as a kid I was always tinkering with lawn mowers and go karts, learned how engines basically worked and was able to fix two stroke engines, in my teens I got my first bike, a XS650, it lasted a few days before it fell apart and I was in over my head rebuilding it.
sold it as a basket case and I was given a harley sportster by a family friend. it didnt need anything at first so I was able to fix stuff as it needed it.
that sportster slowly taught me everything, I slowly learned how to rebuild the top end (doing a 1200 conversion), and the lower end (blew 3rd gear on a drag pass), and electrical. tuning for power, tuning the chassis and suspension for different riding conditions.
decided I was interested enough to turn it into a career so I went to school for a bit to learn even more. learned all about automotive electrical systems, engine design, making horsepower, chassis design, structural stuff. all fascinating and awesome.
got an apprenticeship gig at a custom auto shop, learned a hell of a lot more in 6 months there than ever did schooling. nothing beats hands on real world experience from people who know their shit.
then I worked as a assembler for a small custom bike shop in Long Beach, the dude built custom board track racers using motorcycle engines in custom tube steel frames we made ourselves. it was fun until the lead fabricator died in a car wreck and we kind of disbanded.
I worked for myself flipping motorcycles for a year, one day I was looking on craigslist for some parts to buy, met a guy who was also starting a motorcycle shop and was working out of a storage container in LA. a few months passed and he got a big shop space in downtown LA and I offered to help him with reduced pay to get started. he ended up buying a lot of stolen bikes, feds started sniffing around, had inspectors at my house asking questions about his drug habits which I knew nothing of, I quit and he closed down a month later and spent the next 2 years liquidating about 500 parts bikes stored in the warehouse.
went back to flipping bikes on my own, got bored of it and wanted a new challenge, met Jay of Lossa Engineering, I replaced Joe Tessitore (who was on a lot of episodes of CRTV) and I was the lead tech alongside Jay for nearly 2 years until I quit last year to move out of LA.
That job was genuinely fun, assemblying vintage bikes from almost brand new (reconditioned) parts, rebuilding engines back to factory specs, building custom wiring harnesses from scratch, fabricating, painting, all that. It was fun as hell and I'll always look back on it fondly.
what I did NOT like was the attitude from inside the industry.
I met lots of people who you guys would probably consider idols and inspiration as far as custom bikes go, and the fact is they are all in it for the money and image and talk shit on the customer base, which is really sad.
it would appear that no one actually gives a shit about the motorcycles, they build em for art, they never actually ride unless its a group event or in front of the camera, they only want to "get big" and then sit back and sell T-shirts and merch and occasionally put out a completely un-ridable purely art exhibit bike for you guys to gawk at and try to replicate in your garage so they can sell you cheap china rear sets and other parts that they get for dirt cheap and make a killing on.
that didn't jive with me... it kind of killed my entire view of the "cafe" scene. now I just see everyone trying to replicate the bikes from these builders who don't even ride motorcycles. (this doesn't apply to every builder... but a LOT of them)
into Baggers and cruisers now where the builders tend to be real riders who actually need their bike to perform, and the customer base tends to be people who genuinely ride their bikes as real vehicles and not weekend toys, like myself.