Gypsy's Build...

There aren't many female motorcycle builders. Most women builders assist their boyfriends or husbands -- but then there's Gypsy.

I first met her a couple years ago when she built a bike for a rally that was held in the Dallas area (it shall remain unnamed due to the posers owing myself and others money - but kharma is a bitch and they are no longer in business).

Gypsy built that bike in her kitchen when she wasn't on duty as a cardiac ICU nurse. She was literally working on it up until the time it was loaded onto the trailer.

The bike didn't win the show because it had to circle the lap at Texas Motor Speedway and unfortunately the bike stopped running just as it was getting onto the track.

A few months ago, she was contacted by the producers of Discovery's Biker Build-Off and asked if she would be interested in participating -- she was. She was to build against Kim Suter.

A mutual friend of ours cautioned her about what she was about to get into by dealing with a TV series -- but he also said to me, "Hell, she could show up in a g-string with a box of parts and win that competition."

The hospital wouldn't give Gypsy a leave of absence so she hauled ass for weeks to get as much overtime in as she could before she quit to do the build. Upon cocmpleting the build, she and Kim had to ride the bikes for the finale - so what I am about to tell you is a second hand report of what happened -- but it's from trustowrthy sources so I tend to think it is more truth than fiction.

Kim's bike wouldn't run. According to the show rules, only the builder can work on the bike - no helpers. Kim couldn't figure out what was wrong with the bike, but one of his guys knew. The producers told Gypsy she was going to win by forfeit. She told them she didn't want to win under those terms -- c'est la vie, those are the rules. So supposedly the prooducers were distracted so one of Kim's guys could get out and wrangle the bike back into running order. Once it was running, they were back in action --- Gypsy won.

I love the last photo because Gypsy is wearing her Outlaw Custom Cycles hat -- Brice Judy would have been thrilled for her!

This couldn't have happened to a better person!