Papa Clutch Customs revs up Ainsworth

AINSWORTH - Motors are running and business is humming on Railroad Street in Ainsworth - thanks to the recent opening of Papa Clutch Customs motorcycle shop - Iowa's exclusive dealer of Sucker Punch Sally's old school bobber-and-chopper-style motorcycles.

"It's been good," said co-owner Dana Anding, known as "the All Mighty" around the shop, which opened May 7. "We've been busy, and we've had a lot of people coming in and checking out the place to see what it is. A lot of people don't know what it is, and they're pretty surprised when they walk through the door. It's been kind of crazy busy."

"We've had a lot of support," added Dana's husband, Tim, an Ainsworth native. "We've gotten a lot of haters that keep saying 'location, location, location,' and thinking we're just crazy. But, if it wasn't for the Sucker Punch line, we probably would be crazy. So, people are calling from Chicago, Des Moines, Sioux Falls, Sioux City. The closest shop to us is St. Louis to the south, St. Paul to the north, Cincinnati to the east and Colorado to the west. So, we have a great big circle that we can pull from. Our projection is to sell 30 bikes this year."

      Tim said that projection is a little high, but with fuel prices on the rise, he said more motorists will look for more economical transportation, and in Tim's opinion, there's no better way to get from one point to the next than on two wheels and a motor, and there's no better bike for the buck than a custom-built chopper from Sucker Punch Sally's (SPS).

But, the word "chopper" means different things to different people, and Tim said the choppers SPS builds are modeled after the original, basic, "chopped" bikes made famous in the 1950s and 1960s.

"It's a stock bike stripped down," he explained. "A chopper, back in the day, was what this is. It wasn't some long, stretched-out, big-tire bike. It was a bike that came back with the guys coming home from the wars, and they 'chopped' off everything they didn't need to make it faster. That's what this is. The media has done a lot of damage on that with [Orange County Choppers] and all those building shows, because they're talking about choppers, and it's some god-awful thing that's not rideable. The chopper-bobber in that era was fast and functional, and that's what they wanted. They wanted something they could ride across the country, because it was their primary means of transportation. This is the core of the motorcycle right here. This is where it's always been, and this is where it always will be, and it's never going to go out of style, and it's always going to be cool."

Tim said the SPS custom choppers are an especially good choice for anyone considering purchasing a new motorcycle, because for about the same price as the major production motorcycles, a customer can have the motorcycle they want custom-built from the ground up - complete with custom paint, grips, seat and more.

"There's no two alike," he said. "With SPS, you're getting a custom-made bike. You're never going to be at a stop light and see your twin pull up next to you."

"You're spending the same amount of money on a Harley Davidson, " added Papa Clutch Customs builder Jayson Moore, "and they've already built 25,000 of the same model."

Tim said Papa Clutch Customs will also build its own line of custom choppers at a rate of about two per year, but Papa Clutch isn't only about building and ordering cool, custom-made machines. Tim said Papa Clutch's customer service and service department are also a priority.