Gold Coast Choppers latest creation “Alien” has landed an array of trophies at Gold Coast Bike Week. Alien’s first public viewing was on Saturday. However lucky riders on the S&S Chopper Shop Ride got a sneak preview on Friday as Twin Tech Motorcycles was the first Bike Shop on the list for the ride to visit. Last year Geoff did a great job of unveiling “Flame”. Continuing in this tradition this year he had the job of unveiling Alien an astonishing piece of machinery that Rick and the guys had built over the last 10 months. The old saying a picture tells a thousand words does not cut it with this chopper. There is a host of details a picture can not tell with this bike until you start looking very carefully at the actual bike.
With no sub-frame that is visible, it has an amazing visual effect of the engine and transmission sitting by themselves midway in the beautifully hand made frame of the Chopper. The whole package from the flowing front end, the long sweeping fuel tanks, the mid mounted down draft carby, the in shop made swing arm, gives the bike an overall aggressive stance. Plus the most detailed paint work that you could imagine moulds into the best Chopper arguably ever seen. This was proven by Alien winning the People’s Choice trophy on Saturday. Along with Best Engineered, Best Pro-Built and Coolest Pipes. Sunday saw 3 more trophies for Alien with Bike of Show, Radical Custom and Best Paint.
Over all it was a good result for Twin Tech Motorcycles and Gold Coast Choppers.
The latest Ozbike Magazine (issue 301) has Rick with the ALIEN chopper as its main feature. There are some great pics of the bike along with the rundown of the build of Alien written by Rick (Rick has the article in the Gold Coast Choppers website as well). There is also a centre page lift out of ALIEN, which is a bonus.
Rick and Twin Tech Motorcycles aren’t strangers to articles in bike mags. The numerous custom Harleys the boys have built have shown up in different custom bike mags over many years. Since Rick has developed Gold Coast Choppers and has showcased Alien, Flame and Chopr at different shows over the last couple of years he is getting the exposure he deserves. The local industry is standing up and taking notice of these world class choppers that Rick continues to build.
Personally, I can’t wait to see the next machine Rick creates. “How do you build something better than Alien?” I asked myself. But then I asked the same question about Flame??
Alien and Flame took out the 2 major trophies at the Australian Motorcycle Expo at Brisbane. Alien won Best Chopper of the Show and Flame won Best Engineered.
I was speaking to a number of people in the industry after the event and they say and I must agree that Alien is rightly placed as Australia’s Number 1 chopper after winning first prize at the show.
While Rick is happy with the recent results he was very disappointed in the decision of the major sponsor and promoter of the Chopper Show (Live to Ride Magazine) to pull out when they did. You would have thought it would have been good advertising and promotion for their magazine and the industry in general. “They handled the whole thing very badly right from the start,” said Rick. “With minimal promotion for the event advertised and deadlines for entries that didn't apply or were abandoned, perhaps due to a lack of entries. Incorrect dates on their entry and conditions forms gave a general impression that no one knew what was going on. I believe they did attend the Melbourne or Sydney show but obviously Brisbane isn't considered as important as the southern capitals.”
Otherwise the show was a huge event, massive crowds and displays by most of the major manufactures of bikes and products. Except for Harley Davidson!? What's going on there?
A big well done to the boys again at Gold Coast Choppers / Twin Tech Motorcycles for another outstanding result.
We’re a small, hands-on kind of custom bike shop. There’s me doing any and everything, Geoff handling the day-to-day running of the place as well as parts and accessories. There’s Ross on the spanners and the key force behind our drag race team, apart from being a top mechanic and experienced racer, he holds the NZ Top Fuel Nitro Harley record of 180 mph at 7.6 seconds. That’s damn quick! And then there’s Jim, my can’t-do-without kind of guy who does everything around the place as well as being our No 1 fabricator and a good mate.
I got my first Harley in 1981, a FXFB, and being a farm boy who was used to pulling things apart and fixing them, I just couldn’t help myself from tearing it down and changing it around. I’ve got a very questioning mind, the type that says, “Yeah, it’s broken, but how did it happen, how can I fix it and how can I prevent it from happening again?”
I started TwinTech in 1989 basically part-time doing stuff for my mates but it soon got out-of-control and I went full-time in early 1991. In 1995 we bought the two units next door and we’ve been growing ever since.
Weve always taken pride in our workmanship and experience is something you can’t beat. We place a great degree of importance on the day-to-day stuff through the workshop. I’m not happy unless it’s done right; fix it right the first time so there’s no come-backs.
We do quite a bit of performance work which we try to match to the customer’s requirements. We know what works and what doesn’t. Putting it together is one thing; getting it to stay together takes knowledge and experience. And importantly, performance doesn’t stop with the engine. The whole package has to include the brakes and suspension.
TwinTech Motorcycles is also involved in drag racing. We’ve got a XB12R Buell that Ross has started to run. It’s doing 11.8’s at the moment in fairly standard form. We’ve got plans to turn it into a full-on drag bike including a special frame we’re building ourselves.
Billy also rides for us on his 1991 FXST. It runs an S&S 124 ci engine that we’ve worked over and is pushing our 150 hp at the rear wheel. Not bad for a registered street bike. Billy’s running around 10.5 and gaining more consistently so this year is going to be fun.
We’ve always done a lot of custom work. We were sticking 180 tyres (as large as you could get at the time) into stock bikes back in early 1990. We used to make it all ourselves because it was before you could get the wide rear end kits. Generally, what we find with our customers is a guy who’ll come in with some ideas or maybe just a picture. We’ll work it through their wants, needs, applications, and deliver something far in excess of what they imagined–give them something that blows them away. Obviously we’ve got to work within a budget which can be difficult as the customer’s views often change as the project develops.
We don’t aim to be a volume builder–low quantity, high quality. That’s us.
TwinTech Motorcycles is in Southport, on the Gold Coast, Queensland. The Flame Chopper is for sale; if you’d like to know more, give me a call on 07-5532-3033.
–Rick
