And I guess if we're going to get right down to the nitty-gritty, who are you more impressed by: the guy who spun wrenches on his own bike and turned it into HIS bike -- even if it's not exactly to your taste -- or the guy who just plunked down green on somebody ELSE'S effort?
I actually met some guys riding chopped Harleys one day while I was filling up at a gas station. They were old grizzled fellows and their bikes were chopped and customized panheads and knuckleheads. Not quite my taste, but not bad.
One approached me and complimented my bike (400F). Said he had one for daily duty back in "the day". I was taken aback. I thanked him and then complimented his ride and said that he was riding a unique machine. He smiled and said it was a panhead he bought back in the early fifties after he got back from Korea and he chopped, customized and maintained it by himself in his garage ever since. I was impressed and told him so.
He agreed with me on my dislike of the new breed of "custom chopper" riders. He says you don't pay for a bike, you build it with your own sweat, blood and tears. He calls the new bikes "Checkbook Choppers" because some chump drops a check and has a "custom" bike. He is personally insulted as he had to weld up his own hardtail frame 50 years ago and build the bike from nothing and he feels that people who buy ones from a custom shop are posers who have no right to ride with the real bikers. He also said that any rider who rips on my ride for being foreign, small displacement or whatever is a loser who is compensating for other "shortcomings".
That guy was a REAL biker, as I think we are. The plastic fantastic kiddies and new chopper posers are trying to buy into the culture and lifestyle. You have to earn it with busted knuckles, oily hands, sweaty brows and the ability to troubleshoot and fix ANY problem in your machine with a minimum of hand tools.
Regarding Carpy's bikes, as much as I LOVE them, (and I do), I could never buy one. I might steal some of his ideas, I might copy one of his bikes, but
I would build it.
I would be the one to build up my Cafe Racer in my own vision. Not someone else, even if that person is as bad ass as Carpy. If I bought one of his bikes, I would be buying a Checkbook Chopper. I would be giving someone else money to make my vision come to life without lifting a finger myself. No, I cannot do that. My bike may not be as good as Carpy's, but it would be mine, and you can lay money on the fact that I would spend the time to make it so.
(I actually found a bike of his that he built and I already wanted to build one EXACTLY like it, so would that mean that I was "stealing" his idea, even though I thought if it before I found it on his site? Hope not, because I am going to build it that way anyway.)
