Nuthin’s Easy (pt1) by Steve Kelly Photography

I overheard some bikers talking in a Daytona bar, they were discussing some wild, crazy and insane customs that they had seen out near Rossmeyer’s Destination Daytona Harley-Davidson dealership, at an area known as The Battlegrounds.  After quizzing the bikers about what they had seen, I was left in no doubt that I needed to acquaint myself with a guy called Copper Mike, the owner of Gravesend Cycles.  When I found Mike Cole’s booth, I also found a number of other press waiting to shoot his creations, it seems that I was not the first to discover this highly talented man.

Mike had half a dozen killer bikes set up on his booth, this left me with something of a quandary, which should I shoot?  After much thought, I selected two that showed the biggest diversity, the first of which is this bike, Nuthin’s Easy.  This graffiti adorned chopper shows Mike’s heritage, a man born in Gravesend, Brooklyn, New York.  Brooklyn, a well known hot bed of custom bike building, finds Mike in good company, as it was the home of Indian Larry and English Don.  The name Copper Mike came about because of Mike’s penchant for making custom parts out of copper and from opting to plate parts with copper rather than chrome.  Mike is very well set to take care of the plating aspect, as he runs a plating company in tandem with Gravesend Cycles.

Early in the build, Mike christened the bike Nuthin’s Easy, and from that point onward the motorcycle started to give him problems, but as with all things that take a lot of time and patience to bring to fruition, working through the difficulties that the bike threw up, only makes the completed chopper all the more gratifying.  Mike’s vision was to build a dark and sinister looking Panhead, and included in that vision was the use of black chrome.  The name black chrome is something of a misnomer, it is actually a translucent black powder coating that has been applied over the etching that Mike ground onto the entire frame and Performance Machine wheels.  It is the painstaking etching that sparkles through the translucent coat, which gives the unique appearance of black chrome.  To get the cleanest looking front end possible, Mike opted to machine a set of Harley-Davidson Narrow-Glide trees to accept beefier 41mm Wide-Glide legs.  He also went to the trouble of shaving the lower tubes to remove the unsightly fender and brake mount tabs that were no longer required.  The team at Gravesend then went on to machine up the forward controls, foot pegs and shifter linkage, as well as fabricating the one-of-a-kind exhaust system.  Mike certainly did not take the easy route of bolting on catalogue custom parts!

Mike set himself the task of bending up a classic set of apehanger handlebars, but to give them a novel twist, he machined up some end caps that he inset with 1951 pennies, copper coins that date back to the original manufacture of the Harley-Davidson Panhead engine.  Not that this engine has much in common with the one that came out of Milwaukee more than half a century ago.  It has had new life breathed into it, and been lovingly reworked by another famous Brooklyn bike builder, Keino.  The polished Panhead cases gleam, as do the custom pan covers, but this motor is as much about go as it is show, so it can now boast reworked heads, Mallory ignition, and an SU carburettor with velocity stack.  The V-twin power is transferred via a Rivera open primary drive to a five into four-speed gearbox.

Words & Images by Steve Kelly Photography

…. to be continued

This entry was posted in North American Bikes, Steve Kelly and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.