Top Dead Center

Today. Big daddy and his crew add the final nuts and bolts to our old school shop.

Plus balance and precision. Come together at the World Trials competition from Duluth Minnesota.

Check out my new ride. What's up guys? I'm Alan neighbors. And today we're talking choppers at Big Daddy's in Porter, Texas

where you want them.

Appreciate it.

We came to this working man's shop outside Houston for several reasons.

Number one, we heard the owner was quite a character. Definitely one handsome man.

We seen their custom motorcycles that went from the wildly extreme to old school traditional

so big daddy and his crew set off with

Ralph frame in hand to build a, one of a kind old school bike, a

bike in the same tradition of a six S chopper.

You can go out and buy a manufactured bike and

you can go to Daytona Sturgis and there's 10 of them right in a row.

This is a, one of a kind

type of bike. We don't build two bikes exactly the same.

Add a big modern motor and some trick heavy gold flake paint

and now you're up to speed.

Good morning guys. Good morning. Morning

another day.

Ok. That's as far

as

long as it'll go. Now, that's all the way up

the

problem.

You see the misalignment,

go ahead and let

it

run

out.

We had a little step back. No big deal.

That's what happens when you build a bike.

The sprocket shaft extension was an inch too short. They sent us the wrong part and I need to know what I can do to get the put.

I need it tomorrow.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Please fit God. Please

push comes to shove. Custom chrome comes right through for us.

I can.

All right,

we are back on track because I have the best crew. There is

Randy.

These are guys from Pr I

and they're gonna give us the uh

induction system for it.

A

matter of fact, here it is.

Here we go. Oh wow. Is that incredible? There it is. That is awesome guys.

It's SNS Shorty G carburetor with our booster insert inside that we make ourselves.

You have all stainless steel, high polished runners. All the aluminum pieces are all built aluminum chrome.

Let's get to work. Come on guys.

Oh,

this is gonna be sharp.

You gotta do to

help you

get

the hell

out of here.

Run light working, right? Yeah, the run of light's working

construction looks good on there.

Jessi suggested that

come along pretty good.

We look like a high beam man. The

biggest part of it is done

low beam

low, be good.

All right, man. Good.

Ok, guys, you come up with a name yet. Yeah. Old school high roller. All right. I like it. I like it. Well, guys, you're gonna want to stick around because high roller is gonna hit the road here in a bit.

But up next the best meat Duluth Minnesota for world trials competition.

Now a chopper like this is built for pure style and image buy on a trial's bike. Only one thing matters. Pure precision.

16 of the best riders on the planet came to Duluth Minnesota for two rounds of the world trial series and neither a day of blazing sunshine nor a day of rain slowed these guys from doing their gravity defying acrobatics.

Sometimes we question whether they're actually human.

They have unbelievable skill. They truly are Olympic caliber world class athletes

uh

picture if you will an Olympic gymnast, some sections,

it just, they just don't even know themselves if it's possible. But

if you're not sure you've just gotta

point it up and go not for the best.

It looks easy. You know, when you see the real good guys riding and you're like, oh, it looks easy, but

it's really not that easy. Testing a rider's balance, endurance and courage. The rules are the simplest thing about motorcycle truck.

They stay in bounds and don't put their foot down. They get a clean ride, zero points at the end of the day. The rider with the lowest total wins. These guys are the best riders in the world.

You know, you, everybody can twist the grip and hold the wide open and, you know, outbreak the next guy. But

when you're sitting on a lock, you got to go up to some crazy thing, you got to hit it right on the money.

So, I mean, everybody can dance but not everybody can do ballets.

So

that's

what it's awesome. You know, not many people know exactly how

they

can ride and just

watching them over the rocks and crashing too is amazing.

You never know what will happen. This sport is all about man and machine against Mother Nature and sometimes Mother Nature wins,

especially at this level. The margin of error just is non existent. It either goes all the way up the rock or it goes most of the way up the rock and all the way back down and that's generally not a good thing. I mean, it's a matter of inches and

then you can up, you go or you spin and you up, you know,

it's a very mental, uh, game really. Its trials and you just can't shut off at all. Uh, that's when you start making mistakes.

Those guys, they have iron will, they do things that, uh,

you know, they're, they're risking severe injury doing this

and they're just undaunted. It's amazing what they accomplished.

It may look like an individual sport, but that's hardly the case

as time passed, it's become more of a team sport, a good experienced team

and it's become really important,

ok,

out of that.

Ok?

And behind every good rider is a great minder pointing out the way.

Yeah,

we

help

with setting up the bike, get him lined up.

Uh, and when there's big steps,

you catch him at the top. If he's not gonna make it, you encourage him to try to keep him,

keep him in line. Well, you have to trust him 100% because uh if you start mocking that ideas and sometimes some Minders get a little bit afraid of speaking their, their own opinion.

Yes,

Dougie's Minder is also his father and he isn't afraid to speak out. I do exactly that as he asks, he says,

just say it once and say it loud

for it

with seven straight world titles. A partnership works. There isn't many Children and fathers can work together. It doesn't normally work, but it does with a business relationship

when we bike in and a family relationship when it finishes.

And again

there,

my father was a world champion in 75. The only other uh previous British trials world champion.

So, uh yeah, it's sort of a bit of a family legacy that uh

I don't know what it is or how the success comes. Obviously, we do get a lot of support from the family and that is definitely an advantage with his family. Behind him. Dougie has gone on and made his name synonymous with the sport. He's always loved

followed trials all my life. I've never wanted to try anything else. I've never wanted to try Motocross or road racing or anything. I've always just loved trials. I still enjoy it as much now as what I did when I was sort of 56 years old just starting out,

um, still love riding a bike as often as possible. We still train every day. So, uh,

you know, when,

when that sort of, uh,

enjoyment goes out of it, I think that's when you've got the stuff. It's the same as any other job when you don't enjoy it, you find something else

even with nothing left to prove. Dougie Lampkin has no plans of letting us.

So I'm obviously very happy with, uh, with my career, but

it's very strange that we striving for striving for more

and

that's what we're all.

That's what everybody wants, isn't it? It's, uh,

obviously I love winning.

Even the best in the world can have an off day. We'll have more from the world trials after the break.

Plus later on high roller will roll off the lid for his virgin run.

Hi roller. Nice work. Dave. Thanks a lot.

Speaking of roll, one slip of the world trials can send even the best, rolling downhill.

If the nasty Minnesota terrain didn't get to the riders from Europe, Asia and North America, then the pressure would

a

tight, closely contested match where the scores are low. You make one mistake could cost you to win on the day of the competition. It's, it's down to

the mental factor really, all the, the top 10 riders are

really, really close.

This comes down to

small things here and there. We love it and you just,

you sort of get used to it really. You are nervous that you try and uh turn that into a positive

thought more than anything

else

to tackle these obstacles. Dougie competes on a motorcycle specially built for trials competition.

All right. Um uh Montesa,

uh Montesa is uh

a company that's owned by Honda.

Um Basically, it's a 250 cc single cylinder,

uh two stroke machine. It weighs about 75 kg.

Basically, it's only got four gears and it'll probably only do about 70 miles an hour. It's, it's not a speed machine, there's no seat or anything like that, but

we just use the, uh the bottom end torque, power of the,

the engine and the clutch

as well as a very soft suspension. So it's very different to what you normally ride on the street. Good suspension as well as tire pressure,

make the difference between a low score of zero or a five. Most of the riders use mix spin tires, especially at the top and

we use about six pounds per square inch in the front and about four pounds per square inch in the rear. So they are very low.

They're not used for anything else really. They're only good for, they're not, not allowed for on road use or anything like that. So,

especially for trials.

Bike and rider got a work out on day one when the skies opened up.

Well, it's

Duluth,

you never know about Duluth.

It's supposed to be sunny today and it rains

when it was wet. You take the mud, you put on the rock and it's

too slippery.

Downpours.

We're going to keep these fans from admiring the world's best. Very few sports offer a spectator the opportunity that close to a rider or a competitor where you can actually look at the expression on their face. You can see the sweat trickling down their face,

you can actually see their

pulse rate. You know, you look in their eyes, you can see the determination. Takahisa

Fujinami or Fuji gas as he's otherwise known,

kept the crowd's pulse racing all afternoon and stayed with lampkin in the points.

Then on the second loop, Dougie went down hard.

I'm 53 years old and I rode professionally myself all my life. And I, I say I've ridden with Dougie's just out and I've never seen anything like that.

Definitely a, a very hard impact. And, uh, but I did the damage when I jumped back down. I landed on, uh, some sharp rocks in the bottom at the bottom of my back

so

a little bit.

Lamkin

never got his groove back and finished fourth as Fuji Gas

went on to win the opening round

for the past five years. Fuji Gas

has finished second to Lamkin in the championship.

And when the Japanese rider went down under a blazing hot sun on day two,

it looked like Dougie would have the edge he needed.

But a mental mistake late in the loop cost a brit

just made a big mistake. On section 13 went the wrong side of the flag.

Um Big, big mistake and it cost me the victory. So I'm a little bit disappointed for that.

The chance of Fuji Gas

Fujinami

made Dougie pay for his mistake and took the win by three points to complete the American round. Sweep

the

aye.

I get it.

So

I like

because I'm, I'm, I'm studies same, same American style. No, always who guys

and,

and I like, I like Americans

up next. The guys roll the dice on our old school chopper build up.

We're back at Big Daddy's custom motorcycles where old school high roller about to be fired up.

The team of Alan Randy and easy money. Joe came through turning Big Daddy's vision of another classic old school bike into a machine they can all be proud of. It's like a 21 year old blonde.

It just, it's perfect. I think this bike is incredible.

So

you gotta put your glasses on

your glasses off. Is it so striking. It is.

It's incredible. All that

litter just

flinging all over the place. I can't wait to get it outside to see what it's gonna look like

at this stage of the bike. Um

You're gonna slow down a little bit,

gonna start going through a lot of details, going over bolts, making sure everything is tight.

Uh

Anything that needs lock tight or a lock washer or lock nut,

lock it down because this motors,

it shakes pretty good bit. You know, there's a lot of vibration

basically just getting everything ready to

put it on the road and make it safe.

He's wanting to hear it.

I'm more wanting to make sure it's right before I put it off the table.

I get excited

because I see what

the guys have done here going from raw metal,

building a machine like this. It's incredible. I mean,

so I get antsy. I do, I get real antsy. I wanna hear it run.

I want to see it on the road,

pull the plugs out,

turn it over a few times and get the oil circulating through it.

It could be like a loose wire or something.

Hey,

the runs

run out of

time.

I, I

thought

that

why did it do that on that one? And not that one.

It's 100 and 52 degrees

from

the rear.

2 32 25 on the front,

70 degrees different

around the belt.

Do you think it might be the ignition. What do you think?

I don't know. I didn't set it. It came from the factory set.

10 minutes later, Joe tracks down a faulty plug wire.

Sounds a lot better.

That sounds good, guys.

This is gonna be a wheely

machine right here.

Look at that

sign and that flake in that thing.

It's probably one of the, one of the finest bikes we've built.

But Joe will be riding this bike a lot.

Performance on the bike is outstanding and it's got lots of torque. Lots of horse fire

handles. Well,

it's a good, good running machine.

It's a real low stance bike and it's got a lot of flex to it.

It takes a little getting used to with the hydraulic clutch and,

but it's, it's a fun rider. It's fun.

Ok. One last thing, Big Daddy, how much for the bike?

This bike is not for sale? No amount of money will buy this bike. Flyer.

Ok.

Yeah. Now that is one awesome old school chopper.

Hey, guys, a special thanks to Big Daddy and his crew.

Well, that's all the time for this week. Join us next week. Right. Safe.