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With a shop full of motorcycles, machine tools and people with tattoos, Franko's Custom Cycles could easily pass for Orange County Choppers, the bike-building business made iconic on Discovery Channel's “American Chopper.”
Like its TV counterpart, Franko's in San Antonio is a family operation that creates eye-popping works of two-wheeled art, including a bike that won “best custom chopper” at last year's annual Republic of Texas Biker Rally in Austin.
There are other parallels. If he weren't so camera-shy, for instance, FCC owner Frank “Franko” Guerrero could play the part of Paul Teutul Sr., his gruff-talking counterpart at Orange County Choppers.
Franko's son, Brandon, a chatty 20-year-old who likes to sleep late on weekdays, despite its negative effect on his weekly paycheck, could easily step into the role of Teutul's goofy son, Mikey.
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The crew used to include Franko's father, Leo. A gregarious “people person,” Leo worked the front counter and schmoozed with customers so his son could stay in the shop and stick to the bike-building that he knew and loved best.
Life, however, wound up dealing Franko's a harsher reality than anything depicted on reality television. Leo died three months ago, 11/2 years after sustaining ultimately fatal injuries in a motorcycle crash.
Crunch time
Franko's business went into a tailspin during his father's long illness. But with another bike build in progress for the upcoming Republic of Texas Rally, Franko has plunged into his work to finish the chopper in time for the big event, which runs from Thursday through June 15.
“It will all come together,” Franko says confidently. “We're going to make it.”
Privately, Franko has expressed doubts to Tara. But, she says, he always obsesses about his projects and she knows how well he works under pressure, especially in the weeks before deadline.
“It's crunch time for him and that's when he works the best,” Tara says. “His ideas are awesome.”
At this moment, however, the new bike — dubbed the “Grim Reaper” — isn't much more than a bare metal frame. Its fenders, gas tank and oil tank cover, collectively known as the “tins,” are at the painter for a still-evolving paint scheme. The aluminum wheels, featuring elaborate silhouettes of sickles and Grim Reaper faces, are still being machined.
“A bike represents how a person feels,” Tara says. “It's their identity. They can give Frank ideas of what they want — even without pictures — and Frank can draw it up and give it back to them and that's exactly what they wanted.”
The owner of the “Grim Reaper” couldn't be more pleased. A sergeant in the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, he sold a couple of other bikes and worked off-duty details at highway construction sites for two years to come up with the cash — “in the 30s,” he says — to pay for his new, custom-made chopper. When it came time to find a builder for the bike, he did his homework.
“I looked around and talked to everybody,” he says. “Franko's the man. He's got my back. I just throw everything at him and he figures it out.”
Getting started
Like many guys who get into motorcycle building, Franko got into it out of necessity. A 1986 graduate of East Central High School, he owned a succession of dirt and street bikes as a kid growing up in the Pecan Valley area. Later, when his brother bought a Harley-Davidson, Franko fell in love. Too poor to afford a new Harley, he bought a used one instead and fixed it up. Other bike owners noticed and asked him to work on their rides, too.
Before long, Franko left an air-conditioning repair business that he owned with his brother and opened his own bike shop.
“I was working on bikes in the evening and I was late to work every day,” he says. “I just got tired of being in people's attics. I turned over everything to my brother.”
The motorcycle business was good. Franko moved into a 10,000-square-foot shop on Walzem Road and persuaded his father to join him. It was Leo, a former U.S. Marine, who came up with the idea of a chopper dedicated to the Marine Corps. The bright orange bike, which has been appraised at $98,000, rivals anything Orange County Choppers has created.
Nicknamed the “Gunny,” the motorcycle has military-issue KA-BAR knives attached to its front forks. A dress saber serves as a gear shifter, and a pair of fake hand grenades, hollowed out and fitted with tiny light bulbs, function as taillights.
“There's a lot of detail,” Franko says. “If you stand here and look at it long enough, you'll see things you didn't see the first time you look at it.”
After building the bike, Franko intended to raffle it and give the profits to Toys for Tots, the charity supported by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. But now, Franko can't bear to part with it.
“That's the last project he and his father worked on,” Tara says.
Tragedy strikes
On Oct. 1, 2006, the sky was partly cloudy and the temperature was in the low 80s — a perfect day to ride — when Leo's 1983 Harley-Davidson FXR veered off a rural road south of San Antonio while he made a lunch run with half a dozen buddies. His front wheel dug into some soft sand and tossed him off the bike. Leo was wearing a half-helmet, but he still sustained a serious head injury.
After emergency brain surgery, Leo went into rehab at a facility near Houston, where he made progress and even managed to get back on his feet.
Franko visited at least twice a month, but the stress and time away from his business took its toll. He closed his shop and moved most of his tools into a large garage behind a house he owns on the South Side.
“It got to be too much for me,” Franko recalls. “It was like a time bomb fixing to blow.”
Six months ago, Leo's condition took a turn for the worse. He went through another surgery, but stopped walking and talking. Then he stopped eating and had to be fed intravenously. Leo had always said that he didn't want to be kept alive by artificial means.
“I think that's where some of Frank's remorse and blame on himself came from,” Tara says. “Seeing his dad that way, he said his dad would look at him almost like, ‘Why are you doing this to me?' But that never stopped him from going to see him.”
Three months ago, the family brought Leo back to San Antonio for hospice care. Within a week, he was gone.
Picking up the pieces
After his father's death and burial at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, Franko soldiered on in the bike shop. Besides the chopper built for the ROT Rally, the shop had a healthy backlog of work — tune-ups, an engine rebuild and a couple of wrecked bikes that needed repair. But Franko's heart wasn't in it.
Brandon, the chain-smoking son who Franko says “sometimes you want to hug, sometimes you want to slug,” had a heart-to-heart talk with his father.
“I told him he lost his dad, but I'm losing my dad with him laying there on his side and sucking his thumb,” Brandon recalls between pulls on a Marlboro Light. “I told him I needed him out here, too.
“The business doesn't really run right without him. I told him that I needed him by my side more than he needed to be laying there.”
Brandon's kick in the butt worked. Franko returned to work with a new sense of urgency. But first, he had an important project to complete.
For months, Leo's wrecked motorcycle had sat on a repair stand in a corner of the shop. Franko had removed the damaged parts, but hadn't gotten around to putting it back together again.
Now, long after his family had gone to bed, Franko worked alone on the bike. Over several nights, he painstakingly rebuilt the Harley's front end and added some high performance parts, including a Typhoon carburetor.
The motorcycle is now Franko's, but there are lots of reminders — such as an oil cap decorated with a Marine Corps emblem — of his father.
Characteristically, Franko doesn't say much about the bike or the test ride he took on it.
“I was kind of nervous about it at first,” he says. “Just knowing that my dad wrecked on it and stuff. But, it felt pretty good just to get it up and running.”
Tara knows better.
Sometimes, bike building — like life — is about the journey instead of the destination.
“The first time he got on and rode the bike, he came back and it was just like a sense of accomplishment and bonding with his dad,” Tara says. “It was closure for him.”
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