The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Restorer gives vintage bikes updated look
Follows in his father’s tinkering ways and develops garage savvy techniques
“I get a project and I get something in my head and I work and work and work until I get it done the way I want.” — Jeff Gasier, Willoughby, describing his restorations
Jeff Gasier, known to his friends as Cubby, developed an interest in restoring cars, motorcycles and snowmobiles at a young age.
The Willoughby resident recalls that he started building things somewhere around the age of 8 or 9.
“My dad was always working on cars and stuff and I was following in his footsteps,” Gasier said. “I got my first mini-bike at 8 years old and it just progressed from there.”
Gasier said sometime during his teen years he got into cars and would later build a lot of cars some of which have been featured on TV and in magazines all over the world.
It was about 10-15 years ago that he started going back to just restoring bikes and snowmobiles.
His dad had a couple of old motorcycles that he used to ride back in the 1970s so Gasier asked him what he was going to do with the bikes that were just sitting in the barn. There was a suggestion to get rid of them, but he decided to take them apart, fix and rebuild them and make them better than what they were originally.
Currently Gasier is working on the restoration of a 1964 snowmobile and a Penton 175 Jackpiner, which he describes as a special enduro race bike that originated in Austria.
His latest completed project is a 1969 Ossa Pioneer 250 that was manufactured in Spain, which he has sold to a collector and also recently shown in the inviteonly Fuel Cleveland Bike show.
He describes his style as “overrestoration.” He makes them shinier, glossier and more polished than when they left the factory and in his opinion makes them look 100 percent better than the original.
“Not a lot of people who buy custom bikes or restore bikes appreciate that,” Gassier said.
He once took a bike he restored to Mid-Ohio where a vintage bike swap-meet was happening. A collector who owns a vintage bike museum in Maine told him he thought the bike was beautiful and would like to purchase it. However, the prospective buyer said he would want to take a Scotch-Brite pad to it to scratch it up and make it look more original.
“There are other people that appreciate the fact of how I do the restorations and the custom builds that I do,” Gasier said. “I get a project and I get something in my head and I work and work and work until I get it done the way I want. “Sometimes its not like what other people want.”
When Gasier starts a bike he strips it down to just the frame which he sandblast. He rebuilds the motor and respokes the wheels often times using the same spokes just dipped in a shinier metal.
Gasier describes the Ossa that showed in 2018 Fuel Cleveland as having been restored to original condition looking exactly like it had come off the showroom floor but shinier.
He said he decided to do the Ossas because his dad had one when he was a kid and he remembers riding his mini bike with his dad who was riding one.
Gasier said he does restoration in addition to building custom bikes in the evening out of his garage and he really enjoys doing it even though each bike is a timeconsuming project. He says his most recent project required over 2,000 hours of work.
Gassier originally got interested in showing in the Fuel Cleveland when he first went in 2015. Fuel Cleveland showcases custom bikes bike builders, rare bikes and bikerelated art work and photography from enthusiasts from all over the country.
Exhibitors can only show by invitation only, and Gasier submitted an application to show his bikes several times. He was finally invited to show the Ossa he completed this year.
“I was ecstatic and honored, just blown away,” he said of the invitation to this year’s non-competitive show and the accolades he received from his peers during it.