Have you ever been walking to class or dinner and seen something that kind-of resembles a bike pass you by? Or have you been wandering late one night, hear music, and turned around to discover you’re being followed by three guys on strange things with wheels? If this sounds familiar, you’ve experienced the bizarre Chopper Bikes that inhabit GuilCo’s campus. Haley Woodward is one of the masterminds behind this race of interesting bike mutations. He started the trend on campus by creating one of the first bikes, inspired by the Boston “Chopper Bikes” website, Scul.org: “the Counterculture to America’s Love for the Automobile.” Colin Roach Bently and Zach Lihatsch (currently at Prescott University) continued and created most of the bikes that are seen roaming campus. With skill in welding and some twisting of frames, Woodard says he began to create the bikes just “for the hell of it.”

The bikes are compiled from pieces of old bikes: then you “cut ‘em up and swap pieces,” explained Woodard. He says that now many students donate bikes to him and that he watches for bikes that are no longer wanted.

Some variations on the standard bike include extra, smaller, or extended wheels, higher handle bars and/or seats, and other odd added or extended pieces. They come in a variety of colors and shapes since they are composed from different bikes. Some are painted as if they were originally one piece, but the artistic bits of welding show, making them all the more unique.

Some have even come from children’s bikes, the pink and flowers sparkling in their new form. Others are adorned with everything from stuffed animals to animal skulls. Other additions include a stereo, purple sequin material, and horns. What a great reincarnation for a bike, don’t you think? One day you’re disregarded, left out in the rain to rust, or shipped to a junkyard. Then along comes a creative soul that rescues you and makes you famous!

There is a little nest of newborn bikes chained up behind the Hege Art building, near to the welding area where they are born. Often on my way to the photography lab, I see pieces and bits of what used to be full bikes lying about on the ground, the remains of something strange going on in the world of bicycle creation. It’s not only recycling. It’s not only neat. It’s ART!