The Big Daddy Rat lead photo filled me in a bit on the who, what and where the second I saw Todd “Gilby” Gilbertson, owner of Gilby’s Street Dept. in River Falls, Wisconsin, standing there with a smile of satisfaction on his face. I couldn’t help but think, of course, it’s a Gilby’s bike as Mr. Gilby is not afraid to take on a crazy build, make it even crazier as he went along and then wait for the accolades to roll in. What he’s done here is take a design that would have even been possibly too radical for the radical ‘70s chopper world and pumped it up with custom motorcycle steroids until it was beyond-beyond. I try and imagine what it would be like to be sitting at a stop sign minding your own business and then this long, long yellow thing just rumbles by. Did I just see what I thought I did would be my only thought at that point.

    Gilby’s been around long enough that I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by this Hamster member builder who seems to enjoy his flights of motorcycle fancy back to the times when a Mr. Nixon was in the White House. There’s not the least hint he’s building something other than show bikes although even this ride gets a bit of street use. I don’t mean it’s used to go get a loaf of bread, but Gilby’s not afraid of much as you can tell and riding it is his frosting on the cake. I’ve seen videos of him riding it and I am surprised it seemed okay to putt around town on although U-turns are not its friend I assume. How long is that thing anyway?

    This bike called Green Onion after the Booker T. and The M.G.s hit song Green Onions is something special that I really started to enjoy for what it is once I got over my own custom bike preferences. Hearing that it got named Green Onion because Gilby liked to street race motorcycles (although not this one I’m sure) and would get pumped up before every race listening to Green Onions was enough background for me as I loved Booker T. and The M.G.s too. Street racing and hyping yourself up with a ‘70s instrumental sounds like a good reason to me. Somehow I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the background sound to this build too. Facing something this monumental of a build must’ve required a bit of pumping up and old Booker T. could do that. Anyway, the whole street racer thing must’ve had a lot to do with that big-inch Shovelhead and that musical group’s worth of carbs.

    The crew at Gilby’s spent some serious time and effort bringing this thing to reality with probably more sheet metal work that just about anything else you see these days this side of a custom car. And, I’m not talking all fiberglass stuff like a lot of custom baggers imbibe in, but metal. Somewhere inside this bodywork is a frame, a lay frame, that you have to assume is there as the molded sheet metal bits hide anything round and tube-like. That goes for the Gilby’s-built air suspension fork too as there’s a lot more going on here than absolutely needs to be, but that’s exactly the ‘70s show bike way Gilby has taken and never looked back. I just keep looking at that fork and wonder how the hell that came about. Ain’t never seen nothing like it and probably never will again.

   Same goes for the rest of the fabulously flaunting bodywork with fins and three Zoomie-style headers sticking out each side. Check out the fuel tank, it has tusk-like appendages curling forward and downward to basically bring the body sculpturing around the engine. Mirroring this wave of metal is what I’ll call a reverse chin spoiler doing the same free-standing Watusi dance in metal. The metal shaping for all this stuff must have taken an incredible amount of time and effort to bring to fruition. Somewhere during this build, probably half-way, the crew at Gilby’s must have started to wonder where the hell they were going with this bike and whose idea was it?  Okay, maybe that’s just my ignorant take on possibly something that never actually happened, but you gotta think it crossed at least somebody’s mind.

     The whole mini-fairing/instrument cluster/handlebar setup simply defies any description I might give it. The way that whole crazy system ties in together, while being totally disparate pieces, is a little beyond my comprehension. I love looking at custom bikes and this lovably whacky, over-the-top ‘70s-style custom brings a smile to my face to just drinking all the craziness, imagination, skill and hard work it took to make it. Two people could work on this bike and possibly hardly see each other as it covers a lot of ground just sitting there on its suspension bump stops.

    Okay, you’ve got about as wild a design as you’re likely to see on a freshly built bike, but Gilby’s Street Dept. is more than just a bunch of freaks who love sheet metal. The whole motorcycle biz actually came about because of Gilby’s talents with a spray gun. He doesn’t disappoint the least bit here with a nicely-in-your-face paintjob that is just as wild and fitting to Green Onion as the bodywork is. Yellow, orange and green hues in various shades swarm all over the unusual sheet metal and give it the ‘70s vibe that doesn’t look the least bit out of place or too over-the-top. Check it out, there’s some real classy handiwork going on here.

    Gilby’s Street Dept.’s crew has killed it with this ode to the wacky ‘70s show bikes or choppers as they were called back then. There’s a lot of different schools of thought as far as custom bikes go, but so far, this is about the closest you could get to home schooling for tradesmen raised in a vacuum by mechanically-inclined wolves. There’s nothing here quite like what you’ve seen before, but now because of Gilby, you’ll never be able to say that again.

  For more info on Gilby’s Street Dept. check out http://www.gilbys.scope10mobile.com/ or visit them on all the social media.