9/20/2008

The Art of the Chopper


Today, I got to shoot a Osborne BBQ at the Clinton Presidential Library. The BBQ was the Bikers for Babies fundraiser for the March of Dimes. Also at the Clinton Library today there was a BBQ Cooking Contest and inside there was Chopper Art show.

The purpose of the day was to shoot the BBQ for the Osborne Family. Jennings and Mitzi provided the lunch for the 2700 bikers that were part of the March of Dimes Bikers for Babies ride. Bikers showed up all morning but a little after noon about 1000 bikers rode in from Conway and the annual Toad Suck Days.

I was there early so I took some time and went through the Chopper Art Show in the Clinton Library. These bikes were beautiful. I am not a biker so I didn't appreciate all the engineering that goes into these custom bikes but they really are works of art. Along with all the choppers there were also stunning b&w photos of the artist who create these motorcycles. The photos were by Tom Zemberoff. Here is a link to his web page that features the artist portraits as well as the bikes they create.
The only artist I saw was Vince Doll and he was constantly surrounded by autograph seekers bikers who had questions for him about his bikes.

If you get a chance you should go see the show at the Clinton Library.

I have a couple of motorcycle memories. When I was in 6th grade I went home for the weekend with one of my best friends Sean Pearl and several other guys in our class. The Pearls owned The Pearl Grandfather Clock Company. Well, Sean convinced me to ride with him on the back of his dirt bike. We went tearing down the street so fast I could hardly hang on. I was yelling for him to slow down but he was not listening. When we stopped way down at the end of the street I got off and walked back to his house because i was not riding with him anymore. A couple of years ago at Thanksgiving Julie's cousin Chris had some kids dirt bikes that his son Austin was riding in the back pasture. I got Chris to teach me how to drive and shift the gears and use the clutch. He gave me the gear shifting pattern: one down and three up as I remember and then he said give it a little gas and slowly let out the clutch. I did that and instantly popped a wheelie for about 50 ft before I got the front wheel safely back down. Austin, who shares my birthday, Oct 30th, runs up and asks if I am ok. I said yes, but I was totally in shock that I had nearly crashed in my first motorcycle driving experience. Then Austin looks at me very seriously and says "you might want to lean forward as you let the clutch out. I rode around the pastures for about 45 minutes and had a blast.

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