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Born of a vision

Alan Bernard sees things. He sees beauty, he sees pain. And he designs motorcycles from some of those mental images.

By Andrew Meacham Times Staff Writer
Published October 19, 2007

Christina Bernard said she can only get Alan, her husband of 18 years, to a restaurant when they are out of town. The week's vacation they took at Christmas was their first in seven years.

Bernard grew up in Lille, France, a town so tough locals called it "the Chicago of France."

He quickly learned the self-reliance of the streets.

"I don't trust God," he said. "I don't trust in anything."

As a child he watched Westerns and rooted for the Indians because "they looked better."

Now his arm bears tattoos of an Indian in a headdressintertwined with a wolf and an eagle.

He built a retro bike with short fenders a "bobber" to enthusiasts, bobbeur to Bernard in honor of Marlon Brando's ride in The Wild One, part of a fascination with 1950s America.

A drab-green bobber, which won its category at Bike Week, combines Bernard's inventive flourish with his philosophy.

It bears the image of a checklist on a rumpled sheet of notebook paper with the following items: "No rules. No law. No religion. Just let me ride my bike and enjoy my f---ing life."

Bernard got his inspiration when he noticed a real to-do list Christina had left while he was working on the bike.

He painted another throwback bike red and black after his favorite book, Le Rouge et le Noir. The 19th-century French novel traces the rise and fall of an ambitious young man from a lower economic class.

But most of the ideas come from his dreams, Bernard said.

"I'll wake up and say to Christina, 'I see a yellow bike.'"

Months of work

Bikes made at Santiago Chopper fall into one of two categories.

"The first is for my customers," Bernard said. "That is work. The other is for myself, and that is art."

It takes two to five months to build a motorcycle from a bare frame. Bernard builds 15 to 20 original bikes a year.

His designs include broken lines of light embedded in the body of a chopper, the hood of a 1939 Ford Coupe on a trike and a trike with hand controls for a man who can't use his legs.

He has festooned another with art of a Gretsch guitar, a standup microphone, and other memorabilia of 1950s rockabilly music.

Clients come from as far away as Ohio, New York and Michigan, and include rocker Brian Setzer.

Bernard says he can't compete with Harley-Davidsons off the assembly line starting at $12,000. But he can undercut the going rate for choppers, which often start with a new Harley and require a succession of parts adding up to more than $50,000.

Bernard's choppers start at about $20,000 - what he calls a "working man's chopper."

A wrong turn

Bernard might easily have never left France. During 1992's Bike Week in Daytona Beach, a sport utility vehicle turned in front of him.

The crash broke bones, and he spent a year recovering in Gibsonton through multiple surgeries.

After taking his business to the Dominican Republic and other locations, he returned to Gibsonton, built 10 bikes in his living room and opened Santiago Chopper.

Choppers, trikes and throwbacks reflect a national search for individuality among baby boomers with disposable cash, said Pepper Massey of the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.

"They are reliving their younger days," she said, "so they go out and buy some fabulous old-looking bike that reminds them of what it felt like 30 years ago."

Easyriders magazine featured Bernard's work in 2003.

Readers would rather have a bike that doesn't look like everybody else's, Managing Editor Scott McCool said.

"Of course, the more people that do that, it starts to look like everybody else's anyway," McCool added.

Lingering image

No one else could have dreamed up the Lunsford trike. Bernard contacted Jessica's father, who gave him the ring Jessica wore when she was buried alive in Citrus County.

He smelted the ring, which is now part of a headlight casing. He stitched two dolphins into the leather seat, a reminder of the stuffed dolphin Jessica took to her grave.

There is sun shining in the water. And there is Jessica's face on the gas tank - the one with the smile and the pink hat.

The smile bothered Bernard. No matter where he went, she was there.

"She was always looking at me," he said.

He covered the image with masking tape. But even that wasn't enough to shake the thoughts that had bolted him awake at night.

When he wasn't working on it, he draped the whole trike with a sheet.

Relief and release

Bernard gave the trike to Lunsford at Bike Week 2007. It travels with him as he promotes the Jessica Marie Lunsford Foundation.

"He's got a wonderful imagination," said Lunsford, an avid biker.

"He wanted to do something but he didn't know what to do. So he did the only thing he knew how, which is build an excellent bike."

It is worth about $80,000. After Bernard gave it away, he had another dream.

In his dream, Jessica returned, a grown woman of 25.

She was wearing a yellow jacket and yellow pants.

"She was beautiful," he said.

She had come to thank him.

Andrew Meacham can be reached at 661-2431 or ameacham@sptimes.com.

Fast facts:

Santiago Chopper Specialties

Address: 9879 U.S. 41 S, Gibsonton

Telephone: (813) 671-9097

On the Web: www.santiago chopper.com

[Last modified October 18, 2007, 07:13:19]