Greetings, biker buddies and chopper enthusiasts, and welcome to beautiful Rock Tavern and Orange County, New York! Orange County is a peaceful little community located about 60 miles north of NYC, deep in the Hudson Valley, with a population of around 341,000. There are 3 cities in Orange County, 20 towns, 17 villages, and one really cool place for custom choppers, which is the reason the beans are here. And so here they are, the star-struck beans, excited to welcome you to Orange County Choppers, home to some of the biggest, baddest, coolest motorcycles you'll find anywhere. So put on your favorite muscle tank, grab your cool shades, and let's go!

For those of you who don't know, the staff of Orange County Choppers star in the Discovery Channel series, "American Chopper". The show takes a reality-TV-esque look at life at this custom bike shop, and what it takes to build one of these amazing beauties, from concept to design to delivery, with an occasional "friendly" verbal disagreement between management and labor thrown in. The show has aired regularly on the Discovery Channel since the fall of 2002, and has quickly become one of the bean's favorite vices to TiVo. If you haven't seen it yet, well - get on it! Sadly, due to insurance policies the frijoles weren't allowed inside the workshop, but that's okay - with all those welding torches laying around, they could have easily found themselves more than refried...

Orange County Chopper was established as a business of its own in 1999 by Paul Teutul Sr., who built OCC's first custom bike "True Blue" in his basement. Since then, they've designed some killer custom bikes, including the "Spider Bike", the "Jet Bike", and the "Snap-on Tools Bike", which have been featured on their show. Today, the shop employs about 20 people, including two of Paul's sons, Paul Jr. (Paulie) and Michael (Mikey), and their custom fabricator Vinnie, who is arguably the calmest person ever shown on TV. Since they make only about 150 custom choppers every year, the beans wanted to ask Paulie if he'd design a custom chopper for their can, too, but alas - our traveling frijoles are flat broke, and chrome doesn't grow on trees, I'm afraid. Maybe next time...

Here the beans have the honor of meeting the star of the series - OCC founder, owner, and Teutul family patriarch, Paul Senior. On the show (and in real life, we suspect), Paul Sr. is a big, strong, and not easily intimidated guy - the kind of fellow you'd love to have as your friend, and would hate to have as your enemy. He rides his crew's butts pretty hard, but it's all in the name of quality, right? Paul Sr. expects nothing but the best from his bikes, and what he delivers is top notch, all the way. The beans were thrilled to meet Paul Sr., who was absolutely downright cool to them. And for that we're thankful - we've seen Paul Sr. get...um... "aggravated" on the show, and quite frankly, I'm not so sure the beans could take a scolding without bursting into tears.

And as lasting proof that the beans got to meet one of their heroes (and to make the other canned vegetables jealous), they had Paul Sr. autograph their lid. Now, we're not experts on the collectible value of personally signed cans or anything, but we fully suspect that this little ol' can of frijoles is now worth a lot more, dents or no dents. (Yeah, right - as if BATW Ambassador Bill will ever part with it now...)

The beans were also lucky enough to catch up with Paulie, who was nice enough to show off his pearly whites for a photo. Paulie is quite the creative guy - the beans are immensely jealous of his design skills. (The poor frijoles can't even draw that art school pirate found on the matchbooks...) If you want to find out more about OCC or American Chopper, or want to pick up one of their killer t-shirts (they're what every styling can is wearing this season!), be sure to check them out online on their official Web site. As for the legumes, they had a great time at OCC, and are now the proud owners of an autographed can, an autographed poster, and a half dozen new OCC shirts. Hey, they may be rebels-in-a-can, but at least they look the part...

Our SPECIAL thanks once again to Paul Sr., Paulie, and everyone at Orange County Choppers for letting one highly impressed can of frijoles hang out with you!

And, remember kids: No celebrity endorsements are implied. This is strictly for fun, and you don't want the beans having to remind you of that fact with their size 12 boot...