Eureka Springs not happy with Bikers

 Bikers taking a cruise in Downtown Eureka Springs Arkansas

In its early days, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was a popular Victorian-era spa resort, with visitors arriving by train to take the water cure in the 1890s.

Decades later, in the 1940s, a group of painters, traveling to this small Ozarks village by automobile during the summers, established a permanent art colony. Today, more than 10 percent of the town’s 2,000 residents work as artists, either in their own studios or in more than 30 galleries amid Eureka Springs’ steep curving boulevards and lush spring-fed gardens.

 Bikers gather outside the Pied Piper Pub and Cat House Lounge

Over the last few years, tourists have been arriving by a louder mode of transportation. Motorcyclists are discovering Eureka Springs, opening leather, lingerie and tattoo parlors, Harley shops and biker bars.

A single biker rally over one weekend will pack the town, says Jeremiah Vasquez, kitchen manager at the Pied Piper Pub and Cat House Lounge.

Wicked Past

Air Force Veteran Creates Motorcycles From Spoons

Jame Rice holding one of his unique creations using discarded silver spoons

Air Force Veteran James Rice, of Tacoma, WA. is one creative dude.  James flattens, bends, twists, and shapes spoons by hand and turns them into art. “Everything on his chopper is spoons; engine, wheels, tires, gas tank. He truly sees how to make the unassuming spoon into something most of us would have never thought of.”

James is a 23 year Air Force veteran, who now works on Joint Base Lewis McChord as a civilian helicopter inspector. Even though he often works around 60 hours a week, he also works on his creations nearly every night.

His Motorcycle Art shimmers in the Washington State Sunshine

James has come up with some very creative ways to bend and shape them, all without heating or hammering, to leave the original  shape of the spoon he started with and form them into motorcycle art. So he’s able to give them the desired shape without spoiling their original beauty.

Another view of this amazing beauty

“I was good in art,” he later revealed. “I could draw, but I really liked taking things apart and putting them back together. I made my own bikes. I restored cars, built motors. In middle school, I built a mini bike. Anything that had a motor in it, I was intrigued.”

Digging Out