Jack and I differ about paint jobs and what we think is cool, for him, the nuttier the better it seems (maybe that’s the photographer in him), while I’m so much more boringly conservative about paint and the simpler, the better. But after taking a look at Jacko’s photo gallery of Rick Levitan’s Beatles Bike, the paint job by Chris Cruz Artistry (www.chriscruz.com) adorning the relatively stock 2002 Wide Glide is a work of art more than a theme-bike piece or a regular old keep-it-from-rusting finish.

Rick, who hails from Potomac, Maryland, obviously is a diehard Beatles fan along with being a biker nut and combined his two loves into one piece for Beatles fans like Jack to go nuts over (www.beatlesbike.com). Other than some custom wheels, a Vance & Hines exhaust, and a bit of chrome frippery her and there, Rick’s Wide Glide is much the way York originally made it. That’s not a big deal to Rick as, believe it or not, he really rides this bike and has over 20,000 miles on it so it’s just not some tarted-up garage queen.

Since this is really all about the paint and Rick’s Fab Four addiction, I’ll let him explain his paint job. “The cover photos from Let It Be are on the front fender and Ringo’s bass drum is on the derby cover; Yellow Submarine images are on the side of the rear fender (Blue Meanie) and Rubber Soul is on the rear fender. The picture of Paul on the front fender is from the Let It Be album cover,” says Rick. “The original Capitol Records’ ‘rainbow’ label was used on the earlier records and the Apple Corp label was used on Abbey Road and Let It Be records. The back rest features 45 rpm records. John Lennon’s self-portrait is on the air cleaner and the images from A Hard Day’s Night run across the top of the tank. The gas cap on the top of the tank features the Apple Corp logo. The Magical Mystery Tour logo is painted on the front chrome spoiler. The White Album is featured on the battery cover and features the four black-and-white photos inside the album cover, along with the embossed The Beatles album-cover title and a serial number which was on the front cover of the first release of the album in 1968. Everything you see on the bike has been air brushed or hand painted. For example, the chrome spoiler on the front of the bike with the Magical Mystery Tour logo/graphics was done with a brush completely by hand.”

Phew! That takes care of the paint aspect, but that’s not all the Beatles hardware included in this two-wheeled homage to Liverpool’s Lads of Lyrical Lucrativity. “The kick-stand was fabricated by McGowan Metal Fabrications and utilizes a stock Dyna Wide Glide kick-stand. The Peace Sign was fabricated using case-hardened steel utilizing the TIG welding process for a clean look,” Rick says. “The Imagine heel-kick was laser cut into stainless steel utilizing a 4000-watt laser machine and then finished by graining the metal with 400-grit sand paper and polishing with fiber cloth for the chrome. The entire fabrication took over 40 hours to create. Chrome finishing was done by 21st Century Finishes, Inc.”

But wait, there’s more hard stuff. “A LePera seat customized by Advanced Custom Design aka Alligator Bob who did a spectacular job. The seat features the face images from Meet The Beatles which are surrounded by the albums of Meet the Beatles, Yesterday and Today, Revolver, and Let It Be with the original labels as released by Capitol and/or Apple Records,” says Rick. “The back rest features three 45 rpm records – Please, Please Me, Ticket to Ride, and Hey Jude. The right side mirror is a chromed duplicate of a ticket that would have gotten you in to see the Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl on August 30, 1965. The left side mirror is a chromed replica of an actual ticket from the Beatles first concert in the US, February 11, 1964, at the D. C. Coliseum. The price? $3.00!”

Three bucks? Three bucks for a seat at a Beatles’ concert? That even seems cheap for back then, but according to the poster advertisements, some seats sold for as much as $7 (must have been backstage or under Ringo’s drums to command that much money!). Cripe, for what Rick’s probably got in this paint job alone, he could’ve at least bought a coupla-thousand seats back then. But I guess all he’d have is memories and not a Wide Glide with a paint job that’d drive Jack Cofano insane and for that I thank him.