| Author | Message | ||
     Barker |
Found this playing on the web. Has a Blast in one shot. Might have to ride down and check this place out. http://www.wnpt.net/crossroads/video/aug07/4.swf http://www.sgcustomcycles.com/ check out their bikes for sale Love the discription on this one. 2000 Buell S1 1200cc motor, 17,532 miles. This little Harley crotch rocket has seen a lot of action but she still runs and drives great. Has cosmetic damage on both sides. Owner going away for an extended stay in a Tennessee Cross Bar Hotel. (Message edited by barker on November 09, 2007) | ||
| Cataract2 |
Hm. Guy sounds like one who just loves bikes. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
Let's make a run. It's in our back yard! | ||
| Birdy |
Great idea When do we leave. I guess about a 300 mile roll for me. Wonder what they'd think of a bunch of Buellers showing up? | ||
| Ratyson |
I'm gonna have to take a ride up from Huntsville to see this place. Great find! | ||
| Barker |
From Angola, IN I would say its more like 500 miles. Do I have to make this an official event on buell.com? | ||
| Ratyson |
Google maps shows it about 67 miles from me as the crow flies... but the roads I take in TN would put it more like 150 miles, via Lynchburg. | ||
| Barker |
not a bad run. Shop Hours: Tuesday through Friday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday: 9 a.m. to Noon Closed Sundays & Mondays Maybe we could all meet up @ the shop 10ish on a Satuday then have lunch in town. | ||
| Birdy |
I'd have to leave yesterday to get there! Maybe in spring some time | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Daaaaaaamn that lil Harley Dirt Bike 350 is making me wish I lived closer. Look at the travel on that! Paint her orange and call her MINE. | ||
| Barker |
S & G Custom Cycles Motors On by: Celeste Blackburn, Columbia Daily Herald When the Maury Leadership class stopped at S&G Custom Cycles on their economic development tour, it was hard to remember that this group of suits was there to observe an example of successful entrepreneurship. Instead, it looked and sounded like a group of teenagers on a field trip to the mecca of cool. Sam Goodman started his business in 1976 with $2,000 in parts. Since then, S&G has had to move three times to accommodate the booming business. In the most recent move, the S&G crew has taken over the 30,000 square foot warehouse they used to store their salvage bikes in. Now, the team has renovated the warehouse to include multi-tiered platforms to showcase some of the hundreds of bikes Goodman and company have collected over the years. Notable cycles in the collection include a 1937 Harley Davidson and a WWII motorcycle that one of the men who flew the Enola Gay rode on base. The rest of the more than 300 motorcycles are in the basement just waiting for their turn to be called up. This massive collection is a result of years of buying at salvage trade shows, personal cofiecting and a barter system that allows customers to trade almost anything to pay their bills. On the opposite side of the building from the bikes is a row of offices. Bear Hinson's front office, otherwise known as "medicine and minor surgery," is lined with fenders, tanks, paints and tools he uses to create. Hinson's back office, where he gets down to business, is a ventilated workroom where he can paint everything from motorcycle parts and custom fabrication to guitars and paortraits on canvas. In front of Hinson's workspace is the mechanics' shop. The centerpiece for the shop is three big wire cages with squirrels that have been rescued and turned over to the fixit team at S&G. Rocky, Rockette and Rock Jr. keep mechanics Charlie Penrod and Neil Goodman company as they repair motorcycles or any other broken piece of machinery that makes it their way. Up a short flight of stairs and through the kitchen, where the S&G family has been known to gather for cookies and wine (Jerry Whitehead, long time customer and electrical engineer who also does work for the shop occasionally, brings his homemade wine) is the library. Currently, the library is a collection of boxes, but Sales and Parts Manager Ronny Mangrum is building shelves to house the books, manuals, five decades worth of technical magazines and other motorcycle reference materials. The showroom sits between the library and the bike platforms and acts as the main customer entrance. Mangrum describes the decor as "like Cracker Barrel for motorcycles." Besides rows of motorcycles, the room boasts a wall of war artifacts (which will soon include authentic WWII Harley parts packaged to be shipped to Europe), racks of motorcycle clothing, a display case with memorabilia from the shop's earliest days and Hinson's artwork. Often, the showroom is a mine field of practical jokes the staff like to play on each other and their guests. It is hard to believe that most of the work has been done by only six people - Sam Goodman, his wife Regina, cousin Neil, Mangrum, Hinson and Penrod. The secret to the success that has grown this business for three decades is simple, Goodman said. "We took a passion that we had, which is motorcycling, and it wound up turning into a job which almost got where you didn't care for it anymore and actually you have to get out and do other things," Goodman said. "I fly airplanes, we used to race a lot. Anything that you don't know how to do, you have to start to learn how to do it because it opens your mind up so you can see what's next." Goodman's business philosophy is simple also. "Being straightforward with folks the best way you can and you take it for what good it is, You can't look at the bad part of it, you gotta look at what good can come out of it," Goodman said. "It makes me feel proud. I couldn't have done it by myself. It took all of the folks here to do it." |
