Motorcycle reality show could come to Cayman

Danielle Spandau, Executive Producer for Metric
Revolution

Builders from the TV reality show Metric Revolution
show off their custom motorcycles

Don Gray is contending for the Metric Revolution title

Don Gray with a customised bike is hoping to beat out
23 other contestants for the Metric Revolution show

Custom metric bike builders are competing for votes
from TV viewers to win

Wednesday,  February 22, 2006

A reality TV-show based on a competition of people building customised motorcycles may be filmed in the Cayman Islands. Marketing Director for the new show, Mark Wilburn, has been coordinating with the executive producers and local businesses to bring the builders and their customised motorcycles to the country for a promotional tour and the filming of an episode. 

The show follows the lives of 24 professional and rookie builders as they convert a stock motorcycle into a ‘one-of-a-kind’ chopper as they compete for thousands of dollars. And in the same vein as the show American Idol, television viewers will be able to participate by voting on their favourite contestant.

Mr Wilburn is working with prominent community members and companies to help sponsor and bring the show here. 

“The excitement of 24 custom “one-of-a-kind” choppers touring the resorts, community and night spots would just be incredible,” said Mr Wilburn. 

“And the international media exposure would be unprecedented for the Cayman Islands. Since the onset of the American Chopper in the US, this would be the first time that custom Metric motorcycles will be introduced to the masses.”

The American-made Harley Davidson has been the cultural symbol for motorcycle riders throughout the US. But in the last few years, foreign-made bikes built on the metric system such as Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki have been winning over the hearts of riders. And as custom parts have become prevalent in the US so have customised motorcycles. 

The show’s title “Metric Revolution” embodies the new cultural phenomena of metric based motorcycles that are built from the ground up. 

One contestant based in Nashville, Tennessee said building a customised bike is like a fine art. 

“A customised bike is a personality thing. You customise the bike to fit you so by the time when you get on the bike it feels like a part of you. And when people come around your bike they are looking at your personality. 

“Most of my bikes have a theme like the shark bike, the Tennessean Titans and the Celtic bike.

“For the show, I am working on a Yamaha Roadster called the twisted angel. It has a lot of pencil-rod artwork on the sheet metal that make up the bodylines. It is a pretty radical bike.”

Mr Gray said filming his life as he works on the Yamaha Roadster has been a bit nerve wracking. 

According to him, customised motorcycles can range from $65,000 to $100,000 and are typically ordered by business executives, lawyers and doctors. Moreover, when they go to events like Daytona with over 700,000 spectators, customised bikes can be great advertising for their business. 

The executive producer Danielle Spandau said the idea for the show came about when her husband, who had grown up on Harley-Davidson bikes, decided to get a metric bike. 

“That didn’t make sense, but I started doing more research and found the market for non-American made metric bikes had opened up,” said Ms Spandau. “If you are a motorcycle owner you could almost be a motorcycle builder, because bikes are made to change parts easily. They start playing around and experimenting with it like the shape of the fender and before you know it the motorcycle rider has crossed over to a motorcycle builder.”

She explained the filming for the series has been going on since early last year and they are currently in talks with several networks. 

“Ten years ago we would have hoped for a (major) network to pick up,” said Ms Spandau. “But now there are a lot of networks with specialised markets and they are looking for good content and programming. So now it is more like - where do we want to go on the air with it ?”

She said that when the show gets close to finishing filming, they are going to develop the audience demographics and then identify the best networks. 

Ms Spandau said it was too early to confirm whether an episode would be filmed in the Cayman Islands, but she was definitely open to the idea.

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