ORC: is it my imagination, or have you been in this business for a long, long time? When did you start?

RD: I think my brain started about 1989. I read a Dirt Bike magazine article about Dick Mann's annual vintage bike gathering, so the following year I went up as a spectator. There was a swap meet, and I watched the vintage racing and all that stuff.

Walk into the lobby of Vintage Iron, and the first thing that catches your eye is a completely flawless 250 Maico. And I mean flawless!

Mind you, I had been out of riding for about six years ... the latter part of 1980, I just quit! I concentrated on business, got married and worked.

After about six years of working like crazy, I got really bored and thought I'd start riding and racing again. But in that span, from 80 to 86, everything changed! Track design, bikes changed dramatically ... disc brakes ... everything. And with things like disc brakes, came whole new track designs. And I wasn't part of this evolution of the sport.

So when I saw this vintage thing, that's what I remembered. Air-cooled motors, drum brakes ... big open tracks where you could go fast ... bikes you could work on. I gravitated toward that and once I got into it, I realized that you can't even restore a bike properly because the only fenders that were available were universal modern style fenders, and they just looked goofy on a bike with 35 millimeter forks.

Just for starters, I had some molds made for Husky fenders, because they're the hardest bikes to fit. Those were the early plastic fenders, where the bolts went through the side, not the bottom of the fender. As soon as I made those, guys started saying when are you gonna make CZ ones?

YZ fans will drool over this Hannah-era restoration.

I wasn't really planning on going into a business, I just wanted to help out the Husky riders. Well, we went ahead and made some CZ fenders, then realized that there weren't any acceptable handlebars available. Everything was low profile. So I went ahead and made some proper vintage shape handlebars.

At the same time, I put some ads in the local papers where I said that I wanted to buy some pre-75 dirt bikes, any kind - any condition. In about a year and a half, I had over a hundred bikes!

Actually, our official kick-off was about 1990, so we've been at it around 14 years. Actually, I had another business going at the time and did this on the side for fun more than anything else. Then, when I made our first catalog, that sort of committed me. You make one and people expect you to make another every year. Then the Internet kicked and I don't have to do catalogs all the time.

Special orders from customers are welcomed. This CZ owner wanted an orange porcupine special so his bike would stand out from the pack.

ORC: How did you come by the name Vintage Iron?

RD: It just seemed like the logical name. Whether I read it in one of your columns, I don't recall, but it just sort of stuck in my head. You're influenced by your atmosphere, and I was certainly a reader of early Dirt Bike and Motocross Action, and the words have become a generic description for good old motorcycles.

ORC: When did you start riding or racing?

RD: I started in '68 on a Taco 22. We used to live out near Edwards Air Force Base out in the desert, and we used to ride every day! You used to be able to roll out of your garage and go riding. That's all changed. How many times have you been thinking about going riding, then you've got to load up and drive two hours to someplace to ride and you just say forget it.

Something even more off-beat: a Rotax-powered SWM.

Back then, when you were a kid, you just put on your helmet and maybe a pair of boots, and you were gone! There were all kinds of places to ride.

ORC: Yup. Back in 1968 when I lived in LA, we used to go riding in some empty land near the airport. Try that nowadays, and you're in jail before you can blink.

RD: That reminds me ... you wrote a story a long time ago, about an Orwellian projection (editor's note: Sunday Morning Ride - 1984) and I was talking with Dirt Rider magazine about running a portion of that story about where everything is going in the future, and the concept was that if we allow things to continue going the way they are going, here's how we'll be riding in the not too distant future. I remember reading that article when you wrote it and thinking that it was pretty far-fetched, that a guy gets out and rides on a real dirt lot and they kill 'em. We're there now! Right now, I don't know what's worse: land closure or supercross-style track openings!

All kinds of vintage stuff can be found throughout the shop. High up on a shelf you'll find a Yamaha and a Kawasaki BMX bike from the 70s. These are real collectors!

ORC: Early racing memories?

RD: My first race was a motocross at Deadman's Point. Rex Staten was there and so was Bud Feldcamp, the guy who actually owns Glen Helen. I never raced any desert, but we used to go to courses like the old Ponderosa and drive down a dirt ride along the course and watch. My Dad thought desert racing was too dangerous, even though I was doing a lot more stupid stuff than that every day after school.

One day I was out at the Ponderosa course, and there was the Bultaco El Bandito sitting there. I was maybe 12 years old at the time and I was looking at this thing and it was so cool. I was fascinated with all the bikes back then. I remember this guy as clear as if it was today. He turned to me and said: "Hey kid, you wanna ride it?" I said sure. I didn't have any gear on or anything. He smiled and said: "If you can start it, you can ride it."

This perfect Montesa was raced at a Vintage Iron event by the legendary Peter Lamppu.

Of course, he was sitting around drinking beer with his buddies after the race, and they probably figured it would spit and kick back and toss him over the next three pickup trucks. Well, the thing lit off on the first kick!!! At this point, I was just sitting there on the bike, shaking, and the guy comes over, straps his helmet on me, and says: "Don't crash it."

I rode it all the way out to the smoke bomb and back, and as you know, that area is just solid whoops. And that bike was the Spanish version of the TM 400. I got back and he said that I could get off the bike now. I couldn't. My hands were so cramped they were locked solid on the grips and my forearms were pumped. They had to pry my hands off the bars.

Actually, my first desert race was the Adelanto Desert Vipers GP in 1991. And that's a Grand Prix held over desert terrain. They do a great job.

A large percentage of the restos done by Rick are Maicos, with the emphasis being on the mighty 81s and 83 490s.

ORC: Back to business: when did Vintage Iron start to really pop?

RD: Coincidentally, right around the time my "regular" business started to decline, Vintage Iron started to grow. It wasn't any grand design, but to be able to turn my hobby into a business was great.

ORC: Plus, there is that great secret that you stumbled upon and that is if you're enjoying what you're doing, success is much easier.

RD: Yes, it's all work ... the mechanics of doing a business, the ordering, the shipping, all the paperwork involved ... that's all there still ... but when you enjoy what you're doing, it's easier to persevere and keep in there. Actually, I've had years in this business, where if I didn't have the passion for it, I'd have pulled the plug.

Rick's personal BSA Gold Star is on display. When new, it cost him around three grand. Today it's worth something in the 20K range.

Look, we have a certain approach. We try to be completely professional and lead the market in the direction that we think is good for the sport, and do things that support the sport. Then hopefully you make money as a by-product. Those are the goals.

ORC: One of the things I saw on your Internet site, was the statement that you would only do a bike properly. You would not build a "25 foot special." One that looks good from 25 feet, and then when you get close, you say whoops.

Let's say a customer walks in with a normal bike ... a 250 Elsinore. Something that he bought at a swap meet for $700 or $800. Something with a torn saddle, rust here and there, dings, cracked side panels, no spark, but fairly intact. What's it going to cost him to make it perfect?

Rare and hard to find side panels and fenders are made by Vintage Iron.

RD: Average cost for that bike will be around $6500. The price for a 50 c mini bike will be about the same as a 500 cc motocross bike. It takes just as much time to lace a rim on a 12 inch wheel as it does on a 21 incher. Size of the bike doesn't usually have a reflection on the price and neither does the original purchase price. People are strange when it comes to buying parts for older bikes. I'll have a typical call where a guys wants a pipe for a bike and I'll tell him it's $170, and he moans that he only paid fifty bucks for the bike. At that point, I usually hold the phone over my calculator, hit some buttons real hard for a while, then say: "Hmmm. According to your initial purchase price, on a sliding scale, we owe you money and should send the pipe for free."

Vintage Iron produces many of their own products for sale to other resto shops, like this Husky fender.

That's the single biggest misconception about buying a bike cheap. You think that the parts will be equally cheap. If a guy is in a dollar bind, I'd rather help him out on doing part of his restoration, like building his wheels for him, or making a cherry tank, and letting him do the work that he can.

I always tell people who are working on projects to do the foundation first, and that's the frame and the motor. Most people never even think about the frame. To my way of thinking, you MUST start with that. Because if you get your project all done, only to find out that the frame is tweaked, then you have to strip the bike all the way down and do the work all over again.

But when you do a resto, you have to look at the big picture. Here's an example. I had this 1971 400 square barrel Maico that still ran pretty good and we did some work on it, suspension wise and so forth. The guy I had working for me put a brand new shiny washer on the pipe hanger and I had him take it off and put the original scuffed washer back on and he was confused as to why. I told him that the shiny new washer made everything else on the bike look worse. So the better you make one thing, the more it takes away from the things that aren't perfect. If, for example, you had your frame powder-coated and the engine looking perfect, all the other un-touched parts on the bike would look really, really bad.

ORC: It's like that absolutely perfect Maico 250 you have in the lobby. If it had a half-worn knobby on the back, that would jump right out.

Little bits and pieces that you absolutely cannot find for your resto project are hanging on the peg boards at VI.

RD: Exactly. It's what you DON'T DO they'll see first. I try to get people to think in that direction.

ORC: OK, let's say that you next customer walks into your shop with a bike that's out of the ordinary. It's not an Elsinore 250, but one of the Harley MXers. Clearly, this is a fairly rare bike. Is this going to cost the guy a small fortune?

RD: The only thing I can control is the fixed labor. It costs so much to take a bike apart and so much to put it back together, no matter what it is. If the parts cost extra because the bike is on the rare side, that all has to be taken into consideration. But all the basic work is the same. It doesn't take any longer to lace a Harley MX wheel than it does a YZ. But let's say the customer wants a brand new (NOS) tank as his is all rusty and dented. You can get them, but the price for that tank could be in the $800 to $1000 range. There are tanks that are going to cost you more because of how they're made. An aluminum Elsinore tank is going to cost close to a grand to be made perfect and those chromed Husky tanks are around $600 to $800 or so.

Prices are not cheap on proper restos, but we do more bikes now for $6500 or $7500 than when we first started doing them for $2500.

Attention to detail on the bikes is staggering. Check out the polished mono swingarm on this elderly YZ.

ORC: Do you see the prices for pre-75 bikes going nuts?

RD: No. I think they'll stabilize and stay strong. Here's a fact: More people restore a bike to have it, rather than to race it. So there is a collector's market, no doubt. I would say that about 60 to 70 percent of the parts we sell are to guys who never go to the races. And I should know, because I go to most of the races. They have one of these bikes in the garage and it's important to them, because it meant something special from another time ... and they just have them. Many of these are guys who used to have one way back when. Some take them to bike shows and some just show them to friends and talk about the old days. There's certainly a core group who race them - no doubt - but they are in the minority.

ORC: Why the increased interest in vintage bikes at this time?

RD: They had character and were so unique. Look at the modern bikes available today. You can barely tell one from another except for the color and logo on the tank. What do you think the vintage bikes of the future will be like?

ORC: Probably CR 500 two strokes.

RD: Exactly. It's all about nostalgia. When a guy hits 30, he starts looking back at his life. And when 40 comes, he looks back more. When you hit that 55 range, nostalgia becomes very real and very strong.

Genuine riding gear from greats like Bob Hannah line the walls. It's like walking though a mini-museum.

ORC: You're selling dreams, it seems. Right now, you do about 35 to 40 complete bikes per year. What are the most popular bikes you do?

RD: No question about it, the 1973-74 250 Elsinore. It was a landmark bike and produced in much bigger numbers than the YZs of that era. Everybody remembers it and it was an icon bike. It was a ground-breaking bike. Over the history of motocross, there have been about 20 bikes that have been that much better than anything else in their class or time-frame. It was just such a good package compared to what we were getting. Especially compared to the European stuff.

ORC: What do you do when a customer comes in with a real junker that can't be helped? A real beater.

RD: The worst one that we ever had I ended up having to get two more bikes to make one complete finished package. We were only able to use less than 30 percent of what he rolled in the back door. Once you take a bike apart, only then can you see stuff like broken frames, cracked parts, damaged hubs, bad cases and so forth. That would have been one case where the guy would have been ahead of the game starting out with another bike.

A speedway bike is nestled in the front window. Shades of the Bast brothers!

A lot of guys buy bikes off eBay without ever really seeing them in person. Oh sure, they look good in the photos. But think about this: Playboy has made a fortune over the years in making photos look better than the real thing.

ORC: Where do you draw the line on if the bike is acceptable for restoration? If a guy comes with a cracked frame all tweaked out and bad cases and so forth?

RD: That depends on the bike. If the customer walks in with a Yamaha mxer, I would probably decline the job. But if the bike was on the rare side, like a Metisse or a Cheney, the extra effort and time would be worth it.

But I learned a lesson about restoring bikes when I did Roger DeCoster's number 111 bike right after the Trans-Am. I got the bike right after the event, dirt and all, and the gas tank was dented. So this is my hero and I figured I had to make this bike as perfect and bitchin' as possible. So we restored it back to 100 percent. And in the process, we wiped out a lot of the race history. And I promised myself I would never do that again.

Remember when all the Euro-stars wore those goofy Whoop-dee-Chews chest protectors? Within a year, nobody could find that odd multiple vitamin on the shelves anywhere.

Because Roger dented that gas tank and all of his bikes were that way. He hugged the gas tanks with his knees and all of them had caved in sides. And they were all caved in where his balls would go! Since then, I told people that he either had none, or REALLY BIG ONES! That's trademark stuff. So when I did J.N. Roberts bike from the desert, it had squashed in frame rails from where he used to bottom out so hard over the whoops. I wanted the bike to look fresh, but I didn't want to take away from the history.

ORC: I realize you do a lot of the popular Japanese bikes, but what about my old favorites, the big Maicos?

RD: We do a lot Maico restos, with the King Kong of the bikes being the 490. In the Evolution Class, that is THE BIKE. We do a lot of 80-81 250 YZs and some 465s. The 250 YZs of the Hannah era are especially popular. We also do a lot of Huskys, but the majority of the ones we do are the 1970 400 four-speeds. That is the On Any Sunday bike.

Rick Doughty with his hero, Roger DeCoster.

ORC: What about the typical Spanish bike?

RD: I love to work on the Spanish stuff, because there's a lot of shiny parts on them; Bultacos, Montesas, Ossas ... especially the earlier ones. They're handsome bikes. There was a lot of attention paid to making them look nice. And for some reason, I like the fiberglass bodywork. There's great lines in those early bikes, like the full-fendered Pursangs, El Banditos and many of the Spanish Metisse bikes were real beauties.

ORC: I understand you're working with Greg Primm on the new motocross museum. Please describe it for those who are unfamiliar.

RD: Sure. Greg Primm is building a motocross museum in Las Vegas that's unlike anything else ever done. It's the largest collection of motocross bikes in the world, with most of the machines being vintage and classic. His target date for opening is May 5, 2005, which would translate into 5-5-05. That will be the grand opening with a VIP dinner, and then on the 6th, it will be open to the public. This will all be done in conjunction with the last supercross of the season.

ORC: How did you hook up with Greg?

How's this for a rare item: Gloves worn by Heikki Mikkola!

RD: Actually, I got a phone call from him. He had heard about my business. He told me that he had some old bikes from after 1974, instead of the older bikes. At that time, I was on the board of AHRMA (American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association) and I wasn't all that interested in newer bikes. I think Greg was somewhat offended by my attitude that all bikes ended after 1974, so we didn't talk for another year after that.

He had taken the bikes that he had around to various shops to get restored, and they sat around for six or eight months and nobody would ever get anything done. So he sent one of his employees over to my shop to check the quality and the volume of work we were doing, and then sent us a bike to work on. It was a Husky 450 Desert Master. It's one of the worst bikes Husky ever built. Yet, when anyone asks me what my favorite resto bike ever was, this had to be one of them. Because that bike started my relationship with Greg.

Cover of Sports Illustrated once featured Steve McQueen popping a wheelie on a Husky. Imagine what that issue is worth today!

The bottom line is that this museum is going to be fantastic! It's not completed yet, and it's already amazing. I'd like to see the motocross and dirt bike riding community get together and contribute any interesting bits of memorabilia they might have to the collection.

ORC: After that first successful resto on the Husky, it's safe so say that you've been doing more bikes for Greg on a regular basis?

RD: Right now, probably two thirds of our production is going into the museum. By the time we get to the grand opening, we're going to be in excess of 300. I think his target is around 500. But his exhibit will be a living, changing museum, with different display themes constantly being added. Greg is trying to build a museum to honor the sport of motocross and I think that's a good and noble thing.

ORC: Is this vintage thing just a fad?

RD: No, not at all. I see it growing, and even with some people dropping out here and there, I see more new people coming in all the time. Plus, you have to consider that it changes constantly. Think about it. The first vintage stuff was limited to 1974 ... and then people said what about those cool bikes like 1981 YZs and 490s Maicos.

ORC: Should people think about buying vintage bikes as an investment, like getting a cherry 57 Chevy and hanging on to it?

Classic shot from the days of heavy bikes and riders who wouldn't say quit.

RD: Hmmm. Some time ago, when I bought my BSA Gold Star for $3000 and then had to fix a broken frame and do a lot of motor work, I would have said no. But now it's worth somewhere in the 20K range, so take it from there ...

ORC: What bikes would tend to become valuable collectors in the nest five or six or ten years? You noted that there were way too many Elsinores, for example, to escalate radically up in value.

RD: The oddball bikes. The Harley 250 we talked about earlier, I could see that one going up double or more in the next few years. 501 Maicos for sure. Not the 400s; they made a lot of those. The 501s had a mystique about them. The Suzuki TM 400 - the first year - the orange one. It was billed as a brutal out-of-control bike. That one will go up in value. It was the Widowmaker. The great bikes like the 490 Maico will go up and up. You could ride and race one today, and the motor is competitive and the suspension will not beat you to death.

Part of the interest in racing is in different bikes. The 125 Honda CR, when it first came out was revolutionary, but a few years later, when everyone caught up, it was history.

ORC: What were the most important bikes of the 60s, 70s and 80s?

SoCal District 37 racers will recognize the racing jersey worn by John Rice.

RD: In the 60s, it was the BSA Gold Star, the Husky and the CZ. In the 70s, the 1973 Honda 250 Elsinore would be my early 70s pick and my later 70s pick would be the YZ 250s that Bob Hannah raced. Well, the production versions. It was the Japanese coming of age phenom. In the 80s, there was the 490 Maico and the 83 or 87 CR 250 from Honda.

ORC: Put the Husky four strokes in proper perspective.

RD: It was clearly the next generation of bikes of the future, but you just had so many reliability problems, it clouded everything. But it was what we came to see in the new generation YZ four strokes way ahead of that time. Compact and light.

ORC: If you were going to recommend a pre-75 vintage bike to ride and race to someone, which one would it be?

RD: All things considered: cost, maintenance, parts availability, resale value and so forth, probably a 250 Elsinore. I hate to keep going back to that bike, but all things considered, it's much better than the Yamaha YZ, which parts are almost unobtanium and Kawasaki and Suzukis are very hard to get parts for. The European stuff of that area, while great, unless you're good at tinkering, you have a problem.