Original, Authentic E-Chopper from "Easy Rider" for sale

[Juicerman]

Eisenberg's bike was a fake! I know, because I have the real bike from the 1969 movie, "Easy Rider" and it is for sale at a fraction of the price of the fake one which sold at auction for a record $1.6 million last weekend.

Widely believed to have been stolen in the early seventies, the bike has actually been in my private collection for 45 years. I was a key-grip for the film and at the wrap party, I gained possession of the bike in an even trade with Dennis Hopper for a lid of Mexican Brown.

A few misconceptions surround this famous motorbike. Most assume that the custom ride was made from a Harley-Davidson, when actually the donor-bike was a Citizen model of the Juicer brand; http://www.juicer.bike/gallery36.html The chopper's name is often mispronounced as "Captain America" due to a script typo that was repeated by the press. The real name, "Captain Electrica" refers to the 36v electric powerplant which is comprised of a 1000w currie motor and a 15ah EV-Twin battery pack.

Here's a bit of trivia from behind-the-scenes on the set of Easy Rider; the motorcycle-riding scenes in the film were all achieved with one-take each at speeds not exceeding 30mph. This meant that Captain Electrica did not need to be recharged for the entire shoot.

Don't be a sucker and buy a bike authenticated by Grizzly Adams! If you want to be the next rider of this valuable piece of film history for a fraction (1/400) of the price of the fake, buy it from me and rest easy in the knowledge that you have the actual, authentic Captain Electrica from the film.

 

[chvidgov.bc.ca]

...but wait...there were no Headways in the 60s...

 

[dogman dan]

As bad as Judy's ruby slippers. There were about 20 pairs of those, some fitted for stand ins, some never actually used in the movie, etc. At the time, not much attention was paid to which were which.

Hard to say if Haggarty got the one working Captain America bike when filming ended, or also got the remains of the several that got trashed filming the last scene too. Ask anybody, and they will say, "I don't remember, we took so much acid the day before in New Orleans."

In any case, like the ruby slippers, REALLY tempting to make another pair once you have one set to copy from.

 

[dingoEsride]

Ha Ha, that's classic and i'd have Captain Electrica over that fake bike any day

 

[wineboyrider]

Filmed in NM.. Love that movie.

 

[dnmun]

the road that scene was shot on is the road along the Atchafalaya river between Melville and Krotz Springs in louisiana.

the levee behind them is the main levee on the Atchafalaya on the west side of the river. it is about 11 miles from Melville and one of our farms is only about 4 miles back up the road. in fact part of our property goes across the highway and across the levee. there is another spot about 2 miles away from our place where the levee had burst in the 1927 flood and gouged out a huge volume of earth adjacent the levee as it flooded and now there is a big lake there alongside the highway. you may see if from the satellite picture.

the scene in the cafe shot just before this where the rednecks are incensed by them is a small cafe in Morganza right on the south end of the Morganza spillway. they serve po-boys and gumbo too. my dad an i once ate there when we came back out of the woods after cruising some timber close by.

you can use google earth and go look for the road and might even be able to find the spot where it was shot using street views on the highway. the Morganza spillway was used two years ago during an epic flood volume on the mississippi that had to be diverted into the Atchafalaya basin. some of the hunting camps out in the woods there for people we knew were flooded when they opened the spillway gates and drained water off the mississippi river.

go look for the Morganza spillway on google earth.

 

[dogman dan]

Yes, of course it was filmed in several states. But a large section of the movie was shot in NM, all that stuff in the commune in Taos. About the first half of the movie.

The best bike riding road in NM is the section of old HWY 85, from Truth or Consequenses to Socorro where they did some shooting. It parallels I 25 there, allowing those rolling shots from the side before they get to the commune. About 40 miles of this is good road, with a car count of about 5 cars per day. Very scenic, especially once you get past the section that's so close to I 25.

I never actually spotted the location, but I believe they also shot some on Old route 66, either in AZ or east NM. Not sure which border crossing they used in the first scenes, but it looks like perhaps Calexico.

 

[dnmun]

i think you are right about the location there. then they wanted to get the scenes in the cemetery in new orleans and back then the only highway across the state from texas to new orleans went through krotz springs. now people go across on I-10.

so i bet they just decided it was a good place for some of the scenes and used the levee road for the shooting because it is so deserted and they could get those characters playing real life for free in Morganza. that really is what it was like growing up long haired in louisiana back in 1964. now all the rednecks have long hair and i go buzz cut.

 

[Juicerman]

Original, "lost footage" from the film...
[youtube]JlTKHOG4Qr4[/youtube]

 

[John in CR]

back then the only highway across the state from texas to new orleans went through krotz springs. now people go across on I-10.

You kinda forgot about Hwy90, which is the route we always took before I10 existed. It wouldn't have even crossed our minds to take Hwy190, since that's yankee/redneck country for the most part. Few people know that to a cajun more than a few miles north of I10 is yankee territory. :lol:

 

[Ykick]

Love it Juicerman! Good job on music too.

Puts a whole new spin on "E"asy Rider.

 

[etard]

Love it! Never take yourself too seriously.

 

[dnmun]

back then the only highway across the state from texas to new orleans went through krotz springs. now people go across on I-10.

You kinda forgot about Hwy90, which is the route we always took before I10 existed. It wouldn't have even crossed our minds to take Hwy190, since that's yankee/redneck country for the most part. Few people know that to a cajun more than a few miles north of I10 is yankee territory. :lol:

you remember riding across the elevated roadway on hwy 90 from krotz springs all the way across the Atchafalaya floodway?

all that area underneath the elevated roadway could flood when the Atchafalaya was in flood stage.

my dad's lumber company had the 100 year lease on that property, about 30k acres in all and we logged timber out of it several times. as a kid, i grew up working on the road building crew for my dad's lumber company that built the logging roads in there so we could log it.

there was a hunting club for the rich guys from Baton Rouge that had the hunting lease on the property from my dad's lumber company, and one time they bought the guvner, Jimmy Davis out to shoot raccoons and run the dogs for him.

so since they wanted to curry favor with my dad, i got to tag along and after one episode where they had treed a coon and the guvner had emptied his 22 cal automatic into the treetops, we all jumped back into the jeeps to follow the dogs through the woods.

so i jumped into the first jeep i could and ended up falling on top of the guvner before the state policeman kicked me out. i was about 13 or so. long time ago now.

you may remember him when he was guvner. "You are my sunshine" was his marketing ploy and campaign anthem. better than the political hate speech they got now.

we lived about 8 blocks from Gillis Long's house in alexandria. my high school buddy's dad had grown up in Winnfield and they knew all the Long family well and he was into politics a little too.