Barred-Hopper

By Mike Seate

Last month was a busy one. Several days were spent flipping through various aftermarket motorcycle parts catalogs in search of the perfect bits to build a new project bike. After several years riding mostly imported sport bikes, I'm re-entering the custom fray with a custom chopper built from the ground up.

The whole shebang started with a Jesse James rigid Choppers for Life frame, a low-slung chassis that the crew at Long Beach, California's West Coast Choppers designed to look and ride just like the hardtail customs from the 1960s. The chassis is designed with some fairly extreme dimensions — no rear suspension, 5" extended forks, a 2" stretch in the frame rails and a 38 degree rake means this ride will be a far cry, both aesthetically and performance-wise, from the Ducatis, Suzukis and Aprilias that currently fill my garage.

"What you're looking to build is basically what's called a barhopper," said Chaz, a friend of mine from the office. "It's not exactly comfortable, but you'll look really cool when you hit the bars."

True enough, there are plenty of motorcycles described as "barhoppers." The term is mostly used to sum up the type of riding that extreme custom bikes are limited to. Nobody, except maybe Jesse James himself would take a rigid bike across the state, let alone a country; so most choppers end up making the pub circuit for most of their lives.

The problem is, barhopping on a motorcycle is probably one of the stupidest, most unnecessary risks, any of us take.

Just recently, the American Motorcyclist Association revealed that some 40 percent of riders killed in fatal accidents were impaired in some way or another. 40 percent. In 2001, 3,181 lives were lost in motorcycle road fatalities; we're talking saving around 1,400 lives just by walking away from the bar.

At the newspaper office where both Chaz and I work, we've both covered the oftentimes grisly late night police beat, a place where dead motorcycle riders who've had too many before climbing in the saddle are, sadly, an almost weekly event. The overwhelming majority of the motorcycle fatalities I've covered as a reporter follow a single, clearly preventable path. They occur right around 2:30 a.m., a good half hour after the bars have closed and the typical accident involves someone taking a curve on a dark, country road way too fast for their impaired reflexes.

There's usually a long patch of skid marks along the asphalt where the rider panic-braked too late, followed by a crumpled pile of chrome and steel that used to be someone's barhopper. The weary-looking State Troopers charged with investigating these collisions of booze and bikes seem to know too well how easily they could have been avoided.

Not that I'm down on having a few beers after a long ride. After a hot, sunny day on a motorcycle, parking and listening to the engine ping and tick as it cools to the accompaniment of a cold beer is one of riding's great symphonies. And I'm as up for another round as the next guy - granted the next guy is Foster Brooks, Dennis Rodman or Charles Bukowski.

All too often — at rallies at dealership open houses and at weekend rides with a close group of friends, drinking and riding is sometimes all too commonplace. Employees from a local custom bike shop near Pittsburgh, for instance, host a series of well-attended open house events each summer and customers are known to brag about how many kegs are poured through each day.

I'm always puzzled at the size and accessibility of massive, Big Gulp-sized draft beers on sale at Daytona's Bike Week each year — how many of the annual rally's two dozen or so deaths can be attributed to oversized beers is something Daytona's town fathers might want to consider.

On a ride with members of a local biker's rights groups a few years back, I actually witnessed riders and passengers handing a bottle of Jack Daniel's bourbon back and forth between the bikes — at 60 mph. If anyone had crashed, blaming idiot car drivers on cell phones and little old ladies with bifocals for our problems just wouldn't wash. Not that I'm innocent here. I too have barhopped on my two-wheelers in the past, sometimes staying at the tap way longer than I should have. I've occasionally left my bike inside taverns when I'd had too much, which is something I'm not particularly proud of. But I would have been even less proud of the alternative — riding home drunk.

What the AMA's figures starkly suggest that drinking responsibly when we ride will make motorcycling less dangerous. And the less danger associated with our sport, the more acceptance we can expect from the non-riding public. Experienced, safety-conscious riders have learned to deal with all sorts of hazards, from adverse road and weather conditions to a nation of increasingly inattentive drivers. We can outmaneuver teenagers with DVD players and Sony Play Station consoles mounted on their dashboards.

But when it comes to barhopping, we have only ourselves to blame.