Built for Good: Win a custom cafe racer, help provide clean drinking water

Proceeds from custom bikes will provide access to clean drinking water to people around the world, and it all starts with this cafe'd Harley-Davidson Sportster Forty-Eight. I caught up with David for an interview as the Built for Good team put the final touches on their build. 

Andy Greaser: Where did this project start, and what were your goals for the Built For Good campaign?

David Chang: So I'm trying to figure out what the purpose of the Cafe Racers of Instagram page would be, beyond sharing user generated content and reposting and working with promoting products. How do we do more than just that? How do we do something that has impact? I want to build social media that has more purpose.

So I went to the self-evident. I talked about my trips in Southeast Asia in Common Tread’s article about how Asian heritage and riding connect for me, and those trips allowed me to see the need for clean water firsthand. From the very beginning of the page, I’ve wanted to build community. I wanted to find a way to give back.

AG: If you're looking to help others, there are countless organizations that could help make that happen. How did you get connected with Waves for Water? What drew you to them over some of the other options you could have gone with?

DC: Jon Rose, founder of Waves for Water, and I knew each other and had discussions about this. My experience fit with what he was doing, and there is always a good vibe working with him. Then there’s the real impact of clean water filters, how easily a difference can be made. Water is the universal necessity, you know?

AG: The Built For Good site calls out that one in nine people lack access to clean drinking water. It’s too easy to take water for granted.

DC: It’s a matter of survival. It’s great that the larger motorcycle community organizes to support other things, such as the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, but for me, this was where I wanted to go with our page, bringing community and motorcycling together.

AG: Let’s talk about the Sportster Forty-Eight that was built for your campaign. Why did you choose the Sporty as your base for this build? Did you and the other builders go into this with a set vision, or was this an open-ended project?

DC: I wanted a Harley for this build, and the Sportster made a lot more sense for us over their larger cruisers and tourers. You can take almost any direction with one, and at the same time, there are still lots of things that haven’t been tried.

We had four different builders — J. Shia, Cristian Sosa, Jay Donovan and Joe Mielke — come in and extensively modify this bike. We did it all in one week, and [at the time of this interview] it just needs paint and finishing touches. We want the winner to have a bike they can really ride. The only requirement for design was to build a cafe racer. That’s it.

All those guys are pretty accomplished… It was actually really interesting to watch the build come together because their approaches to building bikes are all unique. We recorded the whole process in a series of five videos to share that collaboration. They're so used to working alone usually, especially in the last year and a half.

AG: You've built Cafe Racers of Instagram into one of the internet's biggest pages for custom builds. CROIG has over a million followers at this point. What do you want to do next with with all those followers, and all that energy? Are there going to be more projects like this?

DC: Giving back is CROIG’s future. In five years' time, I want to look at what we’ve done and actually see the aid we were able to help facilitate, to see the good that these programs and campaigns are able to provide. There could be hundreds, or thousands more people with access to clean water. That’s gold. Motorcycles aside, just personally being able to see that. This all started as an idea with lots of challenges, and I had to face some doubts about how it would come together.

I've just had a really good feeling about it. Now, usually with a build, you have ideas and a lot of customs are built for personal reasons or a client. This has a purpose to me beyond that. We’re building to fund clean water. That’s way different, something I’ve never done before and it’s there the whole time we work.

Ideally I’d do this annually. We haven’t fully seen what this could be. In the future, I want to be able to personally go overseas to deliver the water filters and volunteer with my own hands, too. I want to bring the people who were involved so we’re with this from one end of Built For Good to the other. The full spectrum.

The one phrase that's always on my mind is, “How do I build community and motorcycles at the same time?” I think this can be a perfect example of that.

For every five dollars donated to the project's Waves for Water page, you'll receive one entry into the Built for Good Sportster raffle. Learn more about the cause, the bike, and the raffle here.