The passion of the bike

The lovable radical

Johnny Payphone fires up a blowtorch when lackluster ladies saturate the dating market.

WHAT THE EL? Johnny Payphone loves the weird looks he gets when he rides by.

Photo: Ben Reed

When Gary and Wyatt in Weird Science couldn’t find girlfriends, they built Lisa. But when Johnny Payphone (a nickname he earned ten years ago for not having a home phone), member of the Chicago Rat Pack bicycle club, found himself in a similar predicament, he built a bike instead. For the pedal-pushing, metal-scavenging commando, plausible girlfriends are a niche market. “I had difficulty finding a woman,” Payphone admits. But instead of scouring the city for romance, Payphone put his passion behind the flame of a welding torch and started creating bikes from scratch.

“Any chump can go out and buy a bicycle,” Payphone says. “Building bikes is like marrying a woman you’ve built a relationship with”—the love is in the custom build.

Meet Long Chainey, Payphone’s chopper (a pieced-together custom bike). Constructed from Dumpster-rescued metal, the bike has trunk space for a lock and a six-pack. It’s measured to fit his frame perfectly and engineered for enjoyment. Long Chainey might not be a chick magnet, but Payphone attests it’s “a selector of relationships.” It’s all right by him if you drive a car, but turn up your nose at a bike ride and you’ve got zero chance at even a friendship, he says. Payphone’s current girlfriend (whom he met in connection with a gig moving bikes for charity) falls in stride with Payphone’s antics. “She’s tough,” he testifies, adding that dates take the form of rides, whether they’re heading to a museum or exploring an abandoned building.

Finding his female counterpart has been a source of joy, but what’s truly orgasmic for Payphone is the feeling he gets from people on the street who laugh as he cruises by on Long Chainey. “That feeling is tremendous,” he says. “That is my reward for my creation.”

—Sarah Perdue

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