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Shop Hoppin'

Shop Hoppin’ – Master Of The Deal – Cycle Warehouse

Article And Photos By: Chris Callen

Originally Published In the February 2012 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine

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One of the strongest movements at foot in the custom motorcycle scene today is the use of old iron in basing a build. This is a great idea as guys and gals, both young and old, are really getting back to the creativity of where this whole thing started. Instead of everything being based on the same type of motorcycle, powerplant or parts’ list, now they are going after pre-units, Pans, Ironheads and Asian bikes; what comes out the other end of this cycle potpourri is incredible. While this is the latest installment of cool, it can, as any experienced builder knows, drive you absolutely bat shit crazy trying to locate some of the parts you need to make it happen. The main reason is that some of this stuff just isn’t being made anymore. Some of it has long since been shipped overseas, and while the aftermarket is meeting the need with companies like Flathead Power by S&S, there are still many things you just can not get off the shelf anymore. This is where a business like Cycle Warehouse comes in. It sits right in my backyard, and in spite of knowing its owner since we were kids, I honestly had no idea how big this operation had become until last month when I went there to borrow a Panhead motor for mock-up. I decided right then and there that this was something we had to bring to our readers in the “Garage Builder” issue since there is nothing more important than knowing where to get something you’re stuck looking for. We spent three days filming video and taking pictures for this story but nothing can compare to seeing it for yourself. Since you may not be able to make the trip, let’s take a look at what I can show you from our visit.

Located in downtown Butler, Pennsylvania sits the old Troutman’s Department Store: an 85,000 square foot building comprised of five floors which is now the home of Cycle Warehouse. Chris Gatto, owner of the Warehouse, has been a friend of mine forever and even sold me my first used Shovelhead while he was still working for his dad. It all started as a hobby for Chris, who as the son of Pittsburgh’s largest market share Harley-Davidson dealers, was ready to get away from the family Article And Photos By: Chris Callen business. Eleven years later, he has what is probably the most massive motorcycle parts’ collection on the East Coast, possibly in the whole United States. Although his father didn’t purchase the Harley franchise until Chris was fourteen, he had already been around motorcycles his entire life. When the Gattos started out, becoming a dealer was a different prospect than today and all you really had to do was buy three motorcycles. Chris’s dad would take one, his dad’s best friend Jimmy and his Uncle Joe would also take one, and right there they would become a dealer. At first, this was how they picked up Zündapp German motorcycles and then they would end up taking on Triumph and Suzuki as well. The shop was eventually called Fifth Avenue Suzuki and at one point, was also grandpap’s appliance store, so the whole family had a mind for business.

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Chris’s old man, George, was a hustler. He is the type of guy that moves a hundred-miles-an-hour even when he’s standing still. We laughed and told stories about times when I would stop into the shop and even though I didn’t work there, George would come over and say, “Hey, give me a hand with this.” I’d help him move something or hold a ladder to change a light bulb, he was just that guy; the old man, you know? Chris worked every position in that business from the parts’ counter and bike sales, to repair and management. Later on in life, his dad would end up having a quadruple bypass and that was when Chris decided that he wanted to take a different path. At the time, he had two other brothers that were involved in the family business as well, and he let them keep running things as his parents began to set up for retirement. Chris wanted to do something that paid the bills but was more of a hobby. He was just too much like his old man and he knew that the same fate would await him if he didn’t start to let go and just enjoy what he was doing. So in Tarentum, PA, in a little two-story building, he started Cycle Warehouse.

At first, it was a collection made up mostly of stuff he had been socking away for years but it quickly expanded and eventually would have him search for a much larger facility to base his operation. I still remember when he first moved into the Butler location; a huge place that I was sure he would never use, as a matter of fact he wasn’t either. Originally he had intended to rent parts of the building out as office and retail space and he had a few takers on that arrangement. One by one he would end up asking them all to make other arrangements while he was forced to expand. Today there isn’t a corner within these walls that doesn’t have parts stacked to the ceiling. That’s really saying something since these old department stores always had a ton of secret passage ways and security rooms built into their floor plan. Every space now contains rows of Springers, tires, wheels, you name it. I walked up and down the sometimes two foot wide paths. The shelving units hold what can only be estimated in raw tonnage, some of the most rare and hard to find motorcycle parts known to exist. I asked Chris how he finds all this stuff. His answer came simply, “It’s what I do,” but the truth is, he is probably more like his old man than either of us ever knew. You see, Chris is one of those cats that can’t stand still either but above all else, he loves the deal. I don’t mean he loves getting a good deal, I mean he intimately is connected to the art of making the deal, from start to finish, the acquisition, the organization, the resale, the whole thing keeps him up at night and he even admits that it’s his high.

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He did explain how it happens that he comes across these rare finds. For example, he told me about the first Panhead he bought at age 18. He drove out to buy it and also ended up with a free sidecar, an extra set of wheels, body set and fuel tanks. When he bought that bike, he made the trip and got it and the extra parts. He then went back, making a second trip, and picked up the sidecar with some more extra parts the owner had and then made two more trips just for parts. He asked me, “Free parts, what are you supposed to do?” In his words he explained that this is the third commandment: “Thou shall not throw away motorcycle parts, especially Panhead parts.” The second floor of this facility is a street level, is larger than most Harley dealerships I’ve been to and is a retailonly room. It contains everything that is nice and new, or at least mostly. Fuel tanks, chrome parts and hardware line the one half of this floor with a full helmet and apparel section on the other. Here and there you can see some of Chris’s most prized possessions. Select motorcycles from his collection sit here and there, and he knows the story to each one like the 1920 Harley that was near the counter. The owner bought it used in ’39, and it came complete with several trophies from AMC meets. He picked it up from the wife of the previous owner when her husband passed away a few years back. Chris still remembers that she kicked him out of the house at 6 p.m. so she could have her daily martini. It’s a first kick bike that was incredibly preserved, and one of hundreds in this building, each with its own story and Chris can tell every one.

The basement or first floor is packed with motor and transmission stuff, and not the kind of things you would scoff at, they’re hard to find parts too. I stood there in front of a shelving unit that had a whole supply of K model motors. Right next to that were old XLCH, Panhead, UL Flatheads, and Indian parts. Unreal man, like the hardest of the hardest things to locate and he has extra. Around one corner we saw a whole room full of pre-unit Triumph stuff, all piled up, waiting to be stocked away. This cat gets so much in so fast that at times, he loses control of the organization of it all. In the back of the basement there is a showroom with a few hundred bikes of all makes and models and even one that struck a cord with me. It was my old ’68 Bonneville. I had sold it to Chris one winter, for what seems like forever ago, when the magazine bills were kicking my ass. There it sat in near perfect condition and I wanted to buy it back so bad it was killing me. It turns out that he had sold it a couple of times since then and had it back once more. On the other side of the basement is another section that has a couple of lifts and projects going on. Some are being torn down, some are being built up. There’s always some guy Chris has in there from another state or a shop somewhere in the country doing work for trade on parts or helping piece together what end up being killer bikes in this collection. The third floor was all about bikes. We saw everything from a BSA Hornet with zero miles to an Indian dirt bike that was bought for a kid whose mother wouldn’t let him ride it. That bike sat in a crate for forty years until Chris bought it. A Harley dirt bike sat with four miles on it, two of which came from the last fifteen years of Chris’s staff pushing it around. There was a 1938 Peugeot, an MV Agusta, a Simplex, an NSU Scooter, Knuckles, and Pans. There were hundreds of bikes, row after row, and some up on a shelf all the way around the top of the room. The other half of the third floor was where the real rare finds were.

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As we walked around that top floor and I listened to all of the stories, I was reminded to what the Wheels Through Time Museum is like. Chris has a common connection to his motorcycles as those guys do with theirs. It’s an incredible collection that is a killer representation of motorcycling history and still he knows each and every one like an old friend. I asked Chris if he ever aspired to start a museum with his collection. He has actually started to talk with the city of Butler about it but he just hasn’t had the time yet so maybe once he slows down. On the fourth floor, it’s all bars, pipes, sheet metal, and accessories. There are so many fuel tanks in this part of the building they literally line the top of the room. You can pick out anniversary paint sets, some new old stock that Harley does every year, and some original painted parts like the stuff from the ’76 freedom machines. There are fenders, oil tanks, and forward controls just littering the place. However, the real deal for the genuine hard-core nut that is intrigued by the rare and hard to find, is the fifth floor. We took the service elevator, the only way to access it. I remember when Chris first moved into this place the only thing up there was the heating and cooling system.

Now you can’t even see those anymore with the piles of new old stock, still in the boxes, fresh like the day they were made, yet still old ass parts. I can’t even begin to tell you about what was in this part of the building. We walked around forever and my jaw was literally on the floor. Everywhere I looked there were black and orange boxes, tin cans and even metal jars that parts used to come in. It was like a place that time forgot, only time hadn’t, and Chris remembered enough to know that eventually someone would need one of his treasures. The collection continues from this building. He also bought a hundred acres to pull tractor trailers full of parts on to. He sells on e-Bay, overseas, all over the United States, and even as far away as Egypt. He ended up getting a deal on 12 Knuckleheads from a police force there. Who would think of going to Egypt to look for bikes to buy? I could fill this whole magazine up with a lengthy description of what is in that old building and the stories that go along with it but for that, you’ll have to wait and see the video we shot. The best part about this place is the fact that the owner is more interested in adding to the collection than he is about how much he can get for any part of it. Don’t get me wrong, Chris knows what he has and sells at a fair price but if he has a bunch of something and can move it to get more of other things he doesn’t have, he will do it in a minute. He says that it’s part of his obsessive compulsive disorder; we realize it’s just the natural progression of a motorcycle nut.CCSM-FEB2012-P30_Page_1_Image_0004

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