What else can I say to our fans and supporters? We had a great weekend here in
La Crosse at the S&S Cycle 50th Anniversary celebration. We met new people from all over the world, made new friends, hooked up with some we haven’t seen for awhile, almost saw some of the bikes get swept away by rushing rain water….I mean, how much more exciting can it get?
The weekend started out with Terry and I dragging our butts around like a couple of zombies after getting up at 5:30 AM on Monday and going home at 1:30 AM, followed by another 5:30 AM alarm clock and working until 2 AM, followed by a 6 AM alarm and leaving the shop at 2:30AM, then just for good measure ANOTHER 6 AM alarm and a hard push to finish the bike so we could ride it at 8 AM on Friday for its shake-down run to Viola, which was originally part of the qualification points for the 50-builder competition.
Plus we had our “Meet ‘n Greet” for all the builders and local & National media on Thursday afternoon. Thank God my partner in this build, Mark Platt, was available to coordinate the entire Meet ‘n Greet. Job well done Mark!! Kudos to you brother!!! Mark got us hooked up with
La Crosse ’s premier restaurant “Piggy’s” to cater our “Meet ‘n Greet” and the food was – as expected – Stupendous! Check ‘em out at www.piggys.com and if you’re ever in
La Crosse , it is a must-do restaurant to patronize….you’ll Love it! Also on board for our gathering was La Crosse's own Pearl Street Brewery with a great selection of artfully blended malt beverages. You can learn more about them at www.pearlstreetbrewery.com.
After Mark took the bike out for its maiden voyage at 4 PM on Thursday afternoon I was finally able to go home, take a quick shower, grab my wonderful and WAYYY understanding wife Michelle and get back to
Riverside
Park to board the La Crosse Queen riverboat for an evening dinner cruise with many of the other 49 builders. What a treat to have the honor of dining with Brett & Robyn Smith, Arlen & Cory Ness and their wives as well as Cory’s son Zach, Donnie Smith, Kevin & Mona Alsop, the list goes on like a who’s-who of custom bike builders. We sat with Mark and Eve Platt & Chris and Tammy Roderique, owners of Piggy’s for a fun and relaxing evening….a great way to end an (at least) 13 straight days of working on the bike.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my right hand man Terry Miller for hanging in there with me those last few L-O-N-G days, plus we got our buddy Tom Campbell to pitch in here and there performing lathe duties creating some of the one-off components and lending an extra pair of hands wherever needed, and I must mention two guys who simply grabbed the wrenches out of my weary hands on Thursday and said “Tell us what you need done, and we’ll git ‘r done”. I really wonder if we would have finished the bike if it weren’t for Mike Meinhardt from FrameLock and Justin Bramstedt, my go-to guy for performance upgrades from S&S Cycle. Those two guys were an absolute life saver for me on Thursday and I can’t find words to express my gratitude to them! Thank you SO MUCH!!!
The weekend ended with the DOUGZ bike taking home the coveted ‘People’s Choice’ trophy and the associated $9000.00 of S&S product credit, plus we placed 2nd in the X-Wedge engine category, ahead of such notables as Orange County Choppers, Bourget’s Bike Works and Big Bear Choppers. This completely blew me away as all 3 of those builders along with our buds at Klockwerks Kustom, ‘Kiwi’ Mike, my Italian buddy Aldo and a few other European builders brought some STIFF competition to the X-Wedge category and I never expected to come away from the competition with anything more than a feeling of honor to be chosen to compete with these other world-class builders.
Thanks once again for everyone who voted for DOUGZ Pro-Tour “X” entry, and keep your eyes on the website for the next bike to come off of the building table….it shares many of the components found on the Pro-Tour “X” in an even lighter package PLUS a lower seat height. Perfect for the person who wants a touring bike that’ll haul your leathers and rain gear PLUS have the added advantage of being able to haul ass!
Peace and Love all!
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