My favorite story from this year’s rally was the Military Bike Build Giveaway. Jerry Convington of Covingtons Custom Cycles built a custom chopper from the ground-up during the four day rally in Austin, and then on Saturday night gave the bike to a soldier who had been nominated from the public.
I stopped by on Friday to see how they were progressing — the below image shows the bike, being worked on by Jeff Aebi (25) of Covingtons Custom Cycles, on Day 2.
I had change to talk to Jeff for a few moments, and thanked him for being a part of something really great to honor a member of our Military. He told me what an honor it was for him to be a part of it, and you could see how sincere he felt about that.
I stopped by again around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, just hours before the schedules 9:30 p.m. give away. It looked like the bike was almost complete except for the custom seat, which was created and donated by Brian Hoel of Thundering Horse Customs in Austin:
The bike — valued at about $22,000 — was finally given to retired US Army Captain Kraig Kvalevog of Killeen, TX., who received the Bronze Star for his actions in Iraq.
Read the nomination from Kraig’s wife, as well as the nominating letter for the other five finalists here.
Too bad they didn’t do their research on this heroe before they gave him the bike……
Left by Robert Denton on August 7th, 2007 at 12:46 am