We first laid eyes on Brock Bridges’ Evo-powered chopper at Bill Dodge’s BC Moto Invitational this past May. The BC Moto is a refreshing take on a bike show. It’s not about competition. It’s about camaraderie. It’s not a contest. It’s a showcase. Old friends gather annually at the Tennessee Motorcycles & Music Revival at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch and have a family reunion of sorts. With very cool motorcycles.  

We spotted a bunch of rad iron at this year’s BC Moto, which was chock-full of bikes from FNA Custom Cycles, Led Sled Customs, Majik Mike Designs and others, but there was this neat little chopper built by Brock Bridges that had everyone talking, especially Michael Lichter, who’s photographed a few bikes throughout his career. I mentioned a bike I particularly liked to Michael, an Evo-powered chopper with full-on dirt bike frontend and brakes and he said, “Oh, Brock’s bike? I love that bike. Brock is a super talented guy.”  

Well, turns out the bike was built from scratch just for the BC Moto Invitational. While this was my first year attending BC Moto, it definitely wasn’t Brock’s first BC Moto Rodeo. In fact, this will be his sixth year as an invited builder. He’s been doing this a lot longer than we realized–he literally started wrenching on hot rods at the tender age of 2 years old with his father and grandfather.   

Tinkering on things other than tinker toys started with drag racing, and then naturally Brock just got into the hot rod scene. Brock built his first Model A hot rod at 14, and it just took off from there. He was hooked. And he was in good company. He mainly built Model As, ‘30 Fords and some other stuff, but then he discovered bikes. As in motorcycles. And hot rods took a back seat.  

“Don’t get me wrong, I still got them and still play around with [hot rods],” Brock says, “But I really focus more on building bikes now and I typically build one for myself per year.” And then I’ll either do another customer or a friend’s build or help them. It won’t be a full on build like I built for myself, but more like I like building a lot of chassis, frames and stuff and stuff like that.” 

Fast-forward to 2017, Brock was at the Broken Spoke in Daytona with one of his builds, and he actually won Best In Show. “I was just out partying, hanging out, and checking out chicks and whatnot and Bill ended up finding me, and he’s like, ‘Hey, dude, I dig your stuff.’ Then he told me about his show or whatever. We ended up riding together back to his shop and hung out for hours and hours and just bullshitted and hit it off from there.  

“I’d seen pictures of [Bill] and Jesse James way back in the day and was like, ‘Man, that dude’s got some cool iron,’” Brock remembers. “But I didn’t make any connections until 2017, when we rode back to his shop and he was filming me, and that’s all the information. It all started clicking.” 

And that was in 2020. Brock had been building since 2009-ish and had basically seven years under his belt but nothing was crazy radical. In fact, it was all mostly bobber-style stuff until Brock met Bill and he just started pushing himself to do more and more. He’d build the wheels from scratch. He’d build the entire engine. He’d do all the paint, leather work, and everything.  

Then he kicked things up a notch further, doing things that pushed his limits even more. “I built a turbo shovel,” Brock says. “I flopped heads. I went crazy on the show stuff, whatever. Bill Dodge was always Bill. Nothing super crazy, but just badass. You’re jamming bikes, smaller bikes. And I had him in mind the entire time. I’m like, if Bill were building this… what would he do? A little bit his style, but still my thing. 

If you look at Brock’s Instagram, you can tell he’s more into the old-school stuff, from long ’70s style choppers to Jammer hot rods. But the bike he built for himself, this bike for instance, features probably the least amount of work he’s done. Why, you ask? “This bike was built with the intention for me to ride it,” Brock explains. “I knew I wanted a raw steel frame so I didn’t have to worry about rock chips because our roads are horrible out here. I wasn’t pushing anything show quality, I guess. I wanted to go with good suspension, good dirt bike brakes, and stuff like that. A little bit wider back tire than I normally would run. I guess, in time, other than some of the beginning bikes I’ve done because I usually build my own wheels and everything. The motor is pretty much stopped from those parts. It’s got a few higher parts in it. But the last four bikes I built, the heads have either been flipped around 180 degrees or I’d use an Evolution or Shovel [engine]. 

Overall, Brock’s Evo-powered FXR Chop was one that we definitely took notice of at this year’s BC Moto Invitational. Not only because it was unique, but this guy has the chops to build whatever he wants, and a badass, purpose-built Evo-powered chop with good suspension and quality brakes were the main bits of criteria, we can definitely appreciate that.  

 PHOTOS: Michael Lichter