Rick Fairless is of that generation that went and saw the film Easyriders as a young teenager when it was first released. The movie had such a profound effect on him that after seeing the film, Rick knew his life would always revolve around motorcycles. He loved seeing friends getting together around bikes. “We rode our Honda 100s to school, and before that, we were on our mini-bikes.”
There was a detour along the way since, after graduation from school, Rick accepted a job with an uncle who owned a chain of paint stores. He lasted a full 20 years while the company grew to become a national chain known as the Glidden Paint Company, and he became their number one salesperson in the country. But after 20 years, it was time for a change, which led to the “Strokers Dallas,” Ricks motorcycle shop where they sell bikes, have a complete parts department, and do repairs, customization, and ground-up builds with American-made motorcycles. They also have a large selection of branded “Strokers Dallas” apparel. For a time, the shop was a licensed Easyriders franchisee and a Big Dog Motorcycles Dealer, but these both fell by the wayside and Strokers became stronger and stronger.
At this point, there is no doubt Rick is a celebrity. People got to know him through the magazine coverage his custom motorcycles garnered back in the 1990s, but television is what made him famous. His coming out party was the Discovery Channel Biker Build-Off against Matt Hotch in March 2005, followed by the debut of a TV series about Rick, his family, and Strokers just 3-months later. Rick starred in a second TV series, “Ma’s Roadhouse,” in which his mother was co-starred. There was also a cooking show, countless appearances on other TV shows, and his own radio show. Rick’s social media, emails, and phone went nuts, so much so that the heavy traffic crashed his website.
Twenty-seven years have passed since Rick opened Strokers, and today the shop has become a destination with people flying in to seek out Rick. They want to shake his hand, get an autograph, or perhaps a photo with him. They get to experience Strokers Dallas and “Strokers Ice House,” Rick’s bar on the shared 2-1/2 acre property. On a typical weekend, more than a thousand bikes show up for the live music, cold beer, and a burger. (They’ve parked as many as 2,000 bikes on the property several times!)
On that same property, Rick has his “Punch Wally Garage,” a classic restoration and hot rod shop that turns out cars that have sold for as much as $300,000. As if this isn’t enough, Rick opened an insurance company named “Fearless Insurance Services.” There are plenty of employees to keep the multiple operations running, but to ensure it runs like a clock, Rick counts on his family. His wife Sue, his two daughters Lena and Chelsey, and even his brother-in-law all work at Strokers.
When it comes to building the four custom bikes that come out of the shop every year, Rick is primarily (in his own words) “designer, inspiration, architect, cheerleader, and chief bathroom cleaner-upper!” And so, Rick turns to Ryan Nelson, his chief fabricator, to bring to life the images that Rick conjures up in his head. It’s not that Rick isn’t willing to work hard since Rick goes to bed between 7:30 and 8 pm every night so he can be up by 1:30 am to get right back to work. (Apparently, Rick is at work in the morning, while I’m still at work at night!)
Looking at Rick’s bikes, one can only think back to when he was a teenager and sitting in a darkened theater watching Easy Rider. As Rick says, “Many people love Billy’s Bobber in the film, and I like that bike a lot, but I always LOVED Fonda’s long stretched-out Captain America Panhead.” In fact, Rick went on to build three Captain America replicas, a testament to his love for this bike, the movie, and choppers in general.
Captain America is so fixed in Rick’s mind that, to this day, it influences how he looks at custom motorcycles in general. He defines “chopper” as “a bike with an old engine in a rigid frame, a lot of stretch, a lot of rake, and a long front end. It doesn’t have blinkers, disco lights, speedos, or horns, and most don’t even have front brakes. Of course, the pipes need to be custom-made, and if it has a mirror, it will be minimal.”
This brings us to the bike on these pages before us. The project started when Duane Barnett, a good customer for whom Rick had already built several bikes, came to him with the idea of building a custom bike to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SSI, Inc. (Silicone Specialties, Inc.), his construction materials company.
Rick really likes Duane and has the utmost respect for him and how he worked his way up from being a delivery guy at the company to eventually becoming the owner. He wanted to do something special, and he knew he wanted to build Duane a chopper. He immediately offered to take a project he had wanted to do for himself and instead do it for Duane.
While the bike had to have all the ingredients that go into Rick’s definition of a stretched-out chopper, he also wanted it to be the best running bike possible, so to that end, he wanted the best modern parts available, so long as they would still give him a look he was after. Basically, an “Old School” look with “New School” technology!
For starters, there was the donor bike that Rick picked up from a tattoo artist years ago. It had initially been built in East Texas in the late 1990s, and while much of it was pretty rough, the Pat Kennedy #3 frame (the longest Pat made back in the day) was in good shape and just needed the chrome to be stripped since Rick wanted to paint it. The tank and fender could be reworked and used again on the new bike, and that’s all that came from this donor.
Instead of a classic Pan or Shovel engine, as Rick runs on some of his own bikes, Rick went with a 124″ S&S Shovel, which has much more horsepower and is more reliable. For the tranny, he went with the best of the best, a Baker 6-Speed. As far as he was concerned regarding the front end, there wasn’t even a choice. It had to be one from his good friend Sugar Bear, and it had to be 28″ over.
The paint is an essential feature of this bike. In a way, it turns the bike into Rick’s version of Captain America, but he didn’t want just to copy the original since we’ve all seen dozens of flag-painted bikes that have been done to death. Rick wanted something different. He wanted the colors to bleed through and knew he didn’t want the stars to be symmetrical. And so, he turned to his painter Gary Queen at Other Side Customs, right around the corner from him in Dallas.
In the end, Rick delivered a bike that was very similar to his weekly ride. It is a great-looking bike, powerful, and easy to ride. It is just a cog in the wheel of Rick’s life. He said, “I didn’t get into the motorcycle business to make a lot of money. I got into this business because of my everlasting passion for American Motorcycles! Hey, I’m 67 years old, and I absolutely LOVE what I do for a living. Why should I slow down now? And on that note, I’m sure we’ll see plenty more come out of Rick’s Strokers Dallas shop.
For more info, check out Rick’s website: www.strokersdallas.com, and his Instagram: @rickfairless
In 1979, Easyriders started to publish some of Michael’s motorcycle photography. He photographed a number of smaller events and features specifically for them, proved his abilities and then was off on his third trip to Sturgis in 1981, now on assignment for Easyriders, for whom he has returned there ever since. Also in 1981, after a solo exhibition of his work at the Gallery of Photography in Dublin, Ireland, which was boycotted by the League of Decency, Michael became disillusioned with the “art world” and again changed course. He stopped publicly exhibiting his photographs in favor of publishing his motorcycle work in Easyriders and simultaneously began developing his career as a commercial advertising and corporate photographer. By 1982, his studio was open in Boulder, Colorado. It wasn’t long before he developed a clientele that included companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Kraft Foods.
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