It's funny how events, movies, songs, TV shows, and so on from our childhood can plant themselves in the back of our memories for years, then pop up fresh in our minds as if we'd just experienced them yesterday. Take this chopper built by Joe Martin and his Martin Bros. crew, for example. "The inspiration for this bike came from memories I had of old cartoons with big burly guys riding these big choppers. It was like everything on those bikes was exaggerated-long, stretched-out frames with the frontend sticking way out there and monster wheels," Joe told us.
This bike wasn't built for a customer, nor was it built with some ridiculous 12-hour deadline for a competition. Instead, Joe designed and built this bike to his own specs for his own satisfaction. Joe said, "I like to try and bring at least one new bike whenever I go to major shows. And with the Republic of Texas (ROT) Rally in Austin only eight weeks away, I decided I would debut this bike there. I always try set some money aside so I can build at least three bikes a year that are my own personal projects, not projects I was paid to do. I give myself a budget for each bike and then hammer away. These projects allow me to build bikes I would want."
Sure, the customer projects are cool (and they pay the bills), but as any business owner will tell you, they can also be a pain. In the world of bike building, it never fails that toward the end of a project the customer will change his mind about something or see some new wheels in one of the magazines and want them on his bike. This constant flip-flopping of ideas can be a big turn-off for any custom builder. And that's why Joe enjoys building his personal projects the most-besides, it gives him the opportunity work out all of the ideas that pop into his head.
As with most custom bike builders, whenever Joe is working on one project, it never seems to fail that an idea for another project will materialize. And while it might take a few months to get around to it, that new idea won't leave his thoughts until it's pounded out in metal. "Once the design for this bike came to me, I just kept flashing back to those old cartoons I used to see. I wanted it to have an old-meets-new hot rod look, and once that decision was made, I knew I had to knock this bike out," said Joe.
This latest creation, dubbed "the Barbwire Hardtail" by the guys in the shop, may be an exaggeration in design, but it's no cartoon. This is the real thing: a stretched and raked-out hot rod chopper with plenty of round chrome real estate from Performance Machine at either end.