Some folks over in the states might be under the impression that every garbage truck driver in Japan owns a pre 1969 Harley (or multiple) by way of some back room under the table connection whereby every surviving chopper or bobber in the states is crated under the cover of darkness and shipped directly from a barn in the states to the west coast and put on a slow boat to Asia in some kind of stealth Ninja operation, never to return. I too contemplate this often especially at motor shows here. Just like in the States there are "collectors" with deep pockets who are in the business of grabbing up chopper history to add to their garage or sell at a mark up, to someone with even deeper pockets, but the grand majority of folks riding DO NOT have pockets that deep and own only one bike which more often than not is of Japanese make (despite what I usually photo for this blog). While most of my personal Japanese friends here do ride Harley's, even they mostly own one single solitary Ironhead, EvoSporty or Cone Shovel with very few exceptions. Most of them pieced their machine together with some difficultly. Those are just the twenty or so people I happen to know here, out of however many tens of thousands of folks riding custom bikes in Japan. These guys and girls are a lot like my (and probably your) friends, not rich, just diggin choppers, diggin riding and appreciating the resulting friendships. Here are some examples of what some shops are doing with domestic bikes. For more complete coverage of what was inside the Joints 2012 Custom Motor show go see my friend MAKI's site (also an Ironhead owner). He has got it covered!
No comments:
Post a Comment