Anchor: Students at the University of Georgia don’t get to have all of the fun in Athens. About fifteen minutes outside of the university, another there’s another group of people living life in the fast lane.

 

VO: Bikes, good conversation, and top quality service—you will find all of these things and more at a local Athens motorcycle restoration shop called Bedlam Werks. Reaching nearly its sixth year of service, Bedlam was created in the garage of Travis Christopher. Christopher graduated of UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art, earning a degree in sculpting. It was that degree that inspired him to pursue motorcycle restoration as both an art and a business.

 

SOT: This is kind of a great outlet to be able to do sculpture and still make money.

 

VO: Bedlam is more than just your average motorcycle shop, though. Besides boasting talented artists and expert mechanics to help customers restore their motorcycles, Bedlam allows customers the opportunity to learn and work with all kinds of motorcycles alongside the pros. By becoming a member, motorcyclists have full access to Bedlam facilities and personnel.

 

SOT: We have members that come in on either a weekly, daily, monthly, yearly, basis, and they’ll roll the bike in, do oil change, air filter, whatever, and roll it off and go home. And then we have guys come in to do the memberships where they’re here every other day if not every day.

 

STANDUP: Although Bedlam is a motorcycle shop, it only takes a few minutes of talking with the guys to realize that it’s about more than just the business and bikes for them. It’s all about the community.

 

SOT: I get lots of support from the people that work here and the other members that are here. It’s really cool that other members come in that aren’t as knowledgeable as many of our mechanics, and I can also help them out. It’s really a fun place to be a member of.

 

VO: Its first year in its new garage has been an exciting one that isn’t slowing down. This upcoming December, Bedlam will be featured in an episode of Esquire Networks “Wrench Against the Machine.” Reporting for FiveSeventy, I’m Sydney North.

 

Anchor: Bedlam is located off of Collins industrial Boulevard and welcomes all Athens residents to join them for a watch party of “Wrench Against the Machine” on December 20^th.