Get your hands
in some.single
ngertwo
ngerBIKE
CEMETERY
This story is both a biker dream
and a nightmare. Several years
ago David Cuff, from Classic
Cycles, obtained the location of
a warehouse in Illinois full of
abandoned motorcycles.
“The buildings were trashed. The
door was open a few inches and
I could see a motorcycle leaning
against the wall. The basement
was full of old bikes nearly
rusted away from the moisture
in the air. I carefully walked
upstairs and that’s where my
jaw dropped. The room was full
of motorcycles.
“There were holes in the
floor with motorcycles falling
into the basement and there
were motorcycles on the third
floor falling onto the main
floor. Half the main floor was
concrete and quite stable so we
wandered around and tried to
process what we were seeing.”
The owner was a guy named
Frank who wasn’t actually
permitted to enter the building
and hadn’t been inside for
over a year. The building was
condemned and currently
owned by the City of Lockport
due to unpaid property taxes.
A lengthy process to acquire
accident insurance would be
needed for entry to the building.
“ The motorcycles were
collected by a guy named
Kohl. He had owned several
motorcycle shops over 50
plus years and was a keen
motorcycle enthusiast.
Kohl would keep trade-in
motorcycles and buy inventoryfrom defunct dealerships. In
1997 Kohl sold the building
and motorcycles to Frank.
Frank operated the business
which then sold parts off the
hundreds of motorcycles in
stock.
In 2002 Kohl died at 80
years of age and the building
continued to fall apart and
crumble around itself. At one
time Frank got an quote to have
the roof replaced. The estimatewas $300,000, far more than
Frank could justify. As the
building continued to collapse
the city finally condemned the
building and Frank didn’t see a
reason to continue to pay the
back taxes.”
Finally the city gave Frank a
deadline to get out whatever he
wanted out and David returned
once again after getting word
that Frank was going to start
scrapping the remaining bikes.