Brooklyn Invitational: John Copeland Remembered

Those who attended the first Brooklyn Invitational Custom Motorcycle Show in September 2009 and the following September shows until 2018, witnessed motorcycle history.  In late 2008 early 2009, John Copeland. Keino Sasaki (Keino Cycles) and Jeffrey Schad brainstormed the idea to contact a dozen or so Tri-State motorcycle builder friends[1] and organize a one day only custom motorcycle show. The rough, dark and somewhat menacing post-industrial East Williamsburg skateboard venue, Autumn Bowl was the perfect spot to pull it off. They reached out to friends Paul Cox, AJ Herold, Andy Camay, tattooer Diego Mannino and others for help.  Evening meetings were held at the Johnson Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn garage, where Copeland and Schad wrenched on their bikes to discuss what would be involved── they agreed, the event should be a small, somewhat private, invitational motorcycle show as a free of charge, gallery type setting. They all knew this had not really been done before on the East Coast.

Over the summer of ’09 everything came together: The date for the show was set for September 19 between the hours of 12 noon to 12 midnight at the Autumn Bowl. There were no windows at the Bowl so it was dark and disorienting inside the huge space: Just simple vault-like rooms, red brick walls and broom swept concrete floors. Bikes built by Lock Baker, Andy Camay, Rich Phillips, Bill Dodge, Paul Cox, Walt Siegl, Kevin Oranger, John and Keino and a few others were illuminated by low-tech overhead utility lights. The machines sat quietly in the near darkness and begged attention. Copeland, Keino and Schad created a free show with a gritty gallery ambiance that unfolded in a series of quiet rooms where the motorcycles were presented simply on the floor. Nothing fancy, just a dozen inspiring motorcycles that spoke for themselves. People were invited to walk among the machines and quietly share their opinions and ideas. It was fucking beautiful.

“This show started as mostly choppers and mostly New York and the surrounding area,” Copeland reflected about the show in 2017. “As the years went on we tried to widen the scope. It was custom motorcycles and not just a custom choppers show. There’s all kinds of different things you can do in making a bike yours— some people build choppers, some people build café racers… So that’s like the biggest thing we have done over the years. We’ve tried to widen the scope and the content of the show so it’s not just one narrow take on the thing.”

“There’s a world of custom Harley choppers and you get to know everyone, it’s a small little world. Even though there’s people all over the world doing it, you get to know everyone. We never wanted the show to feel like the same group of people every year.”

“The Internet has changed everything,” Copeland continued. “I wouldn’t know half these people if it was twenty or thirty years ago when everything was word of mouth. Now, you get to see these people’s work on the Web. We had bikes built by Swedish builders Martin Carlgren and Nicke Svensson and a bike by Toshiyuki Cheetah Osawa of Tokyo at the event this year.”

The location of the show shifted in 2010 to ROOT Studio; a ten-thousand square foot venue on North 14^th street between Wythe and Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Copeland, Keino and Schad maintained the free “one day only” you snooze you lose approach. 1PM to 11PM on an anonymous Saturday in September. The event remained small but the list of bike builders changed every year and started to include an international perspective. Over the years in a side room people sold some biker related fashion, Matt Davis of DICE, a longtime friend of the show set up a table for his magazine a few times. Tom Fugle also set up a table where he sold his handcrafted wallets and rock paintings, Shige Suganuma of Mooneyes attended one year and featured the event in his MOON Illustrated. Live music was added— Noted local tattooers like Diego Mannino (who worked at Daredevil tattoo at the time) tattooed a special selection of small pieces he designed for the event.

“The list of builders shifted every year to include a selection of different sensibilities,” Copeland continued. “Builders like Max Schaaf, Chris Lindig, Aki Sakamoto, Jeff Wright, Michael Barragan, Walt Siegl, Chopper Dave, Hugh Mackie, Caleb Owens, Brandon Holstein, Shinya Kimura and Dave Polgreen have been a part of this show.” The number of people who visited the show every year was estimated at more than 4000 strong. Hundreds of bikes of every stripe were curbed on the street in front of the Roots building down North 14^th. The vibe was always no friction, positive and creative.

In 2016 for the first time the Invitational had a major motorcycle manufacturer sponsor— Indian Motorcycles played an active role in the show and at the 2017 show promoted its new Scout bobber. The company asked a few top builders to do whatever they wanted to customize the bike: Keino, Roland Sands, Satya Kraus and Steve Caballero got bikes that were featured at that show.

Keino’s building timeline was short: He conceived and built his Scout in six weeks. “Indian contacted me about being a part of this new model promotional project,” Keino said. “They said they wanted to pick multiple builders of different styles based on the new Scout model and show the bikes at this year’s Invitational. That was a cool collaboration with Indian as far as a sponsorship. We worked carefully with them not to go overboard with the brand and to coexist together at the Invitational.

“Basically, they said do whatever I want and they didn’t want to interfere with the creativity.  They wanted to see something different and of course, I just did my own thing. I reworked the tank completely from scratch. Anything aluminum on the bike except for the exhaust pipe end is worked from a flat piece of aluminum. Originally, I was given three months to complete the custom build but for a mixture of reasons, the schedule got pushed back. So I ended up with six weeks and I said to myself, OK, I guess I gotta make this happen.”

Throughout its ten year history, Copeland, Keino and Schad followed the process and allowed the Invitational to grow organically. The final show in 2018 was a huge success and once again everyone had a good day. More than 4000 motorcycle enthusiasts got together at ROOT in a low-key creative environment, walked through the bikes inside and also along the sidewalk outside where hundreds of impressive bikes were curbed. As Copeland had always intended── for one day everyone relaxed, eyeballed the different styles and platforms of top international and local bike builders as they appreciated the dynamic culture of motorcycles.

[1] 2009 show builders

Lock Baker Eastern Fabrication CT
Andy Camay Private, Brooklyn NY
John Copeland Private, Brooklyn NY
Paul Cox Paul Cox Industries NY
Bill Dodge Blings Cycles NJ
Neil Fenton Private, Brooklyn NY
Krazy Kevin Private, Long Island NY
Alex Lerner Private, Queens NY
Kevin Orangers Private, Brooklyn NY
Rich Philipps Rich Phillips custom leather MO
Keino Sasaki Keino Cycles NY
Jeffrey Schad Private, Brooklyn NY
Walt siegl Walt siegl NH
Tim Vander Private, Brooklyn NY