCC built for . . .” probably comes to mind and then they can compare the two bikes with the confidence that corporate theme bikes don’t follow any rules but their own. And, as we all know, corporate rules are subject to change with no notice. Hey, just read the fine print.