S&S Cycle and Richland Center High School have very close ties. Our entire third-generation leadership–President Brett Smith, Senior Manager of Engineering Michael Scaletta and Education Lead Tom Smith—all graduated from RCHS.
During their time at RCHS, one teacher in particular, Francis “Fuzz” McCauley, made an impact on the S&S family. Not only was Fuzz the AG instructor, he was also a shop instructor. And, as Smith family tradition would dictate, shop class was important.
Calling on a few good friends, S&S put together a plan to have the kids in Fuzz’s shop class build a chopper that would get raffled off to support the Richland FFA Alumni, which supports the leadership roles of the RCHS FFA.
Kevin Alsop of Big Bear Choppers in Big Bear, California. donated a BBC Merc Rigid bike kit. The bike kit features a frame with 48-degrees of rake, three-inches of stretch, a 116-inch wheelbase and a seat height of just 23-inches. Adding to the cool chopper look is an 18-inch over BBC springer front end featuring an additional two-degrees of rake.
The sheet metal covering the Merc is straight out of a California custom show. BBC includes their flowing fenders, swoopy gas tank and a very cool barrel oil tank built into a battery tray.
S&S provided an 88ci engine and the project was off and running. Working during shop class and after school, a team of students took the Big Bear Merc from a pallet loaded with boxes to a rolling chassis. Tyler Burns, an RCHS student, and coincidentally the recipient of the S&S Second Generation At Large Scholarship Program Award, really took the lead in the build. His father, Tim Burns, has been an S&S employee for a long time so the motorcycle thing was in his blood too. Tyler, and his fellow students, completed the build with some help from the S&S Technicians along the way.
Once the final mock-up was done, S&S called in a favor from Doug Wozney of Dougz Custom Paint. Doug took the time to work with the kids and design a paint scheme that incorporated the school’s colors and logo, the Big Bear Choppers logo, an S&S logo and a Dougz logo. The finished goods are magazine worthy.
The class delivered the finished bike to the S&S Training and Certification facility in La Crosse, Wisconsin, to be fired-up for the first time. Third generation S&S family members, Brett Smith, Michael Scaletta and Tom Smith participated in the start-up and the kids cheered as the v-twin roared to life!
Obviously this is a great cause to support. Raffle tickets are going to sell for $5 each or you can get five for $20. The drawing will take place July 8th, 2006 at the S&S Cycle La Crosse, Wisconsin facility.
Checks can be made out to the Richland FFA Alumni and sent to the FFA instructor, Fuzz McCauley, 23200 Hornet High Drive, Richland Center, WI 53581.
I’ll take five.–Bandit
