I’m a 63 year old gear head from the 60’s and 70’s. I have always wanted a custom bike ever since I saw the movie “Easy Rider”, I was 9 years old at the time.
I of course cut the legs off my dads table in the garage so I could hammer them on to my stingray bicycle, and voila (walah) I had a chopper. I still wonder what my dad yelled out when he moved the 2 legged table full of tools.
Life got in the way of fulfilling my dream of owning a bike due to work, girls, then later marriage kids, etc. you get my drift. So one day in 2014 I decided to build my custom bike, I sold some old cars I had laying around for the past 20 years that I was so close to actually working on, haha not really, and bought a frame and started building.
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Picking out every little part in detail. My build started out in the dining room where my wife after about a month decided it would be better if I continued in the barn! Still having kids in school my project occasionally got put on the back burner. 6 months later she was done.
Named Mad Cow due to cow piss that was used in the paint for affect. Yes the guy who painted my bike used cow piss for the stripe on the tank and fender.
After building the bike I had my cousin Eddy (Ed Derry) go through the build with a fine-tooth comb, he added some of his own ideas as well. His buddy Bob Burgess told me he had extra paint and would do it for free, he said the paint was red though, I responded, you said “free” right? I let Ed and Bob do whatever they wanted on the build, which may or may not always be a good idea. I would get updates occasionally throughout the process until one day they called and both were giggling saying something about cow piss in the paint? I responded by saying “I’m sorry did you say cow piss”, more giggling was heard by both and the response was “yes cow piss”, this is how it got the name “Mad Cow”.
When I went to see the finished product it was amazing. The acidity in the cow urine made a very unique stripe on the tank and fender. I entered the bike in a show Grand Nationals in Peoria IL and got 4th place! I always tell people don’t follow me to close on a hot summer day you might detect an odd odor. LOL
Bob Pegg
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