G&L choppers

Sorry for the wait. I'm in Vegas so when I get back I'll post the pics of the bike in my garage. Here is the pic of the bike that Rich sent me before he dropped it off.
For you guys who haven't got your bike yet. MAKE SURE YOU CALL AND EMAIL EVERY NIGHT. That's what I did.I don't know if that helped or not but I was trying to get him to stick to deadlines and I was very annoying I'm sure. If your not doing this your not being heard. Rich seems to be a busy guy and its next to impossible to get in touch with him so leave messages and emails.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/638/bikezt.jpg/
 
I'm digging the look of that bike! Can't wait to some more pictures. It sounds like Rich is really busy and could use some extra help. Even tho I am probably under qualified, I'm looking for employment and wouldn't mind working on motorcycles for him so he can get some of these projects out the door!
 
Hey everyone, my 1st post here

Previous to joining the board i have been in contact with some of the other board members who have posted on this thread...
they directed me to this thread and i figured that i should chime in to give my experience with Rich and G&L Choppers

In a word, i has been an absolute NIGHTMARE.

I will try and keep things short here as some of you may or may not want to read my entire diatribe/sad story. But for those of you who do i will be putting up a blog/website shorty detailing the entire process that i went through with Rich (to serve as a warning to those doing research prior to getting a bike built by him).

I dropped my donor bike off to Rich approx 20 months ago.
Rich as super helpful and returned emails/calls within 24-48 hours in the planning stages of my bike (this was prior to him getting my money). Then he got my deposit (1/2 the build cost) and my donor bike and everything went to hell.

Initially, i went weeks without hearing from him. Then my build/finish date came and went and weeks changed to months. Despite daily calls, voicemails and emails Rich did not get in contact with me. Rich gave me absolutely no indication of what the hell was going on during this time.

Every few months or so i would finally get a response that would include some sort of excuse (ranging from personal health issues, family health issues, issues at the shop, issues with employees, issues with his shop truck, etc.) and the promise that my bike would be done "soon". Then he would drop off the face of the earth and i would not hear back from him for months on end.

I asked for progress pics of my bike multiple time and got nothing. I even went as far to get in contact with a former employee (who is still in contact with him from time to time) to attempt to get a message to Rich for me...still nothing. Assuming that my bike was not going to get built i attempted to give Rich an out, i told him to just keep my bike (i would send him the title) and to refund me my money. Once he finally responded, he assured me that i would get my bike and that it was almost done. Then he dropped off the face of the earth again.

At about the 16 month mark (yeah it took that long:D:doh::D) i began talking with my insurance company. Given that i had given him the bike and had a contract/build agreement and Rich had not honoured (with a build time of over 16 months) and we was no longer responding to my emails/calls i could report the bike stolen (file a claim and report it stolen to the police), as well...it seemed that Rich had stolen my bike and my money at that point. I called and emailed him and let me know that i was done with the situation and that i was reporting the bike stolen and that he could deal with the police and the insurance company.

Magically he returned my call that night.
My bike was done 2 months later.

After dealing with a nightmare of a shipping situation (that Rich was partly responsible for) i got the bike home. I will give credit where credit is due. The bike is beautiful. Rich is an amazing builder/fabricator.

However....

The bike is missing parts (that i paid for). Additionally, the bike shipped with the wrong seat and handlebars. I paid a large sum of money for a custom bike and Rich could not be bothered to build it with the correct handlebars and seat.
And to top it all off the bike does not run! Yep, you heard me right...I got it started once. Got it out for one ride. On the second ride the engine died and i have not been able to get it started again (it is waiting to head over to my local yamaha shop).

So after 18 long months i thought the saga was over...
Oh how wrong i was. I have a bike that is missing parts, has incorrect parts (form what i ordered) on it, and (most importantly) that does not RUN!
Over the last 2 months i have been fighting with Rich to ship me the missing parts as well as replacement parts (for the incorrect parts he put on the bike). But since informing him (via email) that the bike is not running, he has gone silent once more...

I will say this...
Again, the bike itself is beautiful. Rich is an amazing builder/fabricator.
But he is a horrible business man and is simply not honest/up front with his customers.

i would NOT recommend that anyone get ANY work/projects done by him.
 
silver_back said:
Hey everyone, my 1st post here

Previous to joining the board i have been in contact with some of the other board members who have posted on this thread...
they directed me to this thread and i figured that i should chime in to give my experience with Rich and G&L Choppers

In a word, i has been an absolute NIGHTMARE.

I will try and keep things short here as some of you may or may not want to read my entire diatribe/sad story. But for those of you who do i will be putting up a blog/website shorty detailing the entire process that i went through with Rich (to serve as a warning to those doing research prior to getting a bike built by him).

I dropped my donor bike off to Rich approx 20 months ago.
Rich as super helpful and returned emails/calls within 24-48 hours in the planning stages of my bike (this was prior to him getting my money). Then he got my deposit (1/2 the build cost) and my donor bike and everything went to hell.

Initially, i went weeks without hearing from him. Then my build/finish date came and went and weeks changed to months. Despite daily calls, voicemails and emails Rich did not get in contact with me. Rich gave me absolutely no indication of what the hell was going on during this time.

Every few months or so i would finally get a response that would include some sort of excuse (ranging from personal health issues, family health issues, issues at the shop, issues with employees, issues with his shop truck, etc.) and the promise that my bike would be done "soon". Then he would drop off the face of the earth and i would not hear back from him for months on end.

I asked for progress pics of my bike multiple time and got nothing. I even went as far to get in contact with a former employee (who is still in contact with him from time to time) to attempt to get a message to Rich for me...still nothing. Assuming that my bike was not going to get built i attempted to give Rich an out, i told him to just keep my bike (i would send him the title) and to refund me my money. Once he finally responded, he assured me that i would get my bike and that it was almost done. Then he dropped off the face of the earth again.

At about the 16 month mark (yeah it took that long:D:doh::D) i began talking with my insurance company. Given that i had given him the bike and had a contract/build agreement and Rich had not honoured (with a build time of over 16 months) and we was no longer responding to my emails/calls i could report the bike stolen (file a claim and report it stolen to the police), as well...it seemed that Rich had stolen my bike and my money at that point. I called and emailed him and let me know that i was done with the situation and that i was reporting the bike stolen and that he could deal with the police and the insurance company.

Magically he returned my call that night.
My bike was done 2 months later.

After dealing with a nightmare of a shipping situation (that Rich was partly responsible for) i got the bike home. I will give credit where credit is due. The bike is beautiful. Rich is an amazing builder/fabricator.

However....

The bike is missing parts (that i paid for). Additionally, the bike shipped with the wrong seat and handlebars. I paid a large sum of money for a custom bike and Rich could not be bothered to build it with the correct handlebars and seat.
And to top it all off the bike does not run! Yep, you heard me right...I got it started once. Got it out for one ride. On the second ride the engine died and i have not been able to get it started again (it is waiting to head over to my local yamaha shop).

So after 18 long months i thought the saga was over...
Oh how wrong i was. I have a bike that is missing parts, has incorrect parts (form what i ordered) on it, and (most importantly) that does not RUN!
Over the last 2 months i have been fighting with Rich to ship me the missing parts as well as replacement parts (for the incorrect parts he put on the bike). But since informing him (via email) that the bike is not running, he has gone silent once more...

I will say this...
Again, the bike itself is beautiful. Rich is an amazing builder/fabricator.
But he is a horrible business man and is simply not honest/up front with his customers.

i would NOT recommend that anyone get ANY work/projects done by him.
Click to expand...

He was telling me he was building a bike for someone in Manitoba. I had mine sent down to have hardtailed and I seriously thought the man had ripped me off. He's a sweet talker for sure and soon as he got my money, POOF he was gone!! All the excuses got friggen sickining I must say. He finally called and said it was done and shipped it and was stuck at the F*&^ing border cause he shipped it wrong and try to get him to get the paper work straightened out ws unfriggen real!! What part of Man r u , i'm over here in sask.
 
Gray40 said:
He was telling me he was building a bike for someone in Manitoba. I had mine sent down to have hardtailed and I seriously thought the man had ripped me off. He's a sweet talker for sure and soon as he got my money, POOF he was gone!! All the excuses got friggen sickining I must say. He finally called and said it was done and shipped it and was stuck at the F*&^ing border cause he shipped it wrong and try to get him to get the paper work straightened out ws unfriggen real!! What part of Man r u , i'm over here in sask.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that was most likely me that he was referring to.

I had a nightmare with shipping as well.
He shipped the bike to the pre-determine location that i was going to pick the bike up from and then bring it across the border...
But he neglected to actually get in contact with me or send me any of the shipping company info! So i was not even able to get in contact with the shipping company!

My bike showed up, and luckily the guys at the place i shipped it to where really cool, and held the bike for me (no charge) until i could arrange to get down there and pick the bike up.
I got there only to find out Rich had not shipped the bike with all of the agreed upon paper work (so that i could get it across the border). I tried, and of course failed to get it across the border. So i had to take the bike back, store it, drive back home, email and call Rich for the better part of a week until he responded and finally sent me my work order, and then i was finally able to head down and pick up my bike and bring it home.

Of course, Rich did not take ANY of the blame for this "little" screw up...Instead it was all "bad luck" and "my inability to get in contact with the shipping company to arrange things" (even though he never sent me the shipping company info! :banghead::bang head:)

Rich is a sweet talker for sure. Things start out all well and good. Nothing but promises but as soon as he has your money he disappears. You will get your bike/project/hardtail when he gets to it and not a moment sooner (regardless or when he promises it to you). He also does not take the blame for ANYTHING. He finds a way to make everything "out of his control", or "someone's fault" or "the customer's fault"...but he never owns up/steps up and takes the blame for his crappy customer service.

I cannot believe that 18-20 months later i am still fighting with him to get my bike complete (missing parts and wrong parts). What a nightmare! :doh::bang head:

I said it before and i will say it again, i would NOT recommend anyone get any work done by him.
By all accounts (speaking with people privately on the matter) he is still taking on new projects and promising that that customers bike is "next on the lift" when he has no less then 3 projects waiting to be completed, where customers have been waiting OVER 18 months! :wtf::banghead::wtf:

Sorry....
end rant

I am from Winnipeg. Where about are you from?
 
Wow...im really sorry to hear about everyone's troubles with the shop...it sounds like I've had the best luck with getting my hard tail..and my experience wasn't even that smooth with broken shipping labels and such. My few months over due is nothing compared to you guys. It sounds like things aren't going well, so if any of you actually DO have a G&L hardtail/bike build, you better hang on to it, they might become very rare and unobtainable in the near future.
 
I bought my tail section from him in 2010. I got it when he said I was going to get it. I only spoke with him twice,sent my money,and got my tail. Guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I've had no other dealings with him,and I guess I won't from the sounds of things.
 
After 22 months i think i would invest (at a minimum) another $99.00 for a bus ticket and iron this crap out in person. But thats just me.

I dont understand how people can function with a clear consience after doing peps raw like that.

Where is this douche nozzle located ? I thankfully have not heard of him outside of this thread.
 
He is in Colorado somewhere. I did some research on the G&L before I deciding to go with them for a hardtail and didn't actually find much negative feedback (that was before this thread). I remember a specific convo with my buddy after not hearing back from Rich and i said something like 'im not worried yet, if he screwed someone out of his money, the guys on the internet would have warning threads everywhere. I guess this is now that thread...
 
TurboFarviknugn said:
After 22 months i think i would invest (at a minimum) another $99.00 for a bus ticket and iron this crap out in person. But thats just me.

I dont understand how people can function with a clear consience after doing peps raw like that.

Where is this douche nozzle located ? I thankfully have not heard of him outside of this thread.
Click to expand...

Rich is in Colorado Springs

Trust me i had thought about that on multiple occasions.
But for a while i figured that he had either gone out of business or had left town. So turning up would have been a gamble.
Then when Rich would email me back the excuses/stories he would give would have him out of town or out of the shop for long stretches. So showing up on his door step would have most likely resulted in showing up and confronting nothing more then an empty shop.

I did mobilize some forces in the chopper community.
I got in touch with some understanding people in some forms when lived in the area. They check out the shop and confirmed that it was still there, just no one working on the days they stopped by.

Yeah, i do not know how he does it either.
And as i have said previously, i know that he is still taking on new projects (i have talked to these people personal via email) and promising that the new customers bike will be "next on the lift" when he has no less then 3 people (that i know by name) waiting for projects to be completed....and last time i talked to him on the phone (Oct 2011) he admitted that he had 5 or 6 people waiting (i believe all waiting over a year).

The reason i have decided to speak up is not so much to drag Rich's name through the mud (i do not feel that i am doing that i am just being honest about the experience, like i said the bike he built me, even if it does run right now, is AMAZING) but instead i just want to warn others and prevent people from going through the same gong show that i went through.
 
Rogue21 said:
He is in Colorado somewhere. I did some research on the G&L before I deciding to go with them for a hardtail and didn't actually find much negative feedback (that was before this thread). I remember a specific convo with my buddy after not hearing back from Rich and i said something like 'im not worried yet, if he screwed someone out of his money, the guys on the internet would have warning threads everywhere. I guess this is now that thread...
Click to expand...

I know so did i!

At the time i could not find a single negative thing about him. Hell he was even featured in "The Horse".

He seemed like a real stand up guy. Like i said he returned calls/emails within 24 to 48 hours and even drove 6-8 hours to come and pick up my donor bike with not so much as a mention of a need for gas money or anything like that. Seemed like a GREAT guy.

But about 4-6 months after i dropped my bike off with him (and i was promised my bike in 2-3 months) i started seeming threads popping up about him.

At the end of the day my opinion has been that Rich is an Amazing builder/fabricator but he is a HORRIBLE businessman (in over his head and takes on too much work) and extremely dishonest with his customers.
I have maintain from the beginning (and told this to Rich on several occasions) if we would have been up front with me and told me, "look, i can build you a bike, but it is going to be 16-18 months before it will be done". That would have been fine, then at least i could have made an informed decision.
But quoting me 2-3 months and then taking 16-18 months (hell i am still waiting for missing and replacement parts!) is simply unacceptable!

Unless he changes his business practices and changes them fast he is going to be out of business soon, as word is starting to get around.
 
Well just to give an update on my experience. Had the bike delivered. I have to say it was beautiful. Rich started it for me. Seemed to start fine. Then came time to ride it next day start it up go for a ride and break down. Had a guy come over and tune the Mikuni VM carbs to make sure it was ok as Im no mechanic. Still have to let the bike warm for 10 minutes or so. Guy looked at the oil and said thats the darkest oil Ive ever seen. I'm thinking and say, well i just pait 6200.00 for this bike and the engines rebuilt so that oil has to be newish. So I'm riding the bike for the 5th time and I feel something slip in the engine, maybe the clutch? I have no idea, sounded like a chain slipping? So I read up in the forums about changing the oil and I read that a thicker diesel oil might be the way to go and that might fix and clutch slipping. So i also read that you need to replace the sump filter. I bought one from MikeXS and go to replace. First of all the gasket was so old and F*&ked that I cant even scrape it off. The filter was demolished and looked old as hell. There was a thick buildup of sludge on the plate. The oil looked as old as the engine. The topping on the cake? Parts of the cam chain guide are sticking out of the hole in the engine and these parts are trying to pass through the sump. Bottom line, the engine is shit! Its old and hasn't been rebuilt. I never dogged G&L when Rich took my money and didn't return calls or emails but now All I can say is fuck these guys and this piece of shit engine!. This bike isn't worth half what I paid for it and now I have to make costly repairs.
 
The final thorn in my side, is my Fiance who keeps saying to me every time I cant start the bike, "I can't believe you paid that much money for a motorcycle that doesn't even run". Words don't describe how pissed I get when I hear that.
 
vdubplate said:
The final thorn in my side, is my Fiance who keeps saying to me every time I cant start the bike, "I can't believe you paid that much money for a motorcycle that doesn't even run". Words don't describe how pissed I get when I hear that.
Click to expand...

Hate to say this but once talking to Rich, I told him i'm taking my engine completley apart to change 5th gear and bore both cylinders just cause I wanted a fresh start and a taller 5th gear. He told me they NEVER take the engines apart. Sux you got ripped off.:wtf::banghead::mad:
 

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