Lifestyle Cycles Meet the Guy: Kyle Brand Manager at LA Choppers

"Kevin here with Lifestyle Cycles in Anaheim, California. Today, I've brought in Kyle from LA Choppers; he's their brand manager. I wanted to find out more about his story, his past, and what brought him into the industry, as well as learn about the company itself. I've been working with the brand for quite a while, but many of you may not know what goes on behind the scenes at their shop. So, I'll let Kyle fill you in on what LA Choppers is all about. Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate the introduction. Like he said, my name is Kyle, and I am the brand manager for LA Choppers. For those of you who might not know who LA Choppers are, we are a company based out of Huntington Beach, California. We've been in SoCal for our entire existence. We focus mainly on handlebars, risers, cables, and all the accessories you might need for your bike. As for my story, I've been in the industry for about 10 years now. I grew up on dirt bikes, like most of us did. Got my first sport bike, a Ninja 636, when I was in high school. Thought I was the coolest thing on that thing. Eventually graduated to a GSXR 750 for myself. Yeah, eventually decided to graduate to a Harley. So here we are now, working in the industry, loving the company I work for, and everything we do. It's been great. Alright, Kyle, so what are you riding right now? Yeah, absolutely. Right now, my bike is a 2022 Low Rider S. I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's one of the most fun bikes I've owned in quite a while. Harley did a very good job with that bike. I have a lot of fun. I actually live out in North Carolina. Yes, we are a Southern California-based company, but the lucky thing with my job, the majority of it spent traveling, so I can pick and choose where I am. I don't really need a home base or anything like that, but there's a lot of good riding where I am, out on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I really like to get out there and ride through the mountains. It's beautiful out there. So now when you're traveling, obviously, you probably don't always have a bike. When that airplane lands, I bet you're jonesing a little bit from time to time, right? Always jonesin', man, always jonesin', especially when I'm coming out talking about motorcycles, motorcycle parts, you know, all I want to do is be on my bike. But you come to Lifestyle here, and we've got over 200 bikes just sitting here on-site. It's like a candy store downstairs, man. I could spend hours just looking around at all the parts and products you guys have down there. So absolutely, jonesin' for the bike sometimes. Well, you're certainly welcome to stay as long as you want. So let's talk a little bit about some of the key people back at LA Choppers who really make the day-to-day operations happen. Yeah, absolutely. So we are a very small company when it comes to employees. We have really hard-working employees. Many of you have probably met or know Dustin, who is our VP of Sales and Marketing. So anytime you're seeing something up on the Internet or social media, chances are that's Dustin. He's also really big into R&D and planning out the new parts and accessories that we're doing. We also have Brandon, who's huge in the technical aspect of it. He's doing a lot of the R&D. Eric is the president of our company, who was actually in here earlier. He stopped in to pester me a little bit before we got started today. Yeah, he snuck by under my radar. I didn't see him. And then obviously, we have the great crew that's back there, assembling everything, working the machines. Without what they're doing, we definitely couldn't do what we're doing today. Alright, so tell me a little bit more about LA Choppers. I know you guys make great parts, and they seem to always be in stock. But give us a company bio, a background. Yeah, absolutely. So we started out in Huntington Beach, California, where we are today. We've always been local to Southern California. Originally, we started off just making small billet aluminum parts that were a necessity for that kind of timeframe, a lot of chopper parts, everything going on then. And then we just kind of expanded. We enjoyed what we did. We were excited with the parts that we were making, and we were able to get the machines in. So when I say that we're making everything in-house, I mean it. I mean from the very start to the finish, you could record the entire process of bending these bars and making these bars. So everything's made locally in California, USA-made. It's been a lot of fun, and we're here to stay. And see, that's what's really important for me. I like knowing that my parts that I'm putting on my Harley are made in the USA, supporting, especially with you guys, supporting my local community here in Orange County. But we're not farming these jobs out somewhere else, and we have the quality control on these parts so that step by step, you know, just like any other company that's got hands-on manufacturing, if something pops up that isn't working right, you guys can fix it instantly, and you don't end up with lag time and backorders and things like that. I mean, I noticed that whenever I've needed your part, they seem to almost always be in stock, even with the supply chain issues that we had a few years ago, which is great because it doesn't hold up a bike that I'm doing on a build just for something that's going to be out of stock for something as simple as a hose. Yeah, absolutely. So you hit the nail on the head right there with that. Doing everything in-house and locally, we're able to have a lot more control over the quality of the product that we're putting out. We're able to be involved from start to finish and really make sure that the quality is there because we don't want to put out any parts that aren't going to be a quality part. We really believe in the parts that we make. We all have them on our own motorcycles, and we want to make sure to stand behind it. Yeah, even these cool floorboards, just stout. You can see the quality of the machine work and the finishing. That's great. So I really want to thank you for coming out. I think I'm going to invite myself on out. You know, you said I can go through and see everything being manufactured. I think I want to come out and check it out on-site and see just what the facility is like. Next time you're in Huntington Beach, you let me know, and we'll make it happen. For sure, I'd love to have you. Absolutely. I'll bring a cigar or two, and we'll hang out. Perfect. Right on, man. Thanks again for coming. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. You bet. Oh, wait. 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