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The Ground Pounder is a custom chopper built around one dominant idea: take the long, low stance of a show bike and make its mechanical details disappear into the design. Built by Tony Martinez of Copr Choppers, it combines a huge rear tire, air suspension at both ends, concealed controls and a stretched silhouette that sits dramatically close to the floor.
A chopper built around proportion
Visually, the Ground Pounder gets its attitude from the relationship between its wheels and frame. The 360mm Vee Rubber rear tire fills the back of the motorcycle, while the 23-inch Tight Customs front wheel gives the nose a similarly oversized presence. The tank, engine and frame are tucked between those two broad anchors, producing a motorcycle that looks less tall than it is long.
That low stance is not simply a static styling exercise. The bike uses an air-ride system with a custom front end supplied by American Suspension, allowing the front and rear suspension to be adjusted together. According to the supplied Motorcycle-USA account, the raised setting provides about 4.5 inches of ground clearance, intended to make obstacles such as speed bumps more manageable than the parked stance suggests.
Clean lines, hidden hardware
Martinez carried the uncluttered approach through to the cockpit. The custom handlebars have no obvious clutch or brake levers, switch housings, mirrors or speedometer. The internal clutch and throttle mechanism is based on an Exile Cycles Twist Clutch, integrated into the bars and covered by the grips. It creates a strikingly spare cockpit, although the unusual twist-clutch operation reportedly demands practice before it feels natural.
The braking arrangement is concealed as well. The source describes linked front and rear “suicide brakes” operated by the right-foot pedal. At the front, a Baldwin & Wilson 360 Brake is integrated at the hub of the 23-inch wheel, while the compact American Suspension B-17 fork helps hide the associated lines. The result is a front end whose stopping hardware is difficult to spot at a glance.
From Copr Choppers to the show circuit
The Ground Pounder followed earlier builds by Martinez, including Blade and the much larger Kong, which established his interest in high backbones, hand-shaped tanks and internal wiring. The supplied account identifies the Ground Pounder as a Motorcycle USA Biker Build-Off winner and reports a series of show successes during the mid-2000s, including recognition at the 2007 World Championship of Custom Bike Building period.
Those awards help explain the bike’s emphatic specification, but the stronger achievement is how consistently its details serve the same visual objective. The wheels, air suspension, hidden controls and stripped-back bars all reinforce the Ground Pounder’s central character: a polished, low-slung chopper designed to make its engineering feel almost invisible.
Photo Gallery
We first met Copr Choppers’ owner, Tony Martinez, in Laughlin at the 2007 Custom Bike Show. Martinez wasthere as the reigning Colorado Biker Build-Off champion. The Ground Pounder was battling a Big BearChopper build for the title, only to be edged out of the top spot by a mere half point. After that, the GroundPounder began a six show streak of “Best of “ honors, giving Martinez confidence heading into Sturgis for the2007 World Championship of Custom Bike Building. Ground Pounder’s streak of victories came to a close astwo board tracker-inspired bikes took top honors. These retro-cool custom bikes have been a hot commoditysince Roland Sands came out with his KR V-5 Boardtracker. But Martinez still put himself out there and gainedrecognition for Copr Choppers. If you’re going to have a victory streak ended, there’s no shame in beingdeposed by the likes of Chicara and Goldammer.
Martinez got the custom bike building bug about four years ago. He had been working on and modifying Harleysfor about 12 years, but it was his first full-blown custom chopper, Blade, that breathed life into Copr Choppersas a business instead of a pastime. Martinez opened up shop in ’05 and has been producing award-winningbikes ever since.
“After I saw how many shows I won with that one bike, I decided to stop buying other people’s products and tostart making my own,” Martinez said.
We can see why. For his first custom build, Blade’s an impressive effort. Low-slung, fat backed, with a high,arching backbone, a serious chopper rake, and a wicked custom tank, the bike has the classic components ofa cool custom. Throw into the mix a fire-breathing Engenuity 147-inch engine and a clean design with anoticeable absence of visible wiring and you have the winner of the 2005 Red River New Mexico Bike Rally andthe 2005 Thunder in the Rockies show. And life, as Martinez knew it, would never be the same.
