Coming from: Orlando Sentinel

Choppers offer plenty of power in both the ride and the ridingexperience, and local shops help bikers project a powerful image, too.
Sandra Carr | Special to the Sentinel
Posted January 22, 2006

The wind blows through Peter Fonda's hair as he grips the handlebars of his shiny, sleek red-white-and-blue chopped Harley-Davidson motorcycle, riding across the Colorado River in search of freedom. He and his sidekick, Dennis Hopper, are on a road trip from L.A. to New Orleans on a bright sunny day, rolling to the pounding rhythms of Steppenwolf's rock 'n' roll motorcycle anthem "Born to be Wild." It's a scene from Easy Rider, a movie that made a bold, universal statement heard 'round the world: Motorcyclists who rode colorful custom-choppers were not ordinary bikers -- they were unique, somehow different. The truth is, even before the movie was released in 1969, choppers -- the style of custom bike being featured at Orlando Museum of Art's "Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit, opening today -- already had their own history. After World War II, there was a surplus of motorcycles in the United States. Servicemen returning from the war were dissatisfied with the available Harley-Davidson and Indian motorcycles; they wanted to ride lighter bikes. So they created "bobbers" -- bikes with shortened rear fenders and no front fenders.

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