Twisted Throttle Cycles now open at former Cove Feed & Seed

By BRITTANY FHOLER

Cove Leader-Press 

Twisted Throttle Cycles officially opened its Copperas Cove location on Tuesday in the former Cove Feed & Seed building at 2314 E. Business 190.

Owned by combat veteran and motorcycle enthusiast Allen Swank, the Copperas Cove location is the second Twisted Throttle Cycles location in the Central Texas area. The other location is located at 1209 Fort Hood St in Killeen. 

Twisted Throttle Cycles held an Open Shop Night on Memorial Day for its current customers and friends as an introduction of the Copperas Cove location to its current clientele. Swank estimated that approximately 200 people stopped by throughout the afternoon to check out the shop and enjoy some food. 

Swank opened Twisted Throttle Cycles in Killeen four years ago. Around two years ago, Swank met Alleister Jefferies, who is the manager of the Copperas Cove location, and tried to bring him to work at the Killeen location. Jefferies had been working at the Horny Toad Harley Davidson of Fort Hood, in Harker Heights until closed earlier this year. 

Jefferies said that after Harley Davidson closed its Harker Heights location, he was looking to go back to school for welding. 

“Jesse James was one of the people that I follow, always watched. I wanted to learn how to do all that kind of stuff, and now I get the opportunity to learn from this guy,” Jefferies said about Swank.  

Jefferies added that when he first started his journey into the motorcycle industry, he had a dream of opening his own business in Copperas Cove. Seven years later, he was achieving his goal with Swank and Twisted Throttle Cycles. 

Swank lived in Copperas Cove for nine years until recently, when he moved to Harker Heights. He retired from the military and was attending school for business while working on repairing and selling bikes on his own. After stumbling across the location in Killeen, he decided to open his own shop and began to build his clientele even more. 

“We took off within the first two months, and the shop has just kind of grown exponentially every single year that I’ve been there,” Swank said. “We have really good clientele, a really good motorcycle community in the area that’s been super supportive and we kind of make sure we take care of everybody and people keep coming back.”

Swank made the decision to expand to Copperas Cove because of how busy his Killeen location has gotten. 

“I was looking to expand because my Killeen location is overfilled,” Swank said. “We can’t keep up with the pace due to the size of location.” 

Swank and Jeffries found the old Cove Feed and Seed location and jumped at the chance to utilize it for the Copperas Cove Twisted Throttle Cycles location. 

“I’m aware of the staple of this location and Cove Feed and Seed being here for so long,” Swank said. “I think that that’s why this location was so good because it’s a staple here in Copperas Cove. Not only is a great location for us, it provides plenty of space and opportunity to grow as a business as a whole, but we’re kind of taking the not so specific historic landmark in Copperas Cove. There’s not many other buildings like this, other than like what’s downtown.”

Swank said that he has been riding since he was four years old. He raced four-wheelers as a child and dirt bikes and super bikes while in his 20s. 

“I was active duty military, I didn’t have the money to have a pit crew, so I had to learn everything on my own, but the passion has been there since I was a kid,” Swank said. “I mean, my dad just strapped me to the back of a bike and would take me on a ride when I was way too young, so yeah, it’s just been a passion of mine all my life.”

Jeffries said his dad used to go to Horny Toad Harley Davidson, and he wanted to make sure he was safe on the road. 

Twisted Throttle strives to offer the lowest shop rate in the area, even compared to other local bike shops.

“Their prices are set higher than ours because they’re trying to keep up with Harley Davidson,” Swank said. “We don’t have that kind of overhead, so we don’t need to charge that much, but we offer way more services and higher quality than even Harley, I believe.” 

Swank added that he thought his customers would stand behind that statement as well. 

Services offered include basic maintenance from routine services and tire changes to custom builds. Some of the motorcycle builds that Twisted Throttle has done cost $100,000, and a lot of the builds have won at competitions. 

“There’s pretty much nothing on a bike that we won’t do,” Swank said. 

Twisted Throttle Cycles also services Cruisers, Touring, sport bikes, ATVs, dirt bikes, UTVs, go karts, jet skis and most boats.

Twisted Throttle serves customers from all over Texas and even other states like Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and more. 

“I just think that the biggest thing for us is we want people to know that we’re here,” Swank said. “We’re still offering the same great service that we did in Killeen. We’re pretty much a ‘No-Shit’ Business. You come in, you ask for work. We give you the best quality, kind of affordable prices that way we can just keep everybody able to ride.”