Tough Chop

A combination of iron, oil, chrome, paint, rubber and decibels ...

Chopper. Bobber. Digger. Whatever you call it, this beauty hits a home run. Hits it right out of the park. Perfectly proportioned front to rear, with everything that is needed and nothing that is not, this bike trumpets the beauty of simplicity and an aesthetic style that is both impeccable and ageless.

James Dean would ride this bike, as would Steve McQueen and I can visualise the early Elvis (not the later bloated one) hooning around Memphis on his way to Sun Records from Graceland.

Now add Pink to that list, Kid Rock, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves and Charlie Hunman, the infamous Jax from Sons of Anarchy. Whoa! That’s enough fantasising.

Let’s get our feet back on the ground, the ground in the very heart of Forbes, NSW, where Neil Merchant, now the proprietor of the recently opened Unique Cycle Service, created this old school tribute.

And my opinion regarding it seems to be shared by a whole lot of people, because at the recent opening of Neil’s shop people swarmed to it like bees around a honey pot, despite there being many other cool rides to ogle and drool over. Someone once described a custom motorcycle as a combination of iron, oil, chrome, paint, rubber and decibels. Others have suggested creating custom motorcycles should be classed as an art form.

I am one of the latter and hark back to the fact that the ancient Greeks never separated art from manufacture in their minds, and so never developed separate words for them. They didn’t just give us yiros [Ed: what?] and the Olympics …

On this bike the first thing that catches the attention is the brass frame with a brass I-beam down tube and brass frame tubing.