Sights to behold Bikes featured at festival range from zebra-striped to miniature motorcycles
Posted on Friday, September 26, 2008
ANTHONY REYES Northwest Arkansas Times Ron Peters polishes his custom Stingray bike Thursday in the parking lot of Randal Tyson Track Center at Bikes, Blues & BBQ in Fayetteville. Peters owns Cateye Customs in Russellville and brought his handmade motorcycle to the event along with several other bikes to show and sell.
Motorcycles are all over Fayetteville for the 2008 Bikes, Blues & BBQ, and some stick out more than others.
Take David Stone and Dean Reed for example. Their two bikes sat in front of the Crown Pub on Dickson Street Thursday and the machines garnered quite a few inspections because they’re fully zebra striped.
“ People ask us if the paint job is white on black or black on white, ” Reed said with a laugh.
Stone, a owner of Dong’s Guns in Tulsa, Okla., said he set up the two bikes so he could have a little fun and get a tax write-off in the process.
“ I came up with the idea of our new logo being zebra stripes, ” Stone said. “ And my accountant told me if I painted a vehicle like a zebra I could write it off. ”
Stone and Reed have traveled all over the country, and even the world, with their zebra striped bikes. Stone said the motorcycles are not airbrushed but taped off and painted with multiple coats of clear coat. He said if one runs their hands over it they shouldn’t be able to feel the edges of the paint layers.
“ One year I was up in Nova Scotia and somebody saw me on the highway and asked me if I was from Dong’s in Tulsa, ” Stone said. “ Zebra striping is a subliminal advertising, because all my friends or people I barely know will come in and say, ‘ We saw a zebra striped something today, was that your vehicle ?’”
Stone and Reed ride the bikes everywhere they go. He’s taken it all the way to Sturgis, S. D., and claims the day he has to put his zebra bike in a trailer to travel with it is the day he quits riding bikes.
Harold Wilson, of Greenbrier, takes one of his unique bikes around town on a trailer when he travels, but that’s because his Honda Z 50 J Monkey Limited motorcycle is pretty rare and pretty small. Wilson set up his bike and trailer proudly on the corner of Dickson Street and West Avenue Thursday afternoon.
He said the serial number is in Japanese and he had to go to Arkansas Tech University in Russellville and find a professor who could read the symbols for him so he could get the motorcycle tagged and licensed.
“ I get a lot of people that come and take pictures to prove that they saw one, ” he said.
He restored the little bike, which literally looks like a kids motorcycle. It can get up to 50 miles per hour. Wilson said the little bike gets quite a bit of stares.
“ I can’t take it on any road that has a speed limit above 50, ” Wilson said. “ I can ride it around Fayetteville though. I drive it about four miles round trip to work and back sometimes. It costs me 20 cents in gas. ”
Ron Peters not only rides eye-catching motorcycles, he creates them. His business, Cateye Customs in Russellville, had a large showroom set up at the Randal Tyson Track Center Thursday.
Peters has been building bikes for 10 years. He said it started with a simple love for motorcycles and the fact that he’s ridden bikes all his life. His business idea came to fruition when TV shows like “ American Choppers” on the Discovery Channel became popular.
“ There’s lots and lots of people now that are into bikes, ” he said. “ There’s a market now. We love doing it, and... we’re good at what we’re doing. ”
His line of bikes includes fancy choppers and sleek classic racers; one big red bike he’s particularly proud of carries a fat rear tire and a nitrous oxide system, which is a speed-boosting system.
“ People who buy these bikes want to be seen, ” Peters pointed out.
Peters said his bikes garner a lot of attention and sometimes it makes him nervous.
“ I don’t like to ride this bike, ” Peters said of the fattired bike. “ Because you’ve got people riding up beside you and wanting to talk to you and leaning over. It’s pretty dangerous. ”
But some people can’t stay away from the thrill of a bike that sticks out in a crowd Peters ended.
“ Just put a price on it. Someone will buy it, ” he said.
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