Seventies Survivor!

Last weekend our regional crew of misfits, that we refer to as "the Flatlanders" (due to our geographic locale), gathered at Car's shop in "Chuck-town" for some wrenchin, drinkin, and BS'n. Car was scheduled to go check out this "70's cb750 chopper" on sunday around noon and since Dirka and I tried to relieve the shop fridge of its entire contents saturday night, I decided to linger around and tag along the next day.

Whenever we locally hear of a  "cool old 70's chopper" it immediately conjures images of stock frames with 10" over front ends and a few misc. parts that were either removed or cobbled.
We certainly were not expecting what we found.

The bike's owner is a fella by the name of Randy Steidl. He put the bike together back in the mid 70's, utilizing many parts from the Amen Catalog. A hardtail Amen frame, sissy bar, battery box, electrics box and oil tank. I think the 16" over twisted springer came from Amen also. It's sportin' a 5 spoke spool Invader as well! Ya don't see too many of those.

Car and I thought, from what we were told, that Randy wanted the bike fixed up so that he could sell it, and that he had $25 G's in it. Yeah right, by 70's standards that'd be millions, hahaha.

Needless to say on the truck ride over, we weren't sure of what we were getting into, but thought, what the hell, we wanted to see this "70's chopper".

Well Randy turned out to be a very reasonable cat, and the guy that was telling us about him and the bike had misheard him...it was $2500 NOT $25,000. Turns out he didn't want to sell it at all, but wanted a rewire, some carb work and an overall freshening up so that he could strut this bad mamma jamma around town.

Hell yeah! While I'd love to buy it for myself, I was equally as excited that Randy wanted to keep and ride it. Tentative plans include swapping the front end to a telescopic style and adding front brakes. Randy said "at 60 years old I want something that's a little more stable feeling to me".

She's a true 70's survivor. I think we've got him talked out of repainting it. He mentioned it, but we entusiastically urged him to keep it as is, stating that if he changed any part of the paint, it just wouldn't be quite the same. As a sidenote, local builder Richard Gard (RIP), who you may've read about here at So'full, painted this back when the bike was built. Randy had requested one of Richard's "budget" paint jobs, but its still a very clean and classic looking job.

I think Randy was a little bit surprised at Car and I's enthusiasm, but its not everyday, especially in our neck of the cornfield, that you find something quite like this....