Custom bikes to aid arts groups

"My dad used to work for Harley-Davidson in Michigan, so I grew up around them," he said from his shop near East Broadway and South Kino Boulevard.

These days, Gyver builds custom motorcycles worth anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000. Two motorcycles he's working on now will be donated to the Tucson Jazz Festival and the Southern Arizona Arts & Cultural Alliance, or SAACA, in Oro Valley. The nonprofit groups will raffle off the bikes to raise money.

"I feel that it's a worthy cause," Gyver said recently. "I'm a big fan of the arts."

He dislikes the notion that lack of state funding could keep many schoolchildren from being exposed to the arts.

"When I was a kid, that's what kept me in school, the art classes," he said.

Gyver, 56, is no stranger to charity work. Some years ago, while living in Scottsdale, he built his first bike for a good cause. He said the Harley he donated to benefit the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation in South Dakota raised more than $200,000.

Any money the motorcycles raise will help at a time when the slow economy has hit nonprofit arts groups hard, he said.

Kate Marquez, executive director of the Southern Arizona Arts & Cultural Alliance, concurs. "Our goal is to raise $50,000 to $100,000," she said. "All the money goes to school programs."

The Tucson Jazz Society's president, Jeff Lewis, is banking on the charity motorcycle to help the organization raise $50,000 or more to finance operations and to pay back debt.

"It's like a lifesaver," he said. "We've become an all-volunteer organization."

Raffle tickets are $20 each or three tickets for $50.

"A lot of people can't afford to go out and by an expensive custom motorcycle, but for $20 they have a chance to win one," Gyver said.

He is selling raffle tickets for both motorcycles at the 2009 Custom Motorcycle Show, which comes to an end today at the Tucson Convention Center downtown.

For Gyver, each motorcycle he handcrafts is a labor of love. It normally takes him about six months to complete each one. He aims to finish both charity motorcycles by November, though.

Gyver gets some help from machinist Dave McCaul and airbrush artist Dawne Holmes, whose work has been shown in the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and the Field Museum in Chicago.

He buys the motor new from Harley-Davidson, then builds the frame "and we do everything else from there."

The winner of one motorcycle will be selected at SAACA's Classic Car, BBQ & Blues Show Family Festival Feb. 20 at the Oro Valley Marketplace at North Oracle and East Tangerine roads.

The Tucson Jazz Society will give away its charity motorcycle during its New Year's Eve Gala at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa, 3800 W. Starr Pass Blvd.

For more information, contact Gyver at 307-6380 or go online to www.saaca.org or www. tucsonjazz.org