Johnny Chopper's Closing Down

[martylaa]

Found this on OzBmx forum, bad news.


' After weeks of deliberation, I am sorry to inform everyone that Johnny Chopper will be ceasing operation in late Feb 2010. My wife and I have put everything we have into the business over the last 12mths and in particular the last 6mths to keep it going. It’s a real shame as 2010 was shaping up to be a great year with Kamakazi riding a JC f/f, signature bars for Luke Madill and a few other great projects. We will be finishing existing orders over the next 2 months and getting stock and machinery ready to sell, and whatever stock (if any) is left will still be for sale after Feb. I hate to say it but unfortunately the “global economy” has taken it’s toll on JC also as a large number of our “retro” customers were in the USA and UK and large orders are almost non-existent now from these countries. Offshore manufacturing is another major factor in contributing to the end of JC, we simply cannot compete with offshore product pricing in the BMX race or street market.

A bit about Johnny - Johnny Chopper was started by myself and trademarked in ’95 when I used to produce custom chopper bicycles, started collecting OSBMX parts and do the odd motorcycle and car customising. Chopper bicycles were only made part time and there is less than 20 in existence which were made from ’95 – ’99. The Johnny Chopper name wasn’t seen again in the bicycle world until 2007 when I started fabricating replica OSBMX parts that were hard to find and also started fabricating new school race parts. This grew into a large inventory of replica and retro parts and framesets over 3 years and my own line of race parts including frames, forks, bars and cranks all of which were proudly made by myself in Australia. I will continue to keep the trademarked name Johnny Chopper.

Current customers – If you currently have a project with JC or parts on order don’t panic - nothing has changed and you will receive your order asap.

To all customers past and present – Thank you all so much for your support and patience over the last 3 years to help Johnny Chopper become the brand it is. I hope you all hang onto your JC parts and cash in, in 20 years time on ebay or whatever is around then. It would be great if some JC parts become collectable at some stage as there was never any large numbers of anything produced and a lot of custom and one off projects have been made. I will be updating my website over the next 2 mths with all the info I can give on numbers of items produced, serial #’s, colours, team info etc. It will be in a printable format and I urge anyone interested to print out or copy and paste the info for future reference and I of course will have copies.

Future customers – I will be posting a For Sale ad shortly on ozbmx for limited parts that I have in stock to sell or the material to manufacture. It will include retro/replica bars, forks, cranks and seat posts only, no more frame orders will be taken, sorry.

Team JC – Thank you to all JC team riders and sponsored riders and their parents for your support, and thankyou to all team sponsors. it has been a fantastic journey having a Racing Team, Aussie made products and getting into BMX again.

Other products – I will be continuing to sell Stealth hubs (True Precision) and SNAP BMX Products.

JC owners – If you own a JC bike whether it be Race, retro or replica please consider submitting it to the Johnny Chopper section on http://bmxmuseum.com...johhny_chopper/ I will be contacting Gary at the museum in the near future with parts pics and JC info for his site.

As for my family and I, I’ll be looking for a “real job” very soon and will continue riding BMX until I can’t anymore.

Cheers,

Gary. '

[CD17]

This is a shame, some very nice gear has come from JC 

[martylaa]

This is a shame, some very nice gear has come from JC 

Never actually bought anything from there yet but, never heard anything but good feedback about it, also i suppose this puts paid to the rumours JC was the man building the JDB Hutch repop parts....
Ah well i was looking at his box cranks hopefully he may have some left in his sale....

[CD17]

No I have never brought anything either, but have seen some of it & its very nice & it is marked so everyone knows it is repo which is how it should be 

[martylaa]

talked to a few people who have had projects built from him and they all saw its some of the best work they have seen.....

[DIRTBIKER250F]

Yeah got an e-mail of Gary two days ago, he has got a job 

[tobybrown35]

top man made me a set of one off forks top quality and a nice man 2 deal with wanted some more parts made this year 2 all the best gary true legend

[kirk]

Great Quality, I used his stuff on a old school rider as his stuff was stronger than old genuine items.

[Jt]

had some bars off him and they were top notch. seen his cranks as well, and they were also top notch.

shame. i reckon he tried to stay true to the sport and the bikes and was always upfront and honest about his work and his intentions.

 

[mark 2]

He was always friendly and enthusiastic, shame his business couldn't survive. He was a lifeline for some parts, you knew he'd be able to sort it out.

Good luck to him

[Broggie]

It's a bad time for business at the moment as we all know, but I have the feeling that once this recession crap is over people like Gary will gradually return.
In the meantime may I echo everyone's thoughts here and wish both Gary and his family best wishes for the future, and present.



Ray.

[dordymush]

i've had a few bits off him in the past and was deffo a gent to deal with and never messed once.
shame somebody with that talent cant keep going 

[Zippy]

I have a set of his bars I just got from JT and the quality is top rate.

Was going to resticker them but probably won't now.

[magna13]

terrible shame...

[johnny chopper]

G'day Guys, Sorry you had to post this news yourself, I was a day or so too late as I had planned to post it here on RADBMX also. I have plenty of customers and pen pals here in the UK and I want to say a BIG thanks for all your support over the past 3 years, without it we wouldn't have survived for as long. Thank you also for the very kind words and respect, it makes me very proud to be involved in BMX again after a long break. Good luck and best wishes to you all for 2010 and I hope to meet you all one day.

For those interested I'm selling the last remaining parts I have and parts I have material to make here's the link. www.johnnychopper.com/JC4S.pdf

Happy new year.

cheers,
Gary.

[seanrx]

anyone want to buy my 24" JC frame, custom?

It has a 103mm dropout spacing due to the welding of the bridges pulling in the stays and a 75.5 degree headangle due to the 4" integ headtube welded in exact same place as a 4" standard headtube. No headset cup sticking out the bottom you see.

A true custom frame.

[torkertony]

You're a true gent Gary and a pleasure to buy from  -  all the best for the future mate and remember, where one door closes another will always open. (especially for a decent and talented chap like yourself).

Tony. 

[MartyC]

The guy is a legend, not only a great fabricator and a fast racer but also a really nice bloke; I had the pleasure of meeting him at the WA Nationals in Brigadoon, WA last year.  Although many people disagree with some of his work (not me btw) there is no questioning his quality and integrity plus he also produces some fantastic one-off projects a new school Patterson Pro Long inspired frame and fork being the latest. 

One thing is certain Gary will be missed all over the world,  I'd like to think he'll do the odd project to supplement his new job and keep his hand in old and new school BMX.  Whatever he does, I wish him all the best for the future  .

[FIFTEEN]

hutch!