Friday, November 12, 2004
Make-A-Wish Foundation and Custom Choppers
The Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Midsouth and Memphis Choppers have gotten together and are auctioning off a custom chopper. Tickets are $25 a pop.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Midsouth and Memphis Choppers have gotten together and are auctioning off a custom chopper. Tickets are $25 a pop.
The Bike will be raffled off on November 19, 2004. Donations of any amount can be made at BenchMark Realtors and Mortgage, 7990 Trinity Road Suite 201, Cordova, TN 38016, Phone: 901-202-2000, and Memphis Choppers, 5352 Pleasant View, Memphis TN 38134, Phone:901-380-8464More information on Memphis Choppers can be found here (Registration required).
The nuts and bolts of the shop is motorcycle maintenance. After a year of existence, it's debt free. The master mechanic is Lee Burks, whom Hartfield and Till regard as something of a wizard with a wrench.I've seen some of their bikes myself, and been by the shop on a local poker run. Nice bikes, nice folks. If you ever make it through Memphis, do yourself a favor and check them out.
But the soul of Memphis Choppers is fabrication, which takes a sometimes vague idea and fashions it into a unique machine.
"Ninety percent of customers don't know exactly what they want," Hartfield says. "So I tell them to go buy magazines and figure out what style they want."
If you don't know the difference between a suicide shifter and a sissy bar, you'll have plenty of time to learn.
"It's not a fast process. It takes two to three months to build," Hartfield says.
They are thorough. For example, they measure the rider's arm so the handlebar fit is just right. And the customer gets to observe the work in progress. "We'll put on a lift and show him what's going on," Till says.
