Motorcycle restoration is about way more than bikes

PALMER — Growing up, Erik Christensen said, snowmachines and all-terrain vehicles were off limits.

Seems an odd choice for a family living in Alaska. But not his family.

“I’m third-generation State Farm, so I come from a family of risk managers,” he said.

So it’s not so much odd that he’d been kept away from them growing up, as much as it is odd that, these days, the thing that takes up all of his free time is motorcycles.

He said the first bike he bought was almost on impulse. It came to him as a 70s touring bike — big windshield, lots of storage.

But, with a lot of help from a large group of friends and his family, he stripped it down and turned it into a classically shaped green-and-white beauty of a BMW, an example of something called a “cafe racer” — a stripped-down style made popular in post-war Europe

It’s a beautiful bike. So beautiful, in fact, that it’s the star of a short film he’s put together with Sons of Winter — the same people behind the all-Alaska feature film Moose the Movie — that BMW is interested in showing at one of the company’s big events.

He bought that bike two years ago. Through that purchase, he made friends with people who have helped him delve deeper into the world of motorcycle restoration and collection.

Now, he’s got something like eight or nine motorcycles in various stages of construction, including the three in his garage right now — a BMW Paris-Dakar bike, whose backstory he seems to relish reciting, that green-and-white BMW, and a Norton that, as is notorious for the model, he can’t get to stop leaking oil.

There’s also a frame in the garage for a bike he has big plans for. It’ll be red and black, like Christian Louboutin shoes. A classy bike with a sidecar. His wife came up with that idea.

In addition to the Sons of Winter film, Christensen plans photo shoots for each new creation. That Norton bike he took to the Ann Stevens room of the Z.J. Loussac Library in Anchorage to get it among elements that compliment it — dark woods and leather chairs. His children dressed up like Kennedy kids for the photo shoot.

In some ways, Christensen’s mania for motorcycles seems unfocused. Like when he says he’s doing a bike a year, but then realizes he’s got eight in the works and it’s only been two years. Or when he describes the group he started, Northern Cafe Racers, as akin to a business with branding and marketing, but more like a club in the way it runs.

“We all kind of drink beer and beat on bikes, and we’ve all pinky swore not to let money ruin the equation,” Christensen said.

But, actually, Christensen is incredibly focused.

The bikes are about legacy and handing something on to the next generation, as well as inspiring others who might have always wanted to do something like this but never had the nerve. It’s also about living a life free from regrets.

That first part, legacy, became real for Christensen one day when he left the garage and returned to find his daughter, still in her princess dress, had climbed under the motorcycle and was pretending to turn a wrench, just like daddy.

Why not involve the kids? And so he has, at every step. It’s turned the hobby from “dad’s thing” into a family thing. Sure, they’re just turning wrenches. But the kids are also getting a confidence in their abilities to do things, to figure stuff out. They’re learning how to meet goals and overcome setbacks.

“There’s all kinds of life lessons,” he said.

And the branding is going to play a role, especially the merchandising part.

“The T-shirt company, that’ll be my kids’ first business years from now,” he said.

The second part of Christensen’s plan — inspiring others — comes in with the plans he’s put together to grab a piece of Colony Days for a motorcycle show. He said he doesn’t plan to hand out prizes or do any of that kind of stuff. But he does plan to do some nice stuff for anyone who takes the time to bring out a bike and show it off.

He said he knows there’s a ton of killer bikes out there that nobody gets a chance to see because there isn’t a venue for it.

“The show is creating a venue,” he said.

And the third part of all of this, the life led without regrets, takes a little bit more time to explain. Christensen said that in his insurance work he has clients of all ages. He’s had clients get old and die.

Anytime they’ve expressed regrets, Christensen said, it hasn’t been for not making enough money or working enough hours.

“Every single one of them has said I wish ‘I would have coughed up some of that money to make more memories,’” he said.

In a short amount of time, he’s managed to turn some heads in the motorcycling world. Northern Cafe Racers projects have turned up in cycling magazines, and he’s trying to get Alaska on the international motorcycle map.

Toward that end, he’s put together an amazing trip from Mat-Su to Valdez on motorcycles — Beards and Beemers — something he intends to make more of a yearly event. Motorcyclists, like a lot of people, have Alaska on their bucket list.