I KNEW the type of chopper I wanted in my own head; I knew where I wanted to go with it, but the parts had to be compatible in the first place to get the end result. You can't just buy a box of parts and think you're going to build a motorbike. With that in mind, three years ago I went to America with a couple of mates, Boris, Graeme and Chris‚ to have a look around. We travelled to Frisco, over to New York and down into Orlando; then we decided to drive to Dallas via every side street we could find. We did about 6500 km in about 3 1/2 weeks. We went to a lot of different chopper shops—choppers are really big at the moment in America; they're just starting here in Australia—between Orlando and Dallas. We literally looked at maybe 60 shops. Then one of the boys saw an advertisement for a bike shop in a place called Slidell, about 30 km over the river out of New Orleans, and because it was a Sunday, we thought we would stop and have a look in the window. But it just so happened the guy was at the shop and we got talking to him. We developed a pretty good rapport with him so he rang his partner to come down.
The shop was called Big Easy Choppers—the locals call New Orleans Big Easy—and I liked the particular style of a bike they were building. Actually, the bike happened to be the boss's, Big Rodney, who made a couple of phone calls to a few of his mates and we all ended up going to lunch together
We spent the next four days with them and we had a really fat time. I decided to purchase a few bits while I was there and the rest is history. What you see is the end result.
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