Tangerine Trawler

TANGERINE TRAWLER

American FLYERS

A little old, a little new, with a timeless theme underneath it all

IT'S AS THE HILLS, or at least as old as motorcycles riding through the hills: Biker boys try to get the attention of biker girls. There may be real art, incredible craftsmanship and independent, creative thought going into a fully radical, fabricated-from-scratch bike, but if a chopper artisan can't take a pretty girl for a ride, what's the point? Exactly. Which is why you will find on this Chica Custom Cycles tangerine dream a full passenger seat with sissybar, footpegs and a boarding step" on the lower let't run of the rigid rear frame triangle.

Says shop owner Chica with a smile, Our last bike had pipes too high and we couldnt give girls rides.

This one is for the ladies." it's also for anybody who likes a Seventies-inspired chop that is at once over the top, yet covered with subtle detail and fine finishing. Built for the 2004 1-lard Rock Roadhouse Tour (www.hrroadhouse.com), the bike is part of a custom-

bike tour/giveaway. Three other builders participated, Kendall Johnson ("Kiwi Caper," CW, August), Corey Ness and Eddie Trotta. After a season of show travel on display at all the usual biker spots (Sturgis, Laconia, Biketoberfest, etc.), the winner gets to pick his favorite of the four to keep! Like any true custom, Chica's Trawler starts in the form of sheet steel and bar stock. The frame neck comes from the aftermarket (presto, VIN number...), but everything attached to that head tube is custom made in Chica's Huntington Beach, California, shop. Right-hand man Johnny Chop (really) sliced, diced, hammered and welded the knife-edge frame tubes and contoured the sheetmetal that fairs into the fuel taiik, which is itself a hand-hewn piece of art. I asked Mr. Chop if they got the textured effect on the tank and other inlaidlooking spots by using plas tic wrap on metallic paint. lie just looked at me dead pan and said, "That's redvariegated Russian goldleafing our pinstriper Bob Iverson does." Not sure where else you get such a thing. hut if you saw it up close, you'd want some for your bike. The metallic orange paintwork was flawlessly laid on by Rick Walker at West Coast Color Works. Even the hat (viii of the tank looks good! Ever-fiuithful S&S provid ed a brand-new 96-inch Shoveihead (tired by a clear-top Joe I lunt magneto. of course), hut (`hica see tiotied and reshaped the rockerhoxes, welding and building them up with the tight blue arc of the TIG welder and plenty of alu minum rod. Yes, the heat distorts the pieces, but order is restored with align-boring and resurfacing. The fins, too, are subject to the Chica touch, sonic recontoured, some extended. The S&S carburetor has a vintage, finned intake cover by Custom Cycle Engineering that was also fettled to fit. The belt primary is a very tight and tidy setup from PM. Sweet-looking I 2-point bolt hardware is all over the bike, sourced Iro ii~ C hro me I-lard ware Supply. pretty much the custom-builders One-Stop fiistener shop. Itit weren't SO nice, we w'ouldn I even bring it up. The five-spoke wheels are inspired by a Chica design, but these are oneoil' aluminum liieces chipped out of the (`NC mill by none other than PM's Roland Sands. No doubt the 165mm Dunlop rear slick came from Roland's old 250cc GP roadracer inventory. Rubber at the front is an Avon Speedmaster, a glori ously sporty old-school contrast. There's just one brake on the bike, at the rear of' course, and at first it just looks like chopper overkill: A full PM drag-race setup wit, six-piston caliper, augmented by a standard issue two-piston job you might find pinching a front disc on your average Harley-Davidson Night Train. In this case, though, the little fella is a "hill brake," hand-lever actuat ed, so you can depress the foot clutch and not also have your oilier loot on the "main" rear brakeespe cially if you re doing the right thing and riding in `Frisco on acid. Saves you I roiri the ru.~hteous trials balancing maneuver, par ticularly handy if' you've also had a Ic~~' beers root variety, of course. As for the crumpet-catching theme, `el I it was mostly late-night shoptalk that "turned a little lecherous.'' "And what about the pipes.' we ask. "The pipes are, uh, fishhooks," says Chop. Naturally. Mark Hoyer