he custom bike world has exploded in the past few years. New bike shops and bike builders are popping onto the scene on an almost daily basis, and who would have ever thought that not one but a whole series of prime-time TV shows based on custom bikes would gain worldwide popularity? How long some of these shops and builders stay in the spotlight is an open question.
     Then, of course, there are the originals, the master builders who have been around, seen it all and done it all. To these guys custom bikes are something different altogether. For them customs aren’t just a passing fad, they’re a lifestyle–and in many cases have been for decades.
     These are the builders setting the benchmarks defining what’s cool, prime-time “theme” bikes and flashy new customs aside. Arlen Ness comes to mind. And Donnie Smith. And, most assuredly, Don Hotop is one of those originals. Almost four decades in the business, Don Hotop builds bikes and bike parts that still turn heads. A Hotop bike is straightforward and clean to the point of almost being surgical, and it’s always been that way. Take a look at the example in this issue. Clean doesn’t begin to describe things. Don Hotop builds function, too; to him, custom motorcycles are meant to be ridden, as well looked at and admired.
     Amid all of the current hype and hoopla Don Hotop goes about this business of bike building much as he always has. And even with a FatBook brimming with parts bearing the Hotop Design label, and a backroom workshop filled with custom ground-up bike builds, and a full-service bike shop where riders gather to just hang out on a Saturday morning Don Hotop still works mostly alone, taking care of business himself. The one-man bike shop opened up in Fort
Madison, Iowa, 35 years ago is still just that–a one man bike shop. And that’s exactly how this custom-bike legend likes it.
We recently caught up with Don to talk about bikes, customs, parts and the Hotop philosophy of keeping it simple and keeping it real.

Drag Specialties:
We should probably start at the beginning. When did you get into this business?
Don Hotop:
“Well, I’ve had Don’s Speed & Custom up and running in Fort Madison, Iowa for 35-plus years now, longer than most of
them I guess. The sign on the building still lights up saying that, too. Don’s Speed & Custom. These days, though, I’m actually working under two company names. Hotop Design was formed in the mid-‘90s to market some of the parts I’d been making for so long and use on bikes built at Don’s Speed & Custom.”

Drag Specialties:
Are all those Hotop Design parts made right there in Fort Madison? By you personally?
Don Hotop:
“Some are. All the prototyping is, of course. Depending on the product I come up with it’s either manufactured and assembled right here or I’ll farm it out to a couple production shops I work with up in Chicago, places I’ve worked with for years. Sometimes Drag Specialties will just take a prototype I’ve built and run with it themselves. They’ll take care of the actual manufacturing.”

Drag Specialties:
Speaking of Drag Specialties, how did that association start?
Don Hotop:
“With a little wire clamp, I guess it was back in the mid-‘90s. That was the first product I submitted for the FatBook and those guys picked it up immediately. It was a little nothing I’d been using on customs for, geez, it had to be 20 years. Something easy to make but it looked and worked great. That was the first part I brought to Drag Specialties, that little wire hold-down clamp. Back then there was always an ignition wire coming out of the nose cone that had to be held somehow and I’d been doing it with this clean little clamp. I figured I’d test the marketing waters with it. Everything just blossomed from there.”

Drag Specialties:
That’s an understatement. The latest FatBook has columns and columns listing Hotop Design parts. What are the most popular ones?
Don Hotop:
“Today? Who knows? The thing is I’ve been at this for so long now I’ve seen the popularity factor come and go a couple time over. Some parts are just super-hot for awhile, like some little air dams I made a few years back and I don’t know how many thousands of those I sold. But after a period of time everything runs its course. You quit making one thing and get into something new.”

Drag Specialties:
Okay, so what’s that “something new” now?
Don Hotop:
“That’s a funny story, too. Remember I just said I’ve seen things come and go a couple times over? Well, 10 years ago the bagger bikes were real popular. They were coming on hard and strong. I designed a lot of parts for them back then, too, but then the whole bagger thing sort of fell down a little bit. And now here they come again. We’ve been here before!”

Drag Specialties:
Doing all this, the designing, the prototyping, some of the manufacturing, and of course building all those bikes by yourself must make things pretty hectic?
Don Hotop:
“It does, but one person can handle it all as long as you’re well organized. But man, if something goes wrong it’s ugly! But I’ve found that I really like working alone. Like I say, I have reliable part-timers I can call in when I need them but I just seem to work better on my own. I get more done. In this summer, of course, the riding season, I have to bring someone in almost full-time to work the front counter in the retail store.”

Drag Specialties:
And at the end of a day you can just turn it all off?
Don Hotop:
“Not quite. When I get home at night the wheels are still turning. As my wife says, I just plop myself down in my little corner of the kitchen, turn on a small 13-inch TV for background noise and sit there with a pencil in my hand and draw parts. That
table gets stacked pretty high, too, but no one could ever decipher my plans except me. And I like that, too. I like sitting at that kitchen table designing parts and then going into the shop and making them and then even packing them up and
shipping them out. It’s kinda like that’s the last step in the process. You just have to keep the links in the chain from breaking, because if it comes apart I’m all upside down! But the bottom line is I just like to run a motorcycle shop, a place where guys can get together on a Saturday morning to shoot the breeze, go to lunch and then take a ride. That’s what it’s all about, right?”