News: Bike builder may be busted

[mediajackl]

Custom motorcycle builder Chip Miyler of Illinois, who has gotten a fair amount of press for his bikes, has declared bankruptcy for his Mid-West Choppers and may face criminal charges for not building bikes he got paid to build, says linked stories.

Excerpt: "Customers have told police Miyler asked for large sums of money to finish their $25,000 to $60,000 motorcycles just before filing bankruptcy."

Miyler is featured as having a "dream job" in current Men's Journal (link), and has gotten write-ups in numerous publications.

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/102205/REG_B7TKPM98.033.shtml

http://www.register-mail.com/stories/101505/MAI_B7RGTMJP.GID.shtml

http://www.mensjournal.com/feature/0510/dreamJobs.html

[FoxHunter]

Ooof what a mess. I realy feel sorry for all those people who dumped so much money into somthing they most likely will never see. I feel REALY sorry for that 9-11 foundation. They try to do somthing fun that will also bring in some good and end up getting a raw deal.

*shakes head slowly*

[mediajackl]

Wonder if it was a case of trying to live the Teutel lifestyle without the money from the OCC empire (T-shirts, leathers, sunglasses...)?
Businesses with the best intentions run aground, but there's no excuse for taking big piles of money days before closing up shop.

Knowing nothing about financing or bike-building except what I see on the teevee, I suspect the big money that people are now willing to spend on bikes will lead to some kind of payment intermediary, sorta like PayPal ("you give us the money, we confirm its here, and pay the builder when the bike is finished"), or a bonding company.

[mark883]

Big Dog Choppers of Houston (dealer for Big Dog, not Big Dog itself) recently went kaput, selling their assets at auction. Don't know the story or circumstances.

Me thinks the Big $$ ego chopper market maybe on the way down, as per a fad.

There's a fairly big bike dealer here in NW Ohio (Big Dog, Vengance, others) that would be very willing to make you a deal on some of their new 04 05 inventory. At least that's what their ads appear, and if they were selling great, you wouldn't have a bunch of 04s around.

I just can't image there's bunches of people willing to drop $30k or more on a bike that's so impractical from a transportation point of view, even with a 10year finance plan. I'd love to have one, but 30k would buy a couple nice practical Harleys, or 2-3+ practical other name bikes. And payoff the balance on my house.

[Wolfie]

Another factor in the custom chopper saga is that they are only worth big money when people are willing to pay big money.
Some are works of rolling Art, for real.
Others are ...well ...not.
I would hate to be trying to get my 'investment' back out of one after the music stops.

mark.

[carpe_diem]

I am sure the is the first of many custom shops that will go belly-up in the next 12 months.

This is a fad for many people....the good/smart ones will survive.