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Laconia Custom Builder Feature - Irish Choppers
| | | Like many custom builders I know, Mickey Stevens grew up in a hot rod family. Ever since he was about 12 years old, his big brother was a pretty well-known hot rod builder, and he found himself in the garage often. His bro taught him a lot about building motors and the knowledge he imparted on Mickey helped him evolve into a ‘natural engine builder.’ He likes to build old school type of bikes, and it’s a reflection of the era he grew up in, a time when people like Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth were childhood heroes. Mickey has had a love of engineering and everything mechanical since he was young, but his passion always gravitated toward motorcycles.
Mickey was a police officer for 28 years, serving mainly in Worcester, Mass., but he always found a way to pursue his interest in motorcycles on the side, wrenching on bikes for other guys he worked with while starting to do some of his own fabrication. As he approached a hard-earned early retirement, he started thinking about opening his own shop about five years ago, pursuing his life-long dream. Even though he hasn’t been in the custom scene as long as a lot of other shops, he has quickly established a name for himself, a success he believes is because of the pride he takes in quality and craftsmanship. His Irish Choppers apparel line, which his business-savvy daughter Brittany helped him establish and market, is also helping him get his company's name out there to more than just the biker crowd. One of the underlying impetuses helping Irish Choppers establish itself on the scene is the fact that they put integrity into everything they do. Mickey proclaims that “Our word is our bond.” To him, customer satisfaction is everything.
His son Christopher, 25, is his right-hand man in the shop. Christopher expresses his artistic ability by doing all of his fabrication by hand. He'll take a hand dremel over a machine anyday. He’s a new school guy and Mickey’s old school, so they sometimes have different ideas about design and what direction a build should go, but nothing like “those guys on TV.”
We met the Irish Choppers' father and son team of Christopher and Mickey Stevens while we were checking out their cool bobber called 'Lady Luck.'Mickey has big plans for Irish Choppers. Currently it’s a full-service shop doing a little bit of everything, from fat tire kits to ape-hanger convers...
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