The Point Radio: By The Time We Bike To Phoenix

You may never own one or even ride one, but you probably will agree that motorbikes can be cool. We take you right into the heart of they matter as we look at The History Channel series, BIKER BATTLEGROUND PHOENIX. Plus The Avengers get a makeover and ComicCon here we come!

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. You may never have owned one, you may never have even ridden one, but we all appreciate a good motorbike now and then. And we're going to go right to the heart of the matter with a look at the new series, Biker Battleground Phoenix. Plus some changes on the way for the Avengers and we're on the way to Comic Con.

Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. You might not know it, but Phoenix, Arizona is the custom bike building capital of the world. It's a place where shop owners compete for customers who pay up to 150 grand for a fully personalized motorcycle. Biker Battleground is a new history gentle series.

It gives viewers a never before seen look at the extraordinary craftsmanship, the big ego and the heated rivalries that make up this intensely competitive world. I talked to series star, Lynn Edmonds, who told me about when he got his first bike and what he did to customize it. Besides the mini bikes when I was growing up, my first bike was a 750 Norton Commando. I got that when I was 17 and I had it about two days before I started chopping the front neck. Now, so I turned the 750 Norton into a chopper and that was my when I think of how I did it back then and how I build bikes today.

I just look at it and say, well, that's evolution. What's Biker Battleground Phoenix all about? I'm like the outsider. I come from Canada. I relocated my business to Phoenix and there's four builders in Phoenix that I'm competing against and basically shows the intensity of the industry, what it takes to survive and what it takes to get to the top. So you've got builders. You got one builder who builds great bikes, you know, different style. He's working out of his garage. You go other guys that have evolved to different levels of building bikes.

John Shope, who's been in the Grittyburg Concepts, which was sinister. He's in there. Paul Yaffey, Bagger Nation. He's a 30 year veteran in the industry. Cody McNew, who's 27 and Brian Jenkins. Apologies. I don't know how old he is, but he operates out of his garage. He was actually in construction and excavation for years and going to building bikes.

So with big guys and big egos involved, I imagine we'll see some drama on the show. Well, no one likes to think they have a big ego. So I guess that's controversy on the show because obviously if you don't think you have a big ego, other people think you do. But yeah, you see varying styles of building. You see varying styles of people. We're all kind of a different profile box.

And from the drama perspective, you're probably going to see the errors, first of all, in the shops. And what complements that is when you see the finished products and what we put out. So you can see the reality of what it takes to compete and stay at the top. And when everybody's trying to do that, some people are trying to remain and maintain, and some people are trying to climb and overcome. There's drama, and it's all sorts of drama.

How it's going to be created on television, I have no idea. Because I haven't seen an episode. All I've seen is what everybody else has seen is the commercials on TV and the teasers that put out. So I just know what history channels put into this. If the viewers don't watch it, they will be watching it because they're advertising on World Cup.

They're pushing this. They know they get their hooks into something good. And all we did is go into the shop and do what we do every day and live the life we live every day. And that's what the people are going to see. Len told me that bikes like choppers and cruisers are no longer popular among motorcycle fans. I was curious why.

That's nothing to do with the quality of product back then. In 2008, the world went into the worst recession ever. Disposable income was done. Only one-tenth of one percent had disposable income that they would spend on that type of product. And those people probably wouldn't ride it.

So choppers were, like back in the day, we'd build a chopper for 80 to 100 grand for customers. They just couldn't justify putting that kind of money into that. So what we're doing now is we're taking a domestic product, like kind to Callaway. Callaway does for a Corvette. So they take the Corvette from General Motors and they just take it to a whole other level.

So we're doing it with the Harley-Davids and we're taking a domestic product and turning it into an exotic. People with disposable income, even if it's just limited now, if they're building back the resources, they look at that. You know, it's a touring bike and it looks exotic and it is exotic and there's more practicality to it. And even myself, I mean, I rode choppers my whole life. Built in road choppers.

Now after building the baggers in the last five or six years, I would never go back. So why is Phoenix so important to all this? Well, first of all, you can ride 12 months out of the year. There's probably 10 or 12 weeks where it's questionable because of the heat. That's when you see the bikes in the street at the night.

So the riding is 12 months out of the year, basically in Phoenix. So that's number one. Five and a half million people. That's number two. And it's a winter destination.

There's 650,000 Canadian residents in Phoenix. Those people have disposable income. So those people that like to ride come to Phoenix. And the riding out here is spectacular. And I don't think it's anything more than that.

And builders have migrated to Phoenix because they can build and ride their product 12 months out of the year. And I think that's how it started. So what's evolved here is the real talented builders that are really in this industry to make a difference have relocated here. When I sold my construction business in 2010, I bought in Phoenix, knowing that, but not planning on moving my business here, but to hang out with these guys and to ride when I'm down here. Once I knew that to survive in this business, I had to be here and compete here, I had to relocate here.

New episodes of Biker Battleground Phoenix every Thursday on the History Channel. And you can see more at history.com. One more thing before Comic Con, let's check the latest in pop culture. Amazon is getting ready to kick off their fourth pilot season. And at the top of the list is the black comedy thriller Mad Dogs, which is based on the British series of the same name.

Involved with it is Emmy winner, Charlie McDougall, who will direct and executive producer Sean Ryan from the Shield. It's been a good summer for TNT. Falling Skies has had another good season, averaging about 5 million viewers per episode. And the network's renewed it for a fifth, but a final season for next year. Also renewed the last ship, which is averaging a little over 7 million viewers an episode.

It's been renewed for a second season and Major Crimes, the closer spinoff, is also having a good summer and it has been renewed as well for another season. That'll be number four for that. It all will debut in the summer of 2015 on TNT. DC fans can get excited about the return of the Legion of Super Heroes. That'll take place in the Justice League United Annual coming up in a couple of months.

The first Justice League United Annual debuts and comics tours right around October 29th. There's a new retooled Avengers on the way, part of the Marvel Now umbrella. And an image that was released over the internet a couple of days ago shows some interesting new members, including the female Thor. As well as Sam Wilson as Captain America and of course the new Iron Man from the superior Iron Man story arc we told you about a couple of days ago as well. Looks like Doctor Strange is involved with the group as well.

No idea when these changes will take place or how it'll affect the large number of Avengers titles right now being published by Marvel. More than likely we'll get some information on this in the next few days at Comic Con. He'll sing, he'll dance, he'll have a sword too. It's Christopher Walken as Captain Hook in the NBC holiday event Peter Pan Live coming up on the network. He joins the cast as being put together right now for NBC's next new live musical project, which as we said again is set for the holiday season later this year.

True Blood's Baby Vamp Jessica is moving on to Daredevil. Actress Debra Ann Woll's next job will be with Marvel's upcoming Netflix series and she'll be playing a pretty familiar character. She'll be portraying Karen Pade, the love interest of Daredevil's alter ego Matt Burdock, who'll be played in this series by Charlie Cox. Daredevil debuts on Netflix in 2015. The premiere of the final season of the FX show Sons of Anarchy will also be extended this year.

It's going to run one hour and 45 minutes followed by a live post show called Anarchy Afterward. It'll debut on the FX network on September the 9th. Don't feel bad if you're not heading to Comic Con. There's plenty of great stuff to enjoy in the comic book world inside your local comic book store this week. It starts on the Dark Horse shelf with one of those books we never thought we'd see, but here it is. Gru vs. Conan. First issue of that is out this week.

Did you know Zero Year is continuing in Batman? There's a new installment of that in Batman number 33 and in Batman and Robin number 33. The Robin Rises storyline continues. Walt Zymons is back in comics with what looks to be a beautiful new series from IDW. Right to Rock number one premieres this week.

Also from IDW, second issue of the Star Trek City on the edge of Forever Adaptation and a spin off from the super secret crisis war, this time dedicated to Johnny Bravo. And for old school folks, Transformers vs. G.I. Joe number one. Great summer read from IDW. From image, Kyle number two gets a second printing and Marvel. The Avengers get the 100th anniversary special treatment this week.

There's a second printing of Figma number one and second printings of Hulk number three and four, as well as a third printing of Loki agent of Asgard number one and a third printing of number two. First issue in the new Storm series is out this week. Wolverine number eight gets a second printing. Archie dips into the young adult world with the diary of a girl next door. Betty. It's a hardcover cartoon diary that pretty much takes them into a whole new world with some very familiar characters.

And speaking of familiar, the 10th doctor and the 11th doctor who both begin new series this week with multiple covers and first issues. Cool off and browse inside your favorite comic store right now. You can find it, of course, with find a comic shop dot com. Great place to look for the store's new area. There's also the comic book locator service at one eight eight eight comic book and a link for you to follow to on the front of comic.

That doesn't for the podcast. Here's how everything comes down for Comic Con week. First of all, start getting live reports direct from the floor. Get the point radio dot com and you can listen on your mobile device wherever you are at the con or at home with a free app called I. Net radio works on your Apple or your Android phone.

And you can get it for free at I. Net radio dot com. You can also keep up with us at Comic Con with our Instagram account. It's under the point radio. And we've got lots of cool stuff for planning on sharing direct from San Diego.

The podcast here goes on hiatus for just a little bit. We'll be back with that on websites like ComicMix dot com. Michael Davis World dot com and in the iTunes podcast directory on Friday, August the first just in time for the release of Guardians of the Galaxy every week or so. And we'll see you in San Diego. Get the point radio dot com.