2nd Place Best of Show
John Ames’ “Hammered”
Story & Photos by John Anders
What happens when you get two guys together that have
been friends for almost a decade and have had a couple of beers?
You end up with a killer chopper and a second place best of show
trophy. After the first talks of building a bike and three and a half
years later That’s exactly what John Ames and Ernie Gonzales did,
with Ernie’s welding talent and John’s creativity the two were able
to build a show winning bike that is very apparent of all the work
that was put into this chopper.
Once both the guys had the bug to build something cool the
deal of a lifetime had fallen into their laps. The first parts they
ended up with were from a swap meet and for very little cash the
guys ended up with a Ultima 127 inch engine with a Joe Hunt
magneto bolted to the nose cone, Performance Machine hand
controls, handlebars, and a Dakota Digital speedometer. With a
box full of parts and no frame John scored a Twisted Ironworks
frame, Ultima inverted 58mm front end that is 6 inches over stock,
and Weld Racing wheels to complete the roller. Any normal person would have just started bolting up parts but these guys had
trophies on their minds.
The first step was to start smoothing the frame. They filled in
the tubes on the swing arm and around neck. Nothing went untouched as far as the sheet metal, both the fenders were shaped
from blanks and they added a duck tail to the rear fender. The gas
tank was completely hand made from scratch. They kept the lines
26 Wide Open
flowing with custom sheet metal under the seat that matched the
lines of the tank for that long smooth body line. The oil tank is hidden up front behind the handmade spoiler.
Once the all the fabrication was done it was time to start mocking up all the components. The Heart of the beast was mated up
to a Ultima RSD 6 speed. The fumes are exhausted through a Martin Brothers Trixstas exhaust system. The whole bike sits on the
ground thanks to a legends air ride set up. After all was fitted up it
was time to lay some paint and do the final assembly. Scott
Thomas laid the candy paint with a ghosted in flame job.
Just hours before the Wide Open show the guys had a mad
dash to get the chopper done. They stayed up for 40 hours straight
and made it to the venue 15 minutes before closing. The bike has
countless hours of work put into it and the guys are well deserving of the second place trophy they received