Choppers: Heavy Metal Art

Description

When a motorcycle has been built from the ground up, stripped of anything not needed for speed, power, and striking looks, and draped in rich colors and chrome, it has been transformed into a chopper. What was once considered an outlaw ride has now become a luxury item and a mainstream obsession. In Choppers: Heavy Metal Art, author Mike Seate explores the many styles of choppers and bobbers and the builders behind them. The book is divided into several sections based on style or type of chopper, with each section devoted to the builders who follow a similar style and philosophy. Some builders are established names in their field, while others are up-and-comers rocking the chopper world with their far-out ideas and new spins on a classic style. Photographer Michael Lichter, who has photographed choppers for Easyriders and several other magazines for nearly three decades, provides stunning studio images of the featured machines as well as portraits of their creators.

Mike Seate is a journalist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Seate has written a number of books, including How to Build a West Coast Chopper, Outlaw Choppers, Jesse James: The Man and His Machines, Suzuki GSX-R, Choppers, Streetbike Extreme, and Two Wheels on Two Reels. In 1978 Michael started doing commercial photography in Boulder, Colorado. By 1980, Michael had worked his passion for motorcycling into his photography career. His work began to appear in Easyriders magazine. Soon Michael found himself in the beds of pickup trucks during rainstorms, photographing packs of bikers on the roads around Sturgis, South Dakota. Michael is the author and photographer of Sturgis, and is the photographer of Billy Lane: It's Not a Motorcycle Baby, It's a Chopper.