The Goose Neck King

Here's some more cool photos from Mr. Hurst. These are of Skip Fisk's bike. If you were in the South Bay and wanted a Goosed frame, Skip was the man. Check any old magazine with a Goosed Chopper and Skip's name will likely be mentioned in the builder's specs.

Skip is on the left. For a Goose, it's a fairly compact chop and is the only Goose I've seen that didn't run a long springer. 

The neck itself doesn't appear to be as kicked out as seen on other Geese. It's more like the intent was to lower it than stretch it. The molding is nicely done and a bit different than most others as well.

Pie's Goose

A few years back I did a search for Goose Neck Choppers and came across this photo on some Harley site. It was submitted by Jim Boatman (of himself), circa 1972.

I figured this had to be a Goose Neck from the South Bay.

About a year or so later, Joe Hurst sent me the following photos of an old friend's bike. Joe remembered him as Pie.

If you wait long enough, it all shows up on the internet.

The Loose Goose Lives

I didn't make it to last week's Chopper Fest, but found this shot from the show on Bikernet.com

The bike is credited to Levi Louie and is called the Loose Goose. You might recognize it from an earlier post . Yes, that's Grant Peterson stalking behind it.

A Gaggel of Geese (species: Southbayneous Bluenis

For some reason a lot of Goosenecks are blue. Here's a couple of submissions that flew in recently.

Grant of FMA sent this one from an old (large format), Choppers Magazine. I've seen this bike on some blogs but not this great centerfold shot.

The two Geese below were sent in courtesy of Vilmino of LoserRules. If you haven't gone there, check it out. It's in Italian, but there's no need for an interpreter to enjoy the photos. They both are from Easyriders.




This one sports an Indian type girder, instead of the more typical Dick Allen style springer.


Goose Girl approved.

For many years an old gooseneck Sportster sat in a buddy's shop awaiting resurrection. The color?.... metal flake blue of course!

Then Came Red Neck

Now, I don't want you to get the impression that most South Bay Bikes had goose-necks. It's just that after Rich's comment in the last post I figured why not post the scooter he was talking about.

Peace dude! No it isn't Jim Bronson, but rather the late Phil Ross, and yes Gardena is one of the south bay cities. This was the first of this type of goose-necked bikes I remember seeing.


This was the cover shot for Street Chopper May 1972. I know exactly where this photo was taken as I ride around this very corner every chance I get. You can see by Lynn's big smile in all the photos that indeed the ladies like long chops.


Check out the sissy bar and seat. Thanks to Joe Hurst, there's that South Bay Swoop again. When this bike was featured Phil had an auto upholstery shop. Joe told me he use to have Phil do all his seats and loved them. After Phil gave it up, Joe said, others just didn't compare. By the rounded down tubes, you can assume the frame was a swing arm with a hard tail added. The article doesn't give credit but, Joe also mentioned that Phil was also one of the guys who made a Dick Allen style springer.


The goose-neck bend looks lower and is gusseted slightly different than the bike in the previous post. The headlight bracket has a sharper bend and isn't quite as long so we now know there was two like this! The springer has a round rod under the springs (like Dick's and Sugar Bears's), and the bike in the former post has a rectangular bar like Fats. This one also has adjustable fittings at the bottom of the front legs like Sugar Bear's do.

The Street Chopper article has two more pages of black and white photos, yet not one photo shows the left side of the bike! What's up with that?

I'm sure most of you know that Phil Ross went on to make his Supermax belt drives.

I met Phil at the Smoke Out West II in Cottonwood AZ where he had just moved to. He had a copy of this Street Chopper on display at his booth so I just had to comment on it. You sure wouldn't have recognized him based on the cover photo. Not much later I read he had pass away.

All in all there really haven't been too many of these goose-neck bikes built, so at first I thought Rich might be right about it being the same bike. A second close look, revealed it to not be the case. Now I'll look for another one of these way-out headlight mounts.

Da Ladies Like'm Long....

....Chopper's, that is.

This one sports some typical South Bay features. A long Dick Allen/Fats/Sugar Bear Type Springer, 2 into one collector exhaust, extra sissy bar brace (South Bay Swoop), Cobra seat, and I'm thinking that's a 15' rear rim with a car radial tire. Also, Every goose neck of this type and from this period I've seen has been on a South Bay Bike. What's not typical is the too cool chrome Nazi helmet oil tank. My guess, it's a Fats built bike. Anyone know it's history?