Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/105496
How's this for a vintage racer? One of Frank Cooper's bikes. The Cooper shop is a motorcyclist's dream come true. Large, clean, well organized, plenty of tools…all you add is you and your bike! Guy's brother Chuck was busy prepping a pair of 400 Pentons that they were going to ride at the Reunion and Guy was busy showing people around. The museum has a number of bikes on display including Guy's 125 motocross championship bike and his 1994 and 1996 ISDE bikes. Countless jerseys hang from the ceiling and display cases contain mementos, photos, magazines and other paraphernalia relating to the Cooper racing career which started with father Frank Cooper back in the 40's and 50's. Frank Cooper also sold bicycles, and with Stillwater being a college town he sold them literally by the thousands. Guy was kind enough to take a group of us into town to tour the old shop, which had first been a bike shop and then became a motorcycle shop. This was like stepping into a time machine! It looks like somebody locked the door 30 or 40 years ago and left it alone. The Coopers have collected around 1000 vintage bicycles over the years, some of which are at Guy's museum and some of which are at the old shop. The guys from American Pickers would go absolutely insane in the old shop. Guy's knowledge of bicycles and bicycle history is impressive to say the least, and he kept us enthralled for the better part of an hour just pointing out the various innovations in each era of bicycle development. There were turn of the century bikes with wooden rims… steamed to bend the wood and intricately dovetailed to join them into round rims. There were bikes with shaft drive. The majority of innovations that would later show up on motorcycles regarding forks, frames and wheels got their beginning on bicycles since they were a main mode of transportation before people started putting motors on them. With regard to the motorcycling end of the Cooper business, there were 40 year old NOS Honda parts still in their original packing. I spotted a pair of 10 over Hepolite pistons, new in the box, for a Triumph or BSA, and a single piston next to them priced at $13.25! There are stacks of sales literature and motorcycle magazines, both local and national, dating back to the 50's. In the shop area, where Chuck Cooper used to wrench on Pentons, his work space sits just like it did three plus decades ago with cans and bottles of High Point lubricants waiting to be used. It truly was a time warp, and a special remembrance for me was buying parts in the shop in the late 70's. I rode to and from the old shop with Guy and we talked some about his career. Being a factory rider isn't all we crack it up to be, and he opened up about some of his dealings with the factory. One example was when he was offered a freebie spot on the Six Days team and initially declined it, but then decided he should probably go for it…except that he didn't want it handed to him. He went and rode the qualifiers and earned the spot on his overall performance, and got a lot of grumbling and absolutely no help from the factory and the AMA. Guy said he didn't want the spot handed to him…he wanted to earn it, just like the guys with regular jobs during the week. Another time, when his MX contract was about due for renewal, he knew he was going to need surgery to repair old injuries and would be unable to ride for several months. He told the factory he didn't feel right taking their money if he couldn't race for them and he'd come talk to them again when he got rehabbed and back to race speed. In the meantime, a couple of rival riders signed big money contracts and then immediately went off the circuit for the better part of the year due to…you guessed it… rehab from surgeries! The overwhelming feeling I got was that Guy always took the high road, never tried to get something out of the factory that he didn't feel he truly deserved, and that he worked very hard to earn their respect and the right to represent their brand name. He is a friendly and humble guy, easy to talk with, and is a real champion of motor sports. It was a real treat to be able to spend a couple of hours at Cooperland. January 2013 53