Size Matters
Behold John Ruff’s Big Road Star Chopper

By Sam Whitehead, Photos by Bob Feather

For some people, size is a relative thing. For others, it’s simply a fact of life. Everybody knows at least one, say, 220-pound lunker who constantly refers to himself as “a big guy.” All power to him — he definitely ain’t small. But he’s not that big, either. Not when compared with John “J.R.” Ruff, the non-mechanical star of this story.

When J.R. says he’s a big guy, he means it. Or, at least, he meant it. You see, at his current weight, a feathery 230 pounds, J.R. is almost half the man he used to be. The character buzzing around on this yellow Yamaha Road Star chopper once tipped the scales in a very big way, not so long ago.

A few years back, J.R. was hot to have a custom built just for him. Combing the Internet, the 32-year-old Sturgis, South Dakota, native was struck by the rich, raw work of Willy Anderson, a young gun spinning out of Dirty South Choppers in Tunica, Mississippi. J.R. gave Willy a call and told him what he was after. He then said he was a big guy, standing 6'3" and weighing, well, we’ll let you take a guess. Okay, we’ll tell you — nearly 400 pounds. It’s also important to note at this point that J.R. wanted a rigid. One can only imagine the look on poor Willy’s face when hit with all of that information.

Stunned, Willy questioned J.R. “Dude, are you absolutely sure you want to make this a rigid? I mean, I can do you a softail for only $1,500 more,” Willy offered, no doubt concerned about the potential ramifications of sending a giant such as J.R. hurtling down the road on one of his builds. J.R., however, was adamant. “Give me rigid, or give me death,” he bellowed into the phone. Okay, perhaps that’s an exaggeration. Nonetheless, the big guy insisted on a rigid, and a rigid he received.

“First of all, I really didn’t have the extra $1,500,” J.R. admits. “And, as far as my weight was concerned, when I spoke with Willy I was scheduled to undergo gastric bypass surgery.” For those not down with the latest offerings of the medical profession, gastric bypass surgery essentially involves reconstructing the stomach to make it smaller, and to allow food to bypass part of the small intestine. It’s largely done with hopes of preventing future health problems and helping obese people lose weight. Apparently, in the case of J.R. at least, that meant losing enough weight so that he didn’t have a heart attack and end up checking out too soon on his wife and four kids. The idea that he would also be able to crank a cool rigid without cracking the bike (or himself) in half was merely a bonus.

But let’s not stray too far from the big theme. J.R. claims that when the photos shown here were taken, he’d shed a considerable amount, but was still hovering at about 320. At the risk of calling the guy a liar, he sure doesn’t appear that hefty in these shots. “The bike is so big that I almost look small,” explains J.R. “It’s deceiving.” At 10'7.5" long, this really is one big scoot. “That’s exactly what I asked for when I spoke with Willy. I told him I don’t really care how fast it is or how it rides. I just want something that’s radical and loud.” J.R. also requested that his bike be — you guessed it — big. “One of the biggest on the road,” he says. “It’s a foot and a half longer than any Big Dog or bikes like it.”

Okay, let’s recap. J.R. was once bigger, but he’s still very big, and so is his bike. Now, it’s easy to speculate how J.R. attained his size, but what about his Road Star? How did it get so big? First of all, one look at the stretched Star would tell most sharp-eyed enthusiasts that much on the bike is homemade. It would also tell them that there’s not much on the bike, period. That’s part of its glory — it’s a true, bare-knuckle chop.

To create J.R.’s yellow beast, Willy first located a used 2001 Star and immediately stripped it down, selling the original tin and excess parts on eBay. “He then takes that money and pours it straight back into the project,” J.R. says. “He does that on all his builds to keep the dollars down.” Considering that Willy built this baby (price of bike included) for a cool $14,500, his cost-cutting method clearly works. Anyway, faced with a bare Road Star frame, Willy went about cutting it up. The twin downtubes were his first victims, replaced by a meatier and more stylish single. He then mounted an assault on the rear end, extracting the shocks and welding two big bolts into their old abode, thus producing J.R.’s desired rigid — sort of. “There’s a 1" piece of rubber mounted between the swingarm and the frame,” J.R. reveals. “That helps cushion things a bit.” Of that rubber, there’s absolutely no question; it’s the hardest working piece of rubber in the universe.

Keeping with the spirit of the low-budget build, the Star’s 1600cc thumper remained stock, save for, as J.R. expertly puts it, “some sort of hi-test ignition system.” Willy also threw on a Mikuni carb and a one-off velocity stack that he fashioned himself, just as he did the chop’s decidedly offbeat pipes and handlebars.

As for the tin, all of which Willy painted, J.R. had another request. “I used to sell cars at a Chevy dealership, and I really dig Corvettes, so I wanted that to be the theme,” our man states. Gaze upon that tank inlay and you’ll notice some white business that’s also incorporated into both fenders. “It’s an ivory pearl checker design lifted straight from the door insets of a C5 ’Vette. Willy actually went to a dealership and got the exact measurements.”

Now that J.R. has his big, radical, Corvette-themed long fork, he just can’t stay off the thing. In fact, he’s become something of a spectacle around the Black Hills, and it’s not always because of his bike. Or maybe it is. “We have this big hill in Deadwood called Strawberry Hill,” J.R. says, gearing up to expound upon the masochistic joys of riding a rigid. “I was blasting up a hill one day when it was being resurfaced, and it was a mess of washboards. By the time I got to the top, I was in so much pain that tears were running down my cheeks. I mean, my breath was gone, and my junk was all shaken up. I didn’t wear the athletic supporter that day. Everybody was laughing at me. It was brutal.”

That does sound brutal — in a very big way, of course. RB