Building a Name for Himself

ocal biker hits the big time PDF Print E-mail

Building a Name for Himself

Local motorcycle builder gains national

attention through IronWorks magazine

By Sarah Bultema

Carlos Gallegos wasn’t looking for fame—it found him.

Then it slapped his custom built motorcycle on the cover of nationally distributed IronWorks magazine and left this Fort Collins resident in a whirlwind of admiration and accomplishment that seems to be lasting much longer than 15 minutes.

“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Gallegos says.

The right place happened to be downtown Fort Collins, and the right time overlapped Gallegos and his souped-up “bobber”-style motorcycle with a writer for IronWorks, J. Kent Conte.

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Salamanca, the bike you can’t buy at any price.

Impressed with the bike, Conte snapped a few photos and sent them to the magazine’s headquarters. Ironworks soon gave him the go-ahead to write a feature and arranged a photo shoot for Gallegos and his bare metal bike he calls “Salamanca.”

A few weeks later, Gallegos got a phone call to let him know that he and his bike were chosen for the cover of the January/February 2007 issue.

Following that call and the publication of the issue, Gallegos’ hobby of bike fabrication turned into a platform for constant praise and celebrity.

“Ever since I got the cover, things have been great,” he says.

To start, he’s had one offer to purchase the bike for what Gallegos calls a “crazy amount of money.”

However, he turned the would-be buyer away.

“You can’t put a price on something you’ve put so much time into,” he says.

With 10 months labor and around $17,000 in parts, Gallegos took time to make it the perfect bike for him. “It’s the sweetest bike ever,” he says. “I could never sell it.”

While Gallegos may not have directly received any money from Salamanca, the popularity he gained from the custom bike earned him a job opportunity at a Windsor hot rod shop.

He accepted a position, but soon realized that he was best suited as a hobbyist rather than a professional.

“As soon as (custom building) turned into a job was when I didn’t like it anymore,” Gallegos says. Instead, he says he prefers making his own deadlines. “It’s more of a hobby and that’s what makes it fun.”

While his career as a 9-to-5 bike builder was overcome by his love for the hobby, Gallegos is still hailed for his work and the stardom it received through IronWorks.

“It’s really exciting because all my friends are excited” Gallegos says. But even with a cover spread of his creation being viewed by bike lovers across the country, Gallegos says he hasn’t let the fame go to his head.

“They call me a celebrity,” he says, “but I’m still the same man.”

In the future, Gallegos plans to continue working for his business Precision Pressure Washing. However, Salamanca isn’t the last bike to be built. Gallegos is about half way done with a second custom bike that he plans to finish in time for the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally.