Killing Machine Choppers – The Good Ol Days Chapter 2
After the Redwood Run, I invited Hun to Southern California to see the shop and meet the crew at Killing Machine. Everyone liked her and even after my son Breeze and his closest friend “Lippie” tried unsuccessfully to scare her off, it was decided that she was alright. We did have to cut her visit short after it came to my attention that there were internal issues at the shop.
The result of the problems was that Sharki (the “Loser Yank”) and I decided to dissolve our partnership with the other partners. After taking a short break in Port Costa, California with Sharki, she and I decided it might be a good idea for me to cut my losses and flee to the Northwest (Home of the Hardtail Harlot). Hun said she’d be glad to help any way she could so I boarded a train in mid-July and headed for God’s Country.
Once I got settled in, Hun and I looked all over Spokane for suitable (translation: affordable) locations for a 1960s style chopper shop. Affordable space in high traffic areas in Spokane were all but nonexistent so we set out north, south, east, and west of Spokane and looked at available commercial property. We made dozens of phone calls and left dozens of messages. The first one to call us back owned a property on Highway 2 in Diamond Lake about 30 miles northeast of Spokane. There is a lot of summer traffic on this highway so it seemed ideal. We made several trips to California over the next couple of weeks to move the shop to Diamond Lake, the new home of Killing Machine Choppers NW. Once the move was completed, Hun went to work opening bank accounts and parts accounts. We planned to be open once the snow melted the following spring.
Speaking of snow, the few people that came in to check us out that fall told us that we wouldn’t make it through the first winter up here. They figured that I was from Lake Elsinore and that I would fold by January. Little did they know that I am originally from Rockford, Illinois and that Hun (also a California transplant) had lived in Spokane for 17 years. We had them all fooled. We dug and toughed out our first winter together at the new shop. We were so broke from the move and getting the new shop ready that Hun kept her job as a bartender until spring. I’ll tell you how scarce money was that first winter: Hun (being practical) bought me a ShopVac to replace the one that I left behind when I left California and I wrapped up some parts that I thought she would need to build her first chopper. It didn’t look like much under the tree so I grabbed her helmet off the shelf and wrapped that too! She told me it was the best Christmas she ever had but I think she was just being nice.
When winter didn’t succeed in scaring us off, the nay-sayers began spreading rumors. First, we were Feds. Really? I am pretty sure my past precludes me from being a federal agent. When that didn’t work, another rumor started about me being a white-slaver. The claim was that there was a girl being held against her will at the shop. Hun was the only girl in the shop and I don’t know anyone that could make her do anything against her will.
I have always had a chopper shop. I was never real good at the business end of it but I have always held a strong belief that if a guy rolls in with a busted clutch and he’s broke, he shouldn’t be turned away. He would leave my shop with his bike fixed, his stomach fed, his gas tank full and his oil checked. That’s how the old bikers taught me where I came up. It never hit me how much times had changed until a guy had rolled into my shop down in Lake Elsinore on a bike that was missing real bad and asked to speak to the service manager so that he could make an appointment to get an estimate of what it would cost to find out what was wrong with his bike.
HUH? I told him that I didn’t have a service manager and that I could tell him what was wrong for free. “Your bike is missing bad.” He looked at me a little funny until I told him to roll it in, then he just looked surprised. The problem was simple: one of his plug wires had rubbed through on his coil cover. I made him a new set of wires to fit and told him his bill was $35 for parts and labor. He stated that he had EXACTLY $35 and that he was hoping to stop for a cold one on the way home so we split what he had in his pocket and I told him to stop in the next time he was riding by to pay the rest. He did and wrote a hell of a review about his experience with KILLER CHOPPERS. Well, the name was wrong but his heart was in it and the sentiment wasn’t wasted on this old biker.
Whatever happened to the chopper shops of old? Shops where BRO didn’t stand for Bend Right Over? I never got rich fixing or building bikes. In fact, Hun and I would sometimes argue about the fact that I was giving the place away! I do my best to treat others the way I would want to be treated if I was stranded in a strange place with a broken down bike. The old code of “no biker left behind” still lives here at the Machine. I don’t leave another biker stranded on the side of the road…EVER! If I can find a way to help, I will.
When we first opened the shop in Washington, a young guy stopped in at the shop. He said, “Hey Algie….how the hell are you?” I asked him where I knew him from and he answered that while he was stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, he broke down on his way to the Marine Corps Ball in Las Vegas. I had pulled over to help and he explained that his clutch had gone out. Here was this Marine in dress blues standing on the side of the road with bike problems sizing up this crazy looking biker wondering how quickly this was going to turn bad. He had no idea what to expect. I pulled off his derby cover, cleaned off the clutch plates, ground them on the curb and replaced them. It gave the plates enough grip to get the young Marine on his way. What a small world! It turns out that his family lives up here! He explained to me that, not only did he make it to Vegas, but put many more miles on my roadside fix.
Money can’t buy the feeling you get when you find out that something you did for someone on the side of the road saved the day. I believe in Karma…and it has paid off more than once when I have needed help on the side of the road.
When I opened the shop up here in Washington State, I wanted to model it after those shops I remember from my younger years. Hun and I sat down and discussed my vision and she loved it. She worked side by side with me to build my dream shop. There are times she has to remind me that it is still a business but we always keep our overhead low so that we could keep our prices and labor rates low. Despite the rumors, hard winters, health problems, and changes in location, we are still going strong after seven years.
Algie Pirrello
Editors note: Stay tuned for further episodes to come
Please follow and like us:
