Root Beer Floats remind me of being a kid on a hot summer day. Do you remember watching what happens when you pour cold Root Beer over vanilla ice cream in a mug? And that beautiful explosion of bubbles and froth that follows. A big smile would be on my face as I dipped a long spoon into the concoction to savor the deliciousness.
In all honesty, Scott Peck, the person who commissioned this bike, named it for its color rather than the dessert. Regardless, the bike instantly jumped out and brought a big smile to my face when I saw it at an Easyriders bike show in Charlotte, North Carolina. It hit me as something I would love to own and ride and something that could have easily been on display at Mooneyes or in my “What’s the Skinny” Motorcycles as Art exhibition. Scott was not only the person who commissioned the bike from his close friend, custom builder Rhett Holley; he collaborated with Rhett to get it done.
Like anyone who grows up on a farm, Rhett Holley learned to be self-sufficient at an early age. He was riding a Honda 50 around the farm by the time he was four years old and with a shop on the property filled with welders, a plasma cutter, lathes, shears, and everything needed for a full-on fab shop, creating things from metal is basically in Rhett’s blood. At 17, Rhett built his first custom bike and hasn’t stopped since. Around 2003, Rhett figures his hobby turned into a business because people who saw his bikes at shows began asking him to modify their bikes, work on their engines, or build ground-up customs for them. Back then, there wasn’t a Harley-Davidson shop within 2-hours, so Rhett was THE guy when it came to Harleys and customs in the area.
With Scott living 4-hours away from Rhett, along with him being such an opinionated guy who wanted to be very involved, this project was a little more challenging than Rhett’s prior builds. Trying to mesh Rhett’s style and vision with Scott’s basic idea of what he was looking for was challenging, but in the end, the design was very much a collaboration and balance of what they each liked.
This stretched and hard-tailed Shovelhead started life as a 1975 Superglide that Scott and Rhett found on “Bubba’s” farm (yes – that really was the farmer’s name!) in the middle of a snowstorm. With cows running all about, they saw a front tire sticking through the barn wall where an old plank was missing, and Rhett told Scott, “That’s your new ride!” They bought it then and there, and in less than a week, Scott had stripped the bike down, dropped all the parts at Rhett’s shop, and they were off to the races.
Starting with the frame, they cut off the old swing arm, saved the original neck, and started bending tubing. After the frame, it was on to sheet metal, with the gas tank being first. With the shape where they wanted it, they made the tunnel with hidden mounts. Next was the oil tank, which was cut from 16-gauge steel and bead-rolled for extra strength and shape. The rear fender came next, along with fabricating the one-off stainless steel sissybar. Foot controls, the jockey shifter, and handlebars were also fabricated out of stainless.
Now that their work was looking like a bike, it was time to place the motor in the frame so they could make the exhaust, top motor mount, and master cylinder mount. The last time-consuming piece to be made was the seat pan, which was then sent to Jordan Dickerson at Union Speed and Style for his leather skills. After all the fab work was completed, everything was disassembled so the steel parts could be chrome-plated, the stainless and aluminum polished, and the sheet metal sent to Jason Hancock at 33 Kustom Kolor for flake and candy treatment paint.
While all this was happening, Rhett took the motor apart and gave it a once over to make sure everything was okay. While inside it, Rhett, with his buddy Big Will, converted everything from the cam to the rocker arms to Evo parts and welded up external oil lines so they could split the rocker boxes down the middle.
Everything came back about the same time, so it was game on for assembly. Just a week later, at 9 pm on a Friday, it was back together, wired, plumbed, and ready to go to an invited show where it placed 1st in its class. It was at this show that Scott saw the completed bike for the first time, and as Rhett told it, “Seeing the look on Scott’s face when he walked into the show and saw it for the first time was way better than any award he could have received.”
You can bet I’m going to be keeping my eyes on Rhett to see what he can create in the coming years. He’s done an excellent job of hiding from the limelight up until now, but I’m not so sure he’ll be able to keep out of it in the future.
References;
@butcher_chop_rhett
@_bigscott_
@pineapple_jay
@jasonhancockartist
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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