After Hours Choppers

It's After Hours Choppers, ladies and gentlemen (cough). Excuse me, I mean, show me yout tits and gimme yer money. God, I love strippers and boobies. So does Gabe, the proprietor of AHC, a little shop in Newcastle, Northern California. He's been cranking out whatever he feels like for dudes who aren't fools and babes unafraid for many years.

I've gotten to know Gabe a little bit through some emails and a phone call over the past ten weeks and I have to say that he does it his way and I approve. You got a Sporty? No problem. An XS? Cool. He isn't the type to care what it is as long as it isn't some overblown chromed-out extension of how small your penis is. He's honest and affordable, easy to talk to and quick to offer his knowledge while professing to need to learn more. Here are a few words from him and some photos of the work he creates.

After Hours Choppers.... what to say? It's a one-man company that isn't about to get any bigger. I hate the idea of waking up at a decent hour to chatty walk-ins, employees I've got to babysit and the financial burden of big insurance and all the bullshit that goes with it. 3 years ago I lost my job and instead of collecting a check that I didn't earn, I went full time with my hobby. Since then I've learned how little I want to go back to that kind of job and how much I love riding across the country meeting cool people and seeing what makes this the greatest country on the planet.... That’s something we forget.

My first bike was an XS650. I strutted the frame and stripped it down a bit, not nearly as much as I would today. Back then I had a flux core MIG and a hacksaw in a 4x8 room meant to store a lawnmower and no internet to copy everyone else's ideas. A lot of dudes getting into bikes just can't imagine a world where you have to figure things out on your own and just do what YOU like. There was no popular chopper craze and nobody else really liked what I was doing.

My next bike was an Ironhead that a buddy had in a wall locker in pieces. My girlfriend Lois (now my wife) drummed up the $1500 and bought it for my birthday, which was pretty cool shit. That bike has seen three complete builds and almost no road time. I used it as a canvas for years as I changed my mind about everything on it. Soon enough it will have the first Spartan Ironhead frame and an early Springer and king & queen seat that I bought a recent swap meet, along with an old Wassel who's paint is beautifully cracked. For years the bike sat in a spare bedroom with a mountain of collected treasures. I think some decent seat time will finally be in order.