Hell’s Kitchen is a name to be remembered. The history of the chopper, as we know it, started with the movie Easy Rider in 1969, but Hell’s Kitchen is much older. Just the bright and colorful choppers in Easy Rider, the history of the real Hell’s Kitchen — the neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City that covers roughly the area from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River — started in...

  If you’re looking for a Frisco-style chopper, where better to look than San Francisco itself and in this case, our feature bike, Frisco-Style, by California Choppers located on 1490 Howard Street, right in the heart of San Francisco. Owner Wayne Hodges has the skinny on these skinny bikes as he not only works there, but was born and raised there too so I’d think it would be fair...

  Marcus bought this bike as a basket, with most of the parts there but in bare metal, primer, and some rust: your typical grab bag. What turned out not to be typical was that at some point this bike was a Chandler Original, either a kit or a disassembled bike owned or built by Adam Chandler. Not only stickers, but the title showed this to be true. After about six months of...

  Vince Vaccaro drag raced on the street and track until recent years, when he felt like his reflexes were no longer as sharp as they should be for a sport where a micro-second flick of a wrist can mean the difference between winning and losing your pink slip, or your life. Vaccaro has been a realtor for 40 years, all of it in Phoenix, where he said he has sold some 2,000 homes. He...

Something Old “Back in the early ‘90s, I was working with Kevin Starke in Canada who was making frames and boy, the quality was there. We sold a ton of his Softail frames back in the ‘90s. He called me up one day and said, ‘I’ve got an idea for a rubber-mount Softail using an FXR drivetrain.’ Kevin did this one frame for me that we had fun with, it had a gooseneck and some rake and...

Shop owner Paul Binford, being a huge fan of the show, started it all off; the idea was that we really wanted to build a bike that appealed to the masses, a bike people would get some enjoyment from looking at! First we knew there had to be a mural of Tony Soprano himself on the bike, then came the Bada-Bing hand made seat. The next two features are what we really think sets the...

2005 Raven Prowler Story by Mark Barnett, Photos by Frank Rangel In the Post-Custom Bike Craze (PCBC) time in which we live, it is hard to look back and remember the 1,100 or so individuals and small companies that went into business producing choppers. There were definitely a lot of them. Raven was started down in Houston and made it to the point that...

  With a hunger for speed, Graves Customs specializes in anything with wheels and a motor. Maximizing the shop’s exposure with multiple features in a variety of custom magazines with a style designed to impress and awe, Graves isn’t afraid to build bikes that blend voluptuous curves, big-inch motors, and loads of flashy metal. Current trends suggest future finishes and frame...

  BBC’s latest model, the Athena chopper, comes directly from Kevin’s Biker Build-Off winning design, which was named after the late daughter of his best friend, Mike “The Greek” Aspiotes. This one-off design for the TV show was built with more than just winning the Build-Off, but ultimately being a production bike from the get-go. “We built the Athena for a reason, which was to...

  David called this bike Epitome because it was the culmination of all his knowledge and skill at that time. “One of my best customers, Ken Kelly, wanted to see what I was capable of,” David explains. “He didn’t want me to limit myself and told me not to worry about any of the costs. I didn’t have to compromise on any materials and was able to hand-fabricate and modify almost every...