JOHNNY LEGEND CUSTOMS WAS ASKED TO BUILD A BIKE FOR THE CEO OF SHARPIE PEN CORP. FROM THAT BUILD JOHNNY WAS ASKED TO BECOME THE FACE FOR THE 2012 AD CAMPAIGN

Connecting with Sharpie and Ben Gadbois:

I have received tons and tons of questions from people asking me about how Ben Gadbois (Global President of Sharpie) and I met, how I got to be connected with Sharpie and how the bike featured on the Sharpie blog came together.

Last September, some guy unknown to me walks in my shop and loudly says ” I am looking for Johnny Legend”. I introduced myself and he did the same. Ben told me that he had been looking on-line at over 2,000 custom bikes and he saw my switchblade bike and he loved it (see picture gallery). We then proceeded to talk about bikes for about 3 hours. That guy is one of the most passionate people I have ever met and what was ever cooler to me is that he had some great ideas about bike building. We probably had enough ideas to design 5 extremely cool, unique and crazy choppers and by the time Ben left we knew we were going to build a custom bike together.

We agreed to meet the following week and we had a blast coming up with the bike that you see in the sharpie clip { click on the link below to see the video} What I enjoyed the most was all the excitement, disagreements, problem solving for our unique design and also the trust that Ben had in me to make it work. It was also great to have Ben stopped by during the build with his sons (Helmut and Julius) and let them feel the excitement of custom bike building. Ben and I became good friends in the process and our mutual passion for cool bikes has brought us together.

About the Bike:

All the bikes built at Johnny Legend Customs are different.  Ben wanted to take “Different” to the next level.  We pictured a bike without the traditional gas tank: long and low with huge tires and wheels.  I called Sam from Rolling ThunderFrames  and we decided to go with a large double tube backbone.  The upper tubes would be for fuel, while the lower 12″ would be the oil tank.  Using the largest tire made, a 360MM rear tire and a 26 inch front wheel  added to its uniqueness. We designed an air cleaner to follow the arc of the backbone and then started on the exhaust. This turned out to be quite a challenge.  After four different designs, we finally came up with the look we wanted. We added an American Suspension reverse springer, which completed the look we were after. The final decision we needed to make was the paint.  Ben and I met with Mark from Psychotic Air in Batavia. Because we wanted the bike, not the paint job, to be what was first seen, we decided that a matte black finish was all that was needed.  Mission accomplished!

” SHARPIE !  WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO START      CHECK OUT THE VIDEO

http://blog.sharpie.com/2012/07/the-legend-lives-on/