“I think I built this bike in ’05, ’06,” he said. “My signature orange and white bike I had worn out; the lower end, the rods were worn out, the heads were worn out. Nothing was abused; it was just worn out because I had ridden it for ten years. I needed something, so I built this bike. It’s a throwback to my beginnings, sort of, because we always took the fat bob tanks and cut ’em up and made a custom tank. Because, you know, you couldn’t buy a lot of stuff back then when I started.”

Back in 1971, Sugar Bear held the philosophy that has been much quoted in recent years, stating “all bikes were meant to have scrapes, chips, burnt pipes, dents, style, and smiles-per-miles.” Now, in 2010, it’s still his philosophy.

“We made our own fenders in the beginning, and we always put a little lip on the back,” he explained. “So for this bike I cut up a set of fat bobs to make it, and I made the fender, and of course I made the springer and handlebars and all that kind of stuff.” Not a fan of two-wheeled peacocks, Sugar Bear wanted this bike to be black, pure and simple. “I wanted it just black, no sixteen different colors and no foofurall. I just wanted motorcycle, a riding motorcycle. And this bike has been very good to me, I’ve had a great time with it, I’m still riding it, and it’s kept me from putting my orange and white bike together, which I just started on.”

Asking a legend like Sugar Bear for the specs on his personal bike he built himself five years ago is like, well, try to imagine yourself asking Robert DeNiro his motivation while filming Raging Bull. You’d feel like a rube, right? But it’s my job and I had to forge ahead anyway, so I tried to ease into it with the innocuous subject of mileage.

“So,” I said, casually, “how miles do you have on it?”

He burst out laughing and said, “I don’t know! I don’t keep track of that stuff!”

It was at this point in the interview that a dog fight broke out under my desk, a vicious scuffle involving a Chihuahua, a Pomeranian, and a rogue Pup-Peroni that had somehow rolled under there. It required my breaking it up using only my bare feet and a rolled up copy of the 2010 Summer Issue of Barnett’s Magazine while covering the phone with my hand so Sugar Bear couldn’t hear it. But my acrobatics were for naught, because Sugar Bear was still laughing at my question about the mileage on his bike.

He (thankfully) went on to say, “For the past five years if you’ve seen me on a bike, it’s been this bike. It’s a stock Harley motor with just a small cam in it. I made the exhaust pipes…I know everything about this bike. I made the handlebars, the gas tank, the front-end, the fender. The seat was made by Andy Barr Enterprises, he made seats for me in the ’70s and he’s still making them. He’s pretty much made most of the seats I’ve had up to this point.”

Sugar Bear has been to Sturgis on this bike “three or four times” and even had it shipped to Hawaii for an event. “When it got there we took it for a ride around the island of Oahu, and riding around the island it’s a two-lane road. There was a group of us, and when we went past one of the places where we wanted to stop we had to make a u-turn. I was the only person that could make a u-turn. Some of the guys took pictures because they could not believe…they thought they were gonna take a picture of me backing up, turning, backing up, turning — but it’s real simple, you just turn the wheel. The guys on stock bikes couldn’t turn, and I never went off the pavement. I just turned. It blew them away.”

To help spread the cause, Sugar Bear donated a front-end to Kevin “Teach” Bass of Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minnesota, who has been teaching the “Chopper Class,” an extracurricular activity where students fabricate and build choppers, since 2002. “Teach was at Sturgis last year, and he was letting people ride the one they’re building at school,” Sugar Bear said. “He said the people just couldn’t believe it. I’m trying to re-educate people, and choppers always go out of style because they’re so hard to handle. People always say, ‘Who wants to sit on this thing, you have to fight it all the time, you can’t relax.’ But they haven’t ridden something that I’ve helped set up.”

Re-educating people about the ease of handling a chopper that was built correctly, specifically a Sugar Bear bike, continues to be an ongoing process. “My career’s been kind of funny because all my career I’ve had to fight that thing where people made front-ends incorrectly and that was the norm, but I couldn’t get any press to tell anybody,” he said. “Normally what happens when I ride that bike and someone rides with me, they usually want one. Because everybody believes that old wives’ tale that you can’t handle long bikes. And it’s a Softail, so it’s probably smoother than a regular Softail because of the gearing. I’ve got tall gears on it. My ratio is where the vibration normally comes in at 65, on mine it doesn’t come in until about 90. Not only is it smooth and the motor doesn’t work as hard, it lasts a long time. I’m having a great time out on the road and it just blows everybody away.”

Sugar Bear recalled the time his son, Turk, who’d only ridden Sugar Bear bikes, attempted to ride a stock bike. “When my son was working with me, he’d only ever ridden my bikes. He finished up the riding class just before we went to Sturgis, and we go to Sturgis and he was on my orange and white chopper, 25-inches over. And three minutes into riding he had his left hand in his lap going down the highway at 65-70 miles and hour. So, two years later, he gets on a stock bike for the first time and he almost dropped it. He said it was too heavy, it didn’t steer good, he couldn’t turn well on it. He could not believe anybody would ride anything like that. Recently, Trevelen had the same epiphany. He rode with me to San Diego and he was riding a stock Dyna, and he thought it was gonna take us an extra hour or so to get there ‘cuz he’d never been anywhere with anyone with a springer, especially a long springer, that could go over 60 miles an hour comfortably; and I got on the on-ramp at 70. When we got down near San Onofre and the atomic plant it’s just all straight and flat, I was running 85 and went up to 90 and then I slowed down because we had a pace truck behind us. So he came back from that and he’s built a 30 over and says that’s the only way to fly. Once people ride ’em, they can’t believe it’s just that easy. It’s like going from a regular manual steering car to power steering.”

In addition to his famous springer front-ends and frames, Sugar Bear has a lot of things going on. He’s moved his shop half a mile up the street to 12912 South Normandy Avenue, Gardena, California. It’s a larger space and easily accommodates both his work shop and his new museum, a tribute to his history in the industry. Still in place is his strict policy of visitors by appointment only. “When you come by my shop it looks like it’s closed. I have a sign now, it’s just the heart and wings, but no words — if you don’t know what the heart and wings mean you don’t belong here,” he said, chuckling. “I keep the shop looking…well, if you come by at midnight it looks the same as it does at noon. It’s by appointment only, and I don’t have a doorbell. If you come and knock on the doors I won’t hear you. If you don’t call, then you just made a trip for nothing. Even if I hear you knocking and you haven’t called, I will not answer.” He laughs for a moment, then adds, “I’m serious.”

It’s not that Sugar Bear is unfriendly — he’s very friendly, good natured with an easy laugh — but he’s a hard worker who doesn’t like to be interrupted. But when Sundays roll around, he rolls out, and friends and fans are welcome to join him. “Our Sunday rides have become a tradition,” he said. “People know if they wanna see me or ride with me all they have to do is show up at the shop around 8:30 to 8:45 Sunday morning, ‘cuz at 9 o’clock I leave.” If you plan on joining him, you best be there before 9, because he will leave at 9.

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. Sugar Bear is a card carrying member of SAG (Screen Actors Guild). He’s represented by Coast to Coast Talent Agency, in Los Angeles, and has been doing national TV commercials since 1998, his first being for AT&T. His most recent commercial, shot about four weeks ago, was for McDonald’s. Before that, it was U.S. Bank and AARP. While some actors wait years to break into national TV ads, Sugar Bear has shot three in the past four months. In case you’ve missed him in the AARP ad where he’s wearing a suit and carrying a brief case, you can check it out here.

He’s been doing commercials since 1998. Not too shabby for a guy whose passion is building and riding motorcycles and (sometimes) has to be physically dragged to auditions for commercials. He got his start when a friend’s daughter was beginning her career as an agent and asked to represent him. Sugar Bear went along with it, never dreaming he’d stumble on a sideline career. Frankly, it didn’t matter much to him. “It wasn’t until a couple years later that I found out not everybody can get an agent,” he said. “I have friends now that want to do commercials, but they’re not taking people. I walked right into it, not knowing what I was walking into.”

Sugar Bear is also working on a book about his years growing up in the chopper industry, filled with stories and recollections and, knowing him, probably chock full of surprises.

“I’m having a good life,” he said. “I’m having fun.”

Thank you Sugar Bear for sharing a weekday morning with us. To check out Sugar Bear’s website, his bike gallery and products, and his latest addition of chopper posters for sale, visit him at www.sugarbearchoppers.com.

And thank you to our photographer, Brian Crawford, for traveling out to Sugar Bear’s shop for Barnett’s Online.