Departure Bike Works on Hull Street in Richmond, Virginia recently celebrated their 33rd birthday. Lee and Brenda Clemens have lived by the Code of The West (so they're in the South), and the Chopper code for over three decades. They’ve built a family within the shop, a family of customers on the outside and a gang called the Hull Street Meanies. Lee and Brenda also built a real family including their son, Travis, and daughter, Tracy. As they grew the entire family worked at the shop, including the new son-in-law.
Only one tumultuous time nearly took Departure down, the death of Travis, in a freak motorcycle accident. Lee became distant to the shop and the entire staff was left with a hollow spot in their hearts, including Andrew, and up and coming machinist and fabricator who worked hand in hand with Travis.
This project involves the shop's growth and mending after that accident. Like so many successful project builds it brought out the creativity, shop pride, the build excitement and a new direction for Departure Bike Works. This feature is just the beginning. Next Bikernet will publish a full feature on the completed bike, but we recently spoke to Andrew about his thoughts regarding healing and his creative processes.
Andrew’s Grandfather, of blessed memory, always said, “If you want something bad enough, you’ll get it.”
“A combination of desire and fear is what it took for me,” Andrew said. “It was the desire to continue fabricating and the fear of not succeeding.” These emotions are what fueled this creation.
Travis Lee Clemens, RIP, agreed that nothing was cooler than a single loop chassis. Prior to Travis’ untimely death in 2001, he was hard at work creating a single loop chopper. “After a two year period of ‘dealing’ I decided the best way of healing, would be to pay homage to Travis by building the coolest single-loop I could come up with,” Andrew said, “thus another motivation for this project Titties and Beer.
”With Travis as motivator, lacking only his personal touch, I attempted a full ground-up build,” Andrew continued. “I planned to fabricate the frame, trees, sheet metal, pipes, controls, and anything else I could possibly make at the shop. No CNC machine here folks.”
”Attempting to build my first frame, I knew anything I could make to reduce repetition would come in handy,” Andrew explained of his production. “Keeping this in mind, I began the frame table design that Travis and I started years ago. Making the table entailed an H beam, key steel, lots of aluminum, steel plates and a hell of a lot of time, especially making a fully adjustable table, able to accept and expertly alter virtually any frame on the market. The frame table took me 1-year to complete from start to finish. Then I began the project single-loop.”
Andrew machined killer billet steel axle plates, handmade on an index mill and rotary table, a hand spun neck with integral races and fork stops, and some billet steel motor mounts that were installed in their frame table. “Some math,” Andrew said, “some measuring, and my dimensions were set, the table was locked down, and it was time to start connecting the dots.”
With the sweet single loop, a TRUE loop chassis, in hand, it was time to bring it to life. He powder coated rims and aluminum hubs, with a candy blue and “wheel ace” Klink Walton laced them up.
“Time for some trees,” Andrew said, “a few weeks of late nights and early mornings and about five pounds of aluminum later, and I had the coolest billet trees, money can’t buy.” It was finally a roller.
”I wanted to do it all,” Andrew said, “so, I started making bars. I made three sets of bars we later dubbed Meanie Bars then I concluded the operation with aPrybarstitle. I used an internal throttle given to me by Travis before he died. I worked up a handmade lever, pivot and linkage. I used a Buell Blast rear master cylinder and completed the bar assembly with some stainless end caps I turned out on the lathe. My rear brake system was controlled by both front and rear controls, keeping the front of the bike clean.”
It was time to consider the tank. “Not being an expert in sheet metal, I was worried,” Andrew said. “I knew what I wanted, but could it be done? Believe it or not my first attempt came together great and my tank, as a finished product, looked so cool I decided not to hide it with bondo and paint.”
” Travis and I agreed that as far as oil tanks go, spun aluminum is where it’s at, but with my original Paul Cox rigid-air kit under my seat the compressor and the bags, though fairly compact, filled the space where my badass spun aluminum oil tank was supposed to fit. A piece of aluminum pipe, a lot of titties and even more beer, and out came a stand-up version of a spun oil bag and into the frame it slid.”
Titties and Beer were two of Travis’ favorite things,” Andrew added. “He used the phrase to describe something that he thought was killer. He said, ‘fenders are for pussies’, so no fenders, because I happen to agree.” Next came exhaust system construction. “I had to space everything,” Andrew said regarding the single-loop chassis, “motor and tranny 2 inches up to clear the downtube. This created a perfect pocket under the tranny for an exhaust collector. I finished up with some two into one pipes that seemingly just end, but where?”Andrew added stainless touches like the drilled hand shift, custom top motor mounts, bare necessities motor plate, front fork brace, and peg ends finish up a loop.
“Now that’s all done,” Andrew concluded, “I sit back with my beer and watch titties bounce between long stares at the bike and I think, I wanted it bad enough.”
Andrew did a helluva job as a young builder. We’re sure this won’t be his last. Departure is much more than a house of mechanics. It’s a home for wrenches who believe in the code, and for creative guys who want to expand their talents and rock the world with each new bike they build. Lee and Departure Bike Works are apart of the Bikernet Bonneville Team for 2006. We are in the process of shipping our WLD engine and transmission to their Service Center for rebuilding and major hop-ups. So far our goal is to beat a 126 mph salt-flat record. record . That’s fast for a diminutive 45 cu. in. flathead.
We’ll feature the completed bike in the next segment.
–Bandit
5216 HULL STREET ROAD
RICHMOND, VA 23224
(804) 231-0244
DEPARTURE.COM
service@departure.com
