American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 172 November 2013 | Page 21

I’m a Rocket Man

Pete Pearson spent many years racing Japanese motorcycles but, he had a fondness for
Harley-Davidsons dating back to his childhood. After taking a break from bikes he
purchased a Street Bob and with wife Lisa went on to launch Rocket Bobs Cycle Works,
a company combining the styling cues of Bobbers with his background in race bikes
OUNDED in 2009, Rocket Bobs Cycle
Works has already built an
international following on the internet
and solidified its status as a top level custom
shop when one of its builds – Gas’d Rat – took
third place in the Freestyle class at the 2013
World Championship of Custom Bike
Building.
The place in the top five at the Championship was
a major achievement for Pete Pearson, the man who
established and runs Rocket Bobs with his wife Lisa.
“Going to Essen for the World Championship was a
real game changer for us. It was mindblowing to see
the quality of some of the work on the bikes there.
You see that and it’s just so special, it really gets you
going and gives you so many new ideas. What I got
from Essen was that if you want to be taken seriously,
to become a known name like Roger Goldammer,
you have to go out and do some wild engineering.”
eing able to achieve ‘some wild engineering’ is
not something that should prove to be much of
a problem for Pete. For as long as he can remember
he’s been surrounded by engines, as his father ran a
garage and owned numerous MGB GTs and E-Type
Jaguars, and it was in one of these that the young
Pete learnt to drive, sitting on his father’s lap. It was
a short while later that Pete first got the bike bug, as

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he explains: “I first discovered motorbikes when I
was 10 or 11, and it was around that time when I
first found out what a Harley was. I walked in to a
room and saw one being talked about on TV, and
from that point they became a lifelong passion.”
Motorcycles may have become a lifelong passion,
but it did not sit well with his father. At 16 years old
Pete convinced his father to lend him the money to

buy a Yamaha FS1E, but his father only agreed
because he considered it to be a moped, as it had
pedals as well as a 50cc two-stroke engine. Within a
few months Pete had paid his father back and traded
the FS1E in against a Yamaha RD250. This trade did
not go down well. “He didn’t speak to me for a long
Continued on page 22 >>>

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www.AMDchampionship.com

Voodoo Child helped to get Rocket Bobs started
when Pete parked it outside his local H-D dealership
- leading to the dealership manager commissioning
Pete to work on one of the shop’s bikes
AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - NOVEMBER 2013

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