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COVER: A SHARED PASSION
A Shared Passion
Sixteen-year-old Emmi Cupp’s Tiger Cub custom grabs a third-place trophy — and reignites her father’s passion for custom bike building
By Joy Burgess
“Sometimes in life there’s a special moment that surprises you,” said long-time AMA member, well-known bike builder and owner of LC Fabrications, Jeremy Cupp, “and this was one.”
“My then-15-year-old daughter Emmi has been a Beatles fan for years and took a shine to the British bikes I have,” he told American Motorcyclist, “so for Christmas in 2019 I bought her a little 1958 Triumph Tiger Cub basket case, hoping we’d get it running together and tear it up in the fields around our home. Frankly, I wasn’t sure she’d be interested.”
“But a day or two later,” he added, “Emmi brought me a sketch book full of ideas for how she wanted to build this bike. It was an eye-opener for me. I didn’t realize what I’d done in giving her that bike, but looking back, I’m sure glad I did.”
Prior to the Christmas Cub basket case, Emmi had encountered some bumps in her young road, as preteens and teens are bound to do.
“I decided it was time to pull her close,” Jeremy said, “and that’s tough to do when you’re running a business, so I started taking her to the shop with me. At first, we’d just be one another’s company, but then she started asking questions. Eventually, I’d take a few hours a day to teach her how to weld, run a mill and lathe…and frankly, she’s a natural. I’ve taught others, but no one who was able to grasp it so quickly.”
Little did Jeremy know that the basket case would turn into a full-fledged build, end up entered in Roland Sands’ 2020 Coronavirus Bike Build-Off, bring home a third-place trophy that now sits proudly in a trophy case among his own many bike-building awards, and rekindle his own passion for building, leading to a surprising father-daughter partnership.
Emmi and her father Jeremy in the family’s LC Fabrications shop. The 1958 Triumph Tiger Cub in the foreground was Emmi’s first build, which won third place in Roland Sands’ Coronavirus Bike Build-Off. Now, father and daughter are working together on the Big Chief Indian in the background.
According to sister Harleigh, “Every night before everybody heads home they have this ritual, where they just stare at the progress and dream and scheme about what to do tomorrow.”
Roots
“My dad’s been the main influence for me to enter the motorcycle world,” Emmi says, “and I’ve been around his bike buddies all my life, so it was hard not to take interest.”
But Jeremy’s love for bikes goes all the way back to when he was just a kid. “I bought a ’79 Honda XR80 when I was young,” he told us. “It was my friend and neighbor’s bike, and he broke his arm riding it, so his mom told him he had to sell it. I mowed lawns all summer to come up with that $80.”
But it wasn’t until around 2005 that he began building bikes. “I was riding a $400 Yamaha and dreaming of owning a Harley,” he says, “but there just wasn’t money for those things back then. I was working at a fabrication shop – Shickel Corporation – at the time, and one night while watching Bike Build Off on television I decided I should just build a bike instead.”
“My wife sent photos of my first build to the reader’s ride section in Chopper magazine,” he added, “and they wound up doing a full feature… that was the beginning of it all. That one article encouraged me to push ahead, always trying to top my previous work. And I achieved quite a bit of recognition, including two-time Ultimate Builder National Champion, Artistry in Iron winner in 2015, AIM Expo Champ in 2015, and fifth and second place wins at the AMD World Championship in 2009 and 2012, respectively.”
Despite all that success, there came a point when he was no longer willing to jump through all the hoops that came with being a top-level bike builder, and he found out that caused some doors to close. But he had more important things to consider.
“That tiny amount of fame I’d found felt good,” he says, “and I was beginning to put the chase before everything else. But I had kids to raise, a wife to love and a business to run.”
That business is LC Fabrications, a firm he started back in 2007. “After my second bike was finished,” he remembers, “I started realizing that building bikes was an expensive hobby, so I either needed to stop or start making them pay for themselves. I’d pull a few custom pieces from each bike I built and reproduce them for sale. Two years ago, I went full-time in my own shop. I still do my own LC Fabrications-branded products, but now I also do product parts for many others in the motorcycle industry.”
Award-Winning Build
Emmi remembers well the moment she came down the stairs Christmas morning to find that tiny Triumph under the tree. “In all my drowsy glory,” she laughs, “I thought it was for my brother. I’m a very small person, and a tiny bike was just what I wanted. My dad gave me the option to either make it run as an old beater bike or build it for shows. Obviously, I chose the build. It was the project I’d been waiting for!”
Armed with ideas and sketches of how she wanted the Cub to look — sketches she calls “not so good” — Emmi was stoked to get started, but the journey of turning a rusted-out basket case into something rideable and beautiful wasn’t easy.
“Hammering out the oil and gas tanks and building the engine,” she recalls, “those were the things that really tested my patience. For some reason I just didn’t understand how to make the metal move the way I wanted to, and I didn’t appreciate that much.”
But it was the learning, the mistakes and the challenges that taught her so much…about bike building and about life. “I learned more than I would have imagined during that build,” she told us, “not only in the skill fields, but also about life and how to carry on no matter what.”
While Emmi worked on the Tiger Cub all through early 2020, Roland Sands decided to put a positive spin on the devastating COVID pandemic that left so many individuals across the country at home by creating the Coronavirus Bike Build-Off. Builders, pros and amateurs from around the country entered the contest, done simply by using the hashtag #coronavirusbikebuildoff with their photos on Instagram.
Emmi entered the contest, but not on purpose. “One day I looked through my Instagram feed,” she remembers, “and I saw #coronavirusbikebuildoff showing up a lot. It seemed pretty cool, so I just started using it on all the photos of my build.”
Turns out, that was the first step to entering the online competition. At first, she was worried she’d end up being a joke on social media. But then they picked the top three bikes. “I couldn’t believe it when my build was in the top three,” she said after finding out the results. “I was grateful to Roland Sands Design for the opportunity and experience, and so excited to see my bike featured on their page.”
The Cupp family: (left to right) Harleigh, Jeremy, Lindsay (seated), Drake and Emmi.
Family Affair
After her first successful build, Emmi was already excited to do another, and her enthusiasm through the process of transforming the Tiger Cub rubbed off on her father.
“I think my Dad remembered how much he loves it,” Emmi said after completing the Triumph, “and I believe we’re gonna be partners in crime going forward. He’s actually been asking me for advice and opinions.”
“What Emmi and that Cub did for me,” Jeremy weighed in, “was reignite that passion I’d lost. Motorcycles had become just another mundane job, no different from factory work for me. Seeing and helping and teaching Emmi — a new generation — reminded me of why I love working with tools and on bikes so much in the first place.”
The conclusion of her first build left Emmi feeling a little lost without the ambition and distraction. “Whenever I got bored or worried, I’d work on the bike,” she recalled. “Projects are a good way to keep yourself going mentally, so I knew I’d need to start another build.”
It was the perfect time for a new project for the father-daughter duo.
“A friend of mine who passed away left me a 1925 Big Chief Indian,” Jeremy told us. “He’d saved it for me because he said he knew I’d do something awesome with it. I sure hope he’s up there watching the progress and is pleased.”
“Dad was the only one he trusted to ‘take care’ of it,” Emmi continued, “And we’re making it into a Wall of Deathstyle ride.”
“Most of my bikes have started with an image of a vintage, antique performance or competition machine, bikes like board trackers, hillclimbers, etc.,” said Jeremy. “A good friend of mine that I respect greatly spends a lot of time on his Indian up on the Wall of Death, so for this bike, that style just seems to fit. But that’s all I’d like to say about that until the bike’s finished,” he laughed.
“Honestly,” Emmi noted thoughtfully, “my favorite part about this bike is how happy it’s making my Dad. We’re getting to work on something together again. It’s not so much about the build as the time spent building it.”
These days, even Emmi’s brother Drake has been helping out in the shop.
“Our brother, Drake” Emmi’s older sister and amateur photographer Harleigh mentioned, “started helping in the shop and has become like the third wheel to a tricycle with those two. He and Emmi never got along until they found something they could work on and enjoy. Now they are building Dad a chopper on the side, Emmi doing the welding and detail work while Drake serves as the mechanic. Dad is really proud that his dream is coming true – to own a business and spend his days sharing his passion with his children.”
“It really kind of feels full circle,” said Jeremy. “Years ago, I had this dream that LC Fabrications would become a family business and that even after the kids move out, we’d still spend our days together. I doubt I’ll have a ton of money to leave behind, but if I can give them skills and a job so that they can take care of their family, then I’ve done okay as a dad.”
“At a bike show in Las Vegas,” he continued, “a builder had his wife and son along with him. Somehow, he and I got stuck on the subject of taking his boy to the shop, and he said it was too much of a distraction. That kind of stuck with me. Have my kids been a distraction in the shop? Sure. Do they cost me a fair amount of time? Sure. But what better way could I be investing my time?
“There’s nothing better I can think of!”
