As the American Chopper TV show comes to an end, the future of custom choppers is left missing a critical spokesperson that remindedus how much we love custom choppers. The only custom motorcycle themed show to last more than one year, one has to wonder if cancellingthe show will have a profound impact on the custom motorcyclebusiness as a whole or is the local demand enough to maintain it?

The boost the chopper business gained from the TV show created around a group of custom chopper builders reminded one of the dot com craze in the late nineties as far as the swell of new companies entering the business. As with any artificially created demand, eventually consumers came back to reality and many of the newly formed custom motorcycle businesses had to close up shop.

Once an almost completely underground market, the interest that was created in people who under normal circumstances would not be interested in choppers also launched small companies into huge successes and created an new internet niche that has stayed as big as it was during the custom motorcycle craze. Since websites are much less expensive to maintain than brick and mortar businesses, the fallen economy did little to affect the huge number of websites that were built around custom motorcycles.

What remains to be seen is whether or not the custom motorcycle industry can live through this recession with only biker mags and internet buzz to keep it going. I would suspect many small shops that are barely hanging on will close their doors before the end of the year. Some may simply turn back into one man operations that can no longer afford a crew of bike builders.

The good news for hands on builders is that each one only needs to create 5 or 6 custom motorcycles a year to keep their heads above water. And the small number of buyers left with money to spend are also the sort to not search for bargains as much as getting the custom they truly want. Most blue collar workers, the kind that were stretching their budgets to get into their own custom bike when times were good are certainly not going to risk their family’s financial future on a $30,000 toy.

The only buyers that remain at this point are the hardcore biker and the wealthy. I think the average Joes will come back to buying custom bikes but not until this economy recovers and Americans are willing to spend money again. But we have certainly seen the heyday of the custom motorcycle craze. There’s just simply no way it will be what it was during the American Chopper days.

Probably most of those that bought custom bikes just because of American Chopper have already traded them in on more practical rides, if they’re even still riding. When times got tough many just couldn’t justify keeping something in the garage for an occasional ride that was worth more than a lot of Americans make in a year.

While there is a future for custom bikes, it isn’t going to look anything like the recent past.

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