2020 Biltwell People's Champ Finalist - Steven Bate

[Music] hey guys i'm steven bate i'm from birmingham alabama and i'm a elevator mechanic this bike was kind of inspired uh more on money than anything because i can't afford big fancy stuff i paid like 300 bucks for the motor on this bike so and all in all you could build this bike completely or buy a panhead engine so basically built it around a budget and didn't buy any parts so i made pretty much everything and challenged myself as much as i could to push my limits and [Music] to the limit where i've lost digits in the process to basically just see how crazy i could get some of my favorite stuff about the bike is probably the split tanks there's a check ball inside the frame right here and basically all the the fuel lines are all internal and come down here to the bottom tank with a low pressure fuel pump inside of it it basically circulates the fuel up to here and then gravity feeds to the carb i'm really proud of that springer i've never made a springer before until this one and i see it it turned out pretty sweet during the process of building some of this stuff i had a run in with a belt sander and sucked my hand into it and pulled the end of my finger off and i casted it in resin inside of this sweet gas cap i learned that i'm not as young as i used to be trying trying to stay up all damn night working on this thing putting so many hours in uh but i did learn some things more things about machining i'd only kind of messed around with lathes until i got that lathe back there so definitely my machining has has grown also my paint work this is like the fourth paint job i've ever painted originally i was gonna try and do some real skinny flames on the tank and i realized that i'm not that good at taping out flames so and ended up scratching the whole idea just to do this weird panel job uh it kind of looks like little viruses i almost lost the shop once because i lost my finger and ended up having surgery and was out for a few weeks uh some money was tight on the bill deck and the money being tight kind of pushed me again pushed me further into like recycling different things i was going to buy some fancy material to make the handlebars but i ended up being able to cut up a bunch of handlebars that i had here to make those and probably the fuel system i would say would be the the hardest part to like think of like coming up with the idea to have the no gas caps on the on the gas tank really beca came out of financially i bought one gas cap bung and was gonna just do a single gas cap on a regular gas tank but then i made that frame and i was gonna have to order another gas cap and i didn't have the money so i tried to figure out every way possible that i could put a single gas cap on two gas tanks so i just kept like going and going and going and that's how i came up with the lower fuel tank design and i used that single bung to make the bottom tank and ran all the hoses and stuff inside the frame to the top one which turned out to be a pretty cool idea because now it's super skinny and super sleek i haven't actually ridden the bike yet as you see it right now is the first time that it's been off the lift basically the final assembly has been over the past week and i was down to the wire yeah we're about to try and start this thing up and see how it rides i'd like to thank my buddy jay ryan at gusher cycles for always being there when i call him trying to ask him really dumb questions in the middle of the night about paint or fabrication or pretty much anything also he helped me before i had a lathe helped me machine the rear axle in a couple of parts thanks electron for helping me out with that sweet carburetor and uh derek at the real exotic customs thanks man for the sweet upholstery [Music] you