The Chopper Chronicles: tom fugal

Hollywood Run By David Mann

David Mann is a chopper culture artist who became best known for his biker lifestyle portrayals in EasyRiders Magazine. It was remembered builder and co- founding member of El Forastero Motorcycle Club, Tom Fugal who introduced Mann's work to then publisher of Choppers magazine, ED "Big Daddy" Roth. This is why on early Mann pieces you will see a copyright for ED Roth in the lower right hand corner.

Mann was commissioned for somewhere between 14-20 art pieces in the mid sixties by Ed Roth. He would become most notable in the early 70's when his pieces were released in Easyriders Magazine. The choppers he illustrated on paper would be replicated and built from then on in garages around the world.

David Mann was also a founding member of El Forastero M/C. Mann would leave us on September, 11 2004 and would later be inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame by bike builder Billy Lane.

Enjoy.

Mama Tried 2015 Milwaukee Wisconsin

For anybody that didn't make it to Mama Tried Motorcycle show this year, you missed a hell of a show. We arrived at the venue at about 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon. Parking by this time was nil and that's probably because by my estimates, anybody with a beard (men and women) within a two hundred mile radius was there.

With a tall boy PBR in one hand and a camera in the other, we took as many shots as we could. Now this place was packed and as I said in our preamble post, people came from all over to present their builds. Some just wanted to check it out.

I'm not going to down play it. The show was shit hot and not without a shortage of eye candy. There was chopper porn as far as the eye could see. There were custom choppers, dirt choppers, digger choppers, super choppers and café choppers. I might have made up half of that shit but basically there was something for everybody.

There are too many things we could highlight from Mama Tried 15. However, personally I will say meeting folks such as Jeff Leighton of Orange, California was paramount. Jeff was an invited builder at Mama Tried with his nicely patinaed 1940 EL Knuckle. Jeff is also going to be returning as a featured builder at Born Free this year in late June. So keep your eye out for this guy.

Jeff Leighton's 40 Knuck

We also met his friend Frank Kaisler a contributing editor to Easyriders magazine starting in 1973 and then moved on to be its editor from 1982 to 1987. Nowadays, you may know him as the instructor behind LowBrow Custom's technical DVDs. I would like to add, both these guys, Frank and Jeff, were super cool and humble guys with some great knowledge. It was a real pleasure meeting both of them. We have countless shots from the show so we hope you enjoy them.