Fair’s motorcycle choices exhaustive

Algie Pirrello was 14 when he took his first ride on a Harley-Davidson and fell in love. With motorcycles, that is.

It was an old “knucklehead,” known for the rocker boxes on the engine that resembled two knuckles on the back of a hand closed into a fist.

“I’ve been hooked ever since,” said Pirrello, who has “Knuckle Power” tattooed on his forearm. “It was just a radical ride.”

Forty-plus years later, Pirrello, 55, now owns his own shop in Diamond Lake – Killing Machine Choppers – where he builds custom bikes and opens his doors to weary riders along Highway 2.

On Friday Pirrello brought a few of his choppers and set up a booth at the fifth annual 100 Years of Motorcycles at Spokane County Fair and Expo Center. The event continues through the weekend, with an expected 30,000 riders, hundreds of vendors, live music and events, including cage fighting in the beer garden and an appearance by the fisherman featured on the TV show “The Deadliest Catch.”

The event brings people together to admire, lust after, ride or just fall in love with the open road as seen from a bike.

“It’s freedom,” said Perry Stevens, of Deer Park. Stevens is part of the Combat Veteran Motorcycle Association and Patriot Guard Riders. Stevens, 40, and fellow rider and Army reservist Josh Buning, 24, were scoping out bikes built by Zacky’s Custom Rods out of Seattle.

“I put $75 in gas in my truck one day and said I’ve had enough,” Stevens said. “I’ve been riding ever since.”

Buning got hooked on a Harley after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq.

“It’s like my therapy,” Buning said. “I needed an outlet after I got back.”

Across the fairgrounds, Johnny Lange of Strip Club Choppers from Florida was cooling off from the heat under a tent he set up for his “very important patrons,” complete with couches and bar stools. Lange sells custom parts and merchandise with his company logo – a silhouette of a stripper wrapped around a pole.

“Hey, this is a macho industry,” Lange said.

One of his motorcycles has a stripper pole coming out the seat and has been featured on “The Tonight Show,” he said. After Lange leaves Spokane, he’ll head to Sturgis, S.D., for the big daddy of all biker rallies that begins next week. With a half-million riders headed that way, it’s likely many riders are using the Spokane event as a pit stop.

However, any rider thinking about buying a custom bike at this weekend’s event will need to find a different mode of transportation to the Black Hills.

It takes four to six weeks to build a custom bike, at the least, Pirrello said. He builds about six a year. Custom bikes start at about $16,000 and can go for much more.

“We build them to fit,” Pirrello said. “We start with a silhouette, then fill in the blanks,” depending on what a rider wants. Pirrello can mold a bike’s gas tank with flames and skulls, or other shapes, to make them unique.

His wife, Lisa Smith, aka “Hun,” helps him out in the shop.

“I’m right in there with him,” she said, “breaking fingernails and getting dirty.”