Category: custom

Taking My Own Approach: Interview with Ian Halcott of Twinline Motorcycles

Post author By British Customs
Post date February 26, 2016

British Customs

Ian Halcott of Twinline Motorcycles

Ian Halcott is the founder of Twinline Motorcycles, based out of Seattle, WA. His unique custom builds have been featured in shows such as The Handbuilt Motorcycle Show and in various media outlets across the internet. He was invited by Thor Drake of See See Motorcycles to put his latest custom motorcycle on display at the 2016 One Moto Show in Portland, OR.

British Customs: How did Twinline Motorcycles get started?

Ian Halcott: I had been working on my granddad’s ’67 Honda CL160, trying to get it back on the road. I was riding a sportbike as my daily commuter, but had been going back to the old bikes and riding them more and more. I liked the way they look, and wanted to get them back on the road. There weren’t any shops around to take old bikes to, and I had always wanted to do custom work, so I used it as a chance to do something new. I found that I like exploring different styles and types. A lot of my inspiration comes from bikes made in the 60s; I think that era produced the most beautiful motorcycles. But I still like modern bikes, and want to get more into working with that world. I like to think about where I’m going instead of where I’ve been. I want to have my own approach to building a custom motorcycle.

British Customs

Custom bike by Twinline Motorcycles

BC: What inspired you to learn how to start working with your hands?

IH: I can’t just sit on my butt and stare at a computer all day long and feel like I’m being productive. I have to make things that are three dimensional and real. There are other jobs that definitely pay better, but I’m not interested in pursuing them. You know you’ve made it in motorcycles when you can’t get out of it; I’m not going to be able to get out of doing this process.

British Customs

Kawasaki Ninja 600 engine in a Honda CB500 frame

BC: Where did you learn all the skills necessary to build a custom motorcycle?

IH: I learned everything over a number of years from a number of people. I used to hang out in a lot of old timer’s shops where they had a lot of racers and flat track bikes, where I met many of my mentors. I listened to anything anyone had to tell me, because it was as much a community effort as it was anything else. The process of learning mechanical work to welding to everything else was all trial and error, and I just had to tackle everything and learn it the best that I could. If you work at it, you can eventually get to the point where you can literally build everything.

British Customs

Kawasaki Ninja 600 engine in a Honda CB500 frame

BC: What are your thoughts on where the custom motorcycle scene is going?

IH: I can’t really say. The community of builders has gotten really strong. It definitely wasn’t what it is now when I opened my garage. So many people are contributing to it now, and it seems like a new shop opens every five minutes. Of those shops, some will make great strides, and others won’t make it, but the community will still keep moving forward.

British Customs

Custom bike by Twinline Motorcycles

BC: A number of your builds have been cafe racers. Why is that?

IH: Honestly, I really suck at racing, but it’s what inspires me. I love things that are so streamlined and minimalist — racing bikes don’t have anything more than they need, and I’ll take any advantage I can get on a motorcycle. It’s the closest thing to aviation.

British Customs

Goldie by Twinline Motorcycles

BC: You’ve built a number of bikes that are very different from most custom motorcycle builders, with regards to some of your builds using modern sportbike platforms. Do you have any preferences as to what kind of system you like to work with?

IH: Not really, actually. Every motorcycle has its own specific design for what its set up to do, and I respect that. There are things I like aesthetically about air-cooled bikes, and there are reliability advantages that I like about liquid-cooled bikes. But there is something about having a relatively maintenance-free motorcycle with a lot of horsepower like today’s bikes. You don’t have get same power-to-weight ratio anywhere else. In the end, I don’t really care about the configuration: if it has wheels and a motor I’m on it. It’s all about how you utilize the platform you’re on.

British Customs

Custom Honda CB750 from Twinline Motorcycles

BC: What are you going to bring with you to The One Moto Show?

IH: I’m building an ’04 Yamaha R6 I’m calling The Legionnaire (#thelegionnairemoto). It’s my own creation, and I wouldn’t call it a street fighter or a cafe racer. It’s my vision of a modern bike with some 80s sportbike mixed with 60s TT styling. It’s a bastard, to say the least. I’m leaving everything on it raw, and I built the subframe, seat, tail section, and full aluminum fairings. Next year though, I plan to bring my granddad’s bike to The One Moto Show, since it’ll be the 50th anniversary of when he bought the bike.

For more interviews with builders from the One Moto Show, visit British-Customs.com

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Craigslist Custom Challenge!

Post author By Morgan Gales
Post date February 25, 2016

Craigslist

“Custom” gas tank on a Craigslist bike, with exhaust heat shields 1/2 off! Still listed for over $2k

“Runs great, needs TLC,”

“Runs perfect, needs new battery, needs carb cleaned,”

“Too many custom parts to list, all work done by professional, no paperwork,”

Or any of the other complete BS lines you see all over Craigslist all the time. If you’ve spent time on the ole digital classifieds, you are familiar with variety of bikes, both good and bad that sit on that site. Most of them are listed for WAY over what they should be, and most of them seem to be done by some guy in his backyard with a grinder and a hot glue gun.

Craigslist

Kawasaki KZ400 custom, posted up on Craigslist for over $6k

The Challenge:

Go on to your local Craigslist, type in ‘Custom,’ or ‘Home Custom’ or any other words or combination that may pull up some of the unholy abominations that lie dormant within the pages of these classifieds. Good or bad, cheap and classy or ugly as sin. Send your results to Cruiser@BonnierCorp.com

We will pick the best/ worst of these bikes and post them up to a gallery next week, sending out prizes to the winners!

Craigslist

When you need to live that chopper life, but can only afford a Hardly.

We wish you all happy hunting! If your time spent on CL is anything like ours, it shouldn’t take you long to find something interesting!

bikes British Customs cafe racer Cruising custom Kick Start Garage metric Other Motorcycle Blogs the One Moto Show

Giving Old Bikes a Second Chance

Post author By British Customs
Post date February 25, 2016

British Customs

Craig Marleau of Kick Start Garage

Craig Marleau is the founder of Kick Start Garage, a custom vintage motorcycle shop based in Northern California. He specializes in building cafe racers, and was invited by Thor Drake of See See Motorcycles to put his latest custom motorcycle on display at the 2016 One Moto Show in Portland, OR.

British Customs: How did Kick Start Garage get started?

Craig Marleau: Having my own garage and making custom motorcycles has always been in the back of my head. My background is in auto restoration: I worked in a high end restoration shop working on performance cars like Aston Martins, Ferraris, and Duesenbergs and building them to show on the grass at Pebble Beach Concourse D’Elegance for 17 years. But I was always into riding street bikes and racing motorcycles. When I was a youngster, I was getting really close to losing my license, so I sold my street bike and bought a dirt bike. I enjoyed dirt riding for a while, but I really wanted to get back out on the street. So I bought an old BMW clunker to make it hard for myself to get in trouble. I spent my evenings working on the bike with my wife after I got home from my day job. Once we got the bike looking pretty good, we entered it into shows and it started winning awards. Then the economy crashed, and we moved out to Texas where I got a job in bike retail at a dealership. That’s when I started going to track days and road racing, and I really got into cafe racers and vintage bikes in particular. From then on I converted every bike I bought into a cafe racer. We moved back to California after we had kids, where we built a house and I got another job working for a dealership. When the economy tanked again. I didn’t have a job and I needed to reinvent myself, so I decided to finally open a shop working on old bikes, which is where the name Kick Start came from: all the bikes I was working on were kickstarters. The garage grew from there. I heard about The One Show, and we decided we wanted to check it out, so we loaded up the truck with one of our bikes and drove up to Portland. When we got there, we couldn’t find a parking spot, so we asked some guy walking around among all the other guys there if he knew where there was any parking, and he helped us out. We told him we brought a bike with us and asked if he knew if we could show it, and he said we sure could: it turned out the guy was Thor Drake himself. He gave us a spot to show our bike, and we’ve been going to The One Show ever since.

British Customs

Custom BMW R90/6 from Kick Start Garage

BC: What kind of bikes do you enjoy working on the most?

CM: I love working on Triumphs, actually. Especially air-cooled carbureted ones: they have clean looks and easy lines, and I don’t have to try to figure out how to hide any of the electronics. I like minimalism in my builds, so I like minimalist designs; I don’t even like batteries. I respect the simplicity of carburetors, and the old world ways of doing things. I think a lot of that is getting lost. Especially the craftsmanship of tuning, because you don’t learn anything by downloading a fuel map to your ECU — there isn’t anything hand built or custom about that. With a carburetor though, you can get in there and tune your engine by hand. That’s an art.

British Customs

Custom CB750 from Kick Start Garage

BC: How did you get started doing everything by hand?

CM: Out of necessity. At the time, I didn’t have the money to buy parts, so I figured out how to make them for myself. There were no machine shops in the area where I could hire a guy to make them for me, either. So through trial and error, I figured out how to do what I wanted to do. Once you figure out how to make things and do things by hand, it becomes a mentality. You blow the door down and just start making everything you need instead of flipping through a catalog and picking the parts that are closest to what you have in mind. That’s why we don’t have any limitations.

British Customs

Custom Honda CL350 from Kick Start Garage

BC: What is it about cafe racers that made you want to start building them?

CM: I fell in love with that whole era of motorcycling. The Italian bikes that came off the production line that were stylized like cafe racers are what first caught my eye, and then I just kept looking back at the bikes from the 60s: the Ace Cafe bikes, the Triumphs, Nortons, Tritons, all of them. I was struck by the style and design of cafe racers — the drop bars, the race-looking lines, the rearsets, the hump seat. The Velocette Thruxton was the first bike I looked at and immediately knew it was a race bike.

British Customs

Some of the custom bikes from Kick Start Garage loaded up in the trailer

BC: Why do you stick with making and working on vintage bikes?

CM: It might sound sentimental, but it’s because I want to give them a second chance. When you find them, they’re either beat down or forgotten, and nobody thinks it’s cool because it’s just an old bike. But it’s pretty darn neat when you roll up on a bike that you built and everyone wants to know all about it. Vintage bikes aren’t cookie cutter bikes: they’re unique, and you can be proud of them.

British Customs

Custom vintage Ducati from Kick Start Garage

BC: Where do you see the custom motorcycle scene going?

CM: The custom motorcycle scene is taking a shape, but it’s coming down to the same old thing about motorcycles: motorcycles are like shoes, and you have one for every mood. The trend is moving towards the old school 70s choppers, but where we want it to go and what we think is cool is the vintage motocross scene. In that vein we think the growing scene around scramblers is going to evolve and take people towards vintage motocross.

BC: What are you building for The One Moto Show?

CM: It’s going to be pretty different. We’re cross-blending brands and genres. It’s a ’71 BMW R750R with a sidecar pulling a custom ’73 Bultaco Pursang. We’re highlighting the suspension on the Bultaco with a crazy paint job and a custom seat. I almost feel like it’s too pretty to throw a leg over it, even though it’s meant to be a functional race bike. We’re thinking of calling it the Taco Truck.

For more interviews from builders at the One Moto Show, or to see their wicked bikes, check out British-Customs.com

bikes Cruising custom Harley-Davidson Other Motorcycle Blogs sportster Sportster Forty-Eight

H-D Customized Sportster Forty-Eight: Walkaround

Post author By staff
Post date February 24, 2016

The Sportster Forty-Eight is an enticing model of Sportster. It looks mean as hell, styled after the post-war American custom bobbers of the late forties. We took our pic of some of the best and baddest accessories that Harley-Davidson had to offer and jazzed this bad boy up.

You’ll notice the custom Clubman style handlebars, mid-controls for your feet, Daymaker headlight, as well as the full H-D Rail Collection. For a more in-depth breakdown of what was done on the Sporty, stay tuned! John will have full coverage up on that soon!

for more information on the Sportster Forty-Eight, visit Harley-Davidson.com

bikes British Customs Cruising custom Escape Collective Hill Hudson Other Motorcycle Blogs the One Moto Show

Escape Artist: Interview with Hill Hudson of the Escape Collective

Post author By British Customs
Post date February 24, 2016

British Customs

Hill Hudson of the Escape Collective working on his CB350 build

Hill Hudson is a herald of the New Heritage lifestyle. Hudson is a custom vintage motorcycle builder based out of Portland, OR, who works with the same tools his Brooklynite grandfather used in his machine shop established in 1886. Hudson is also a co-founder of the Escape Collective, an innovative group of builders and artists devoted to the adventure lifestyle by promoting motorcycle camping. He was invited by Thor Drake of See See Motorcycles to put his latest custom motorcycle on display at the 2016 One Moto Show in Portland, OR. – See more at: http://www.british-customs.com/triumph-motorcycle-blog/the-escape-artist-an-interview-with-hill-hudson-of-the-escape-collective/#sthash.w9kVZpo6.dpuf

British Customs: When did you first start riding?

Hill Hudson: I first started riding when I was 19 (I’m 26 now). My older brother was going to college in Rhode Island, and he came back one break on a 1965 CB160, which was entirely unexpected, and I just went, “Oh shit, that’s cool,” when I saw him pull up on it. I started looking around and I found out that the CB160 had a big brother called the CB77, nicknamed the Toaster Tank, and I picked one up. At the time I was interning for a woodworker who had bikes, and when he found out that I had just bought my first motorcycle and that it was a vintage fixer-upper, my woodworking internship immediately turned into a bike restoration internship. I spent the whole summer with that old craftsman learning how to rebuild engines, paint, and wrench. I think I became the son he never had.

British Customs

Hill Hudson mocking up the hand machined headlight for this CB350 build

BC: You make a number of things with your hands — it seems like building custom motorcycles is just one part of your creative outlet, and doesn’t wholly encompass what you do. What prompted you to get into design and fabrication?

HH: It was weird. My grandfather owned and operated a factory in Brooklyn that was established in 1886 where he made paper doilies for his company, Brooklace Paper Co. In the factory itself, he had a machine shop where he built all the tools needed to stamp the doilies. After he passed away, my brother brought all his old machinery back home. I was attending art school and getting my BA in Fine Art, and while I was working on my thesis I realized I was over illustration and wanted to get into making things by hand. I wanted to create things instead of just draw them. I moved in with my brother, and befriended James Crowe of We are West America, who taught me how to weld and machine. As I was learning these skills, I felt like I was doing what I needed to be doing: I wanted to carry on my grandfather’s legacy. My grandfather is my inspiration for building things by hand because he had this “you can build anything if you have the will to” mentality, which I began to understand once I was able to machine the parts I wanted to install on my bike. For my thesis, I decided I wanted to build a motorcycle because it encapsulated everything I learned in art school: sculpture, graphic design, illustration, and so on. My mentors pushed me hard to dive into the question of why I wanted to build a motorcycle though, and I realized it was for more reasons than they look nice: it was a way for me to escape into my work. By building a motorcycle, I was able to escape my thoughts and anxiety, work through my issues, and physically and emotionally channel myself into what I was doing. So I named the motorcycle the Escape Machine.

British Customs

The Escape Machine by Hill Hudson

“It’s so interesting that motorcycles bleed into every little thing in your life.”

BC: What is the Escape Collective?

HH: The Escape Collective was named after the Escape Machine. I had a group of friends that formed during and after college, and one year we decided that we all wanted to go to Sasquatch Music Festival. We were all engineers, art students, and builders of different kinds, and we decided to build a geodesic dome to camp in for the trip. The domes got noticed online, and started gaining traction. Afterwards, we were hired by a company to build 14 domes, and that got us started as a company. Now, we build whatever people want us to: we do experiential buildouts for events and festivals, domes for Dream Roll, a whole range of things. The Escape Collective is taking over my shop, and our goal is to advance and release a solid product line that unites motorcycles and camping.

Geodesic dome from the Escape Collective

British Customs

One of the Escape Collective’s geodesic domes

BC: What about vintage things draws you to them?

HH: Nostalgia, mostly. And the simplicity in design. I’m personally addicted to salvage and vintage because there’s a beautiful power in vintage things; they’ve been in the hands of so many people. The first motorcycle I owned was the same model that my dad owned. All my tools were my grandfather’s, and I feel connected to him by using the same tools he held.

British Customs

Hudson’s Grandfather

“There’s a beautiful power in vintage things; they’ve been in the hands of so many people.”

BC: Tell us about the build you’re preparing for The One Moto Show.

HH: The build is a bike I’m making for a client. It’s a fully custom ’73 CB350. I wanted to make a custom motorcycle that could actually be ridden, even though it was heavily modified, so I had to learn a whole new set of skills for this bike. I completely nerded out over it: I machined the headlights from scratch on the lathe, made the whole subframe, made fork tubes from stainless steel, refabbed the tank, extended the swingarm, and mirrored the angle of the forks and the angle of the shocks so that they would make a perfect triangle. I challenged myself with this build, and am pretty happy with how it turned out. It inspired me to do something even better for the next one though because it completely changed the way I think about approaching builds: it’s so easy to limit yourself when you try to model parts off of things you like instead of just making it for yourself the way you want it.

British Customs

Hudson’s 1973 Honda CB350 built for the One Moto Show left front view

British Customs

Hudson’s 1973 Honda CB350 built for the One Moto Show right side rear

British Customs

Hudson’s 1973 Honda CB350 built for the One Moto Show left side profile

British Customs

Hudson’s 1973 Honda CB350 built for the One Moto Show rear subframe detail

British Customs

Hudson’s 1973 Honda CB350 built for the One Moto Show exhaust and rear detail

For more interviews with builders from the One Moto Show, stay tuned to Moto Cruiser or visit British-Customs.com

bikes cafe racer Cruising custom it roCkS!bikes Other Motorcycle Blogs Yamaha Yamaha VMAX yard built

Yard Built VMAX: CS_07 Gasoline by it roCkS!bikes

Post author By staff
Post date February 18, 2016

Yamaha

CS_07 Gasoline Yamaha VMAX from it roCkS!bikes right side profile

Portuguese masters of the monocoque design (the body as one fluid piece) it roCkS!bikes are back for their third Yamaha Yard Built motorcycle, this one based off of the VMAX. The Portuguese duo from Oporto, Alexandre Santos and Osvaldo Coutinho, have been building beautiful custom machines as it roCkS!bikes since 2013, incorporating their trademark monocoque tank, seat and tail unit into each build.

Yamaha

CS_07 Gasoline Yamaha VMAX from it roCkS!bikes seat detail

For their latest Yard Built creation Osvaldo and Alex set out to give the VMAX an entirely new image, enhancing and exploiting its drag racing capabilities. As with all their builds, the ‘CS_07 Gasoline’ gets the trademark monocoque unit, although as the VMAX fuel tank is located under the seat, the unit features a false fuel tank. The unit is hand crafted from metal sheet and gives the bike a sleeker, slimmer and sportier profile with a retro style.

Yamaha

CS_07 Gasoline Yamaha VMAX from it roCkS!bikes left front profile

The drag racer influence is clear to see with the massive slick rear Mickey Thomson tyre and handmade stainless steel 4 -2 headers connecting to a custom free flow SC Project exhaust system with carbon silencers.

The CS_07 ‘Gasoline’ rides on custom made spoke wheels, 3.5×18 front with 120/70×18 Dunlop rubber and a 6.0×18 rear for the drag strip tyre. The stock tacho is kept but comes in a custom aluminium housing and the standard fuel tank is replaced with a beautiful custom aluminium unit with it roCkS!bikes motif. A metal hand crafted fairing ensures slippery aerodynamics for the ¼ mile and LSL footpeg adapters and clip-ons put the rider in the correct position. A Rizoma fuel cap and K&N air filter add some extra bling and Brembo brake and clutch master cylinders take it to the next level.

Yamaha

CS_07 Gasoline Yamaha VMAX from it roCkS!bikes back right

A host of Motogadget parts including handlebar grips, an m-switch and m-blaze turn signals ensure the custom work really stands out, and the handmade leather seat with it roCkS!bikes logo sets the standard.

Yamaha

CS_07 Gasoline Yamaha VMAX from it roCkS!bikes gas tank and gauge details

The build was completed at the end of 2015, the last of the year to celebrate 30 years of the VMAX. To mark the milestone a classic paint job was used to finish the bike. Taken from the 70s, the white, black and yellow colour scheme is pure icon, celebrating not just 30 years of the VMAX, but also 60 years of Yamaha! The bike was airbrushed and then gloss varnished in house by the builders.

Yamaha

CS_07 Gasoline Yamaha VMAX from it roCkS!bikes front fairing and headlight

Yamaha

CS_07 Gasoline Yamaha VMAX from it roCkS!bikes tail section and taillights

For more information on Yamaha and their Yard Built program, check out their website HERE.

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Yamaha Dealer Built: Round Two

Post author By Morgan Gales
Post date February 17, 2016

Yamaha

Rat Bike by PROMOTA MOTOR, S.L.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times. We love dealer contests. It pits creative minds that look at these same bikes all day every day against each other. They dealer mechanics and builders have pulled out all the stops and come out with some absolutely incredible bikes this year. Based off of the Bolt, or XV950, XSR700, XSR900, SR400, XJR 1300 and the VMAX.

Yamaha

YZB-Edition XJR 1300 by Yamaha Zentrum Berlin

Yamaha seems to be doing everything right lately. Making a diverse line of affordable, stylish and great performing bikes. They just announced the price of the XSR900, which will be coming to the States this year and you can read about HERE.

Make sure you head over to Yamaha’s website and vote on your favorite bike from the contest and stay tuned for more in depth information on some of our favorite bikes!

Yamaha

Yamaha XJR 1300 MoBikes MK2 by MoBikes

Yamaha

Yamaha VMAX NOAH by UHMA BIKE

Yamaha

Yamaha XV950R Bolt R-Spec Fine Cut by SC MADRAS COMP SRL

Yamaha

Yamaha Bolt Phoenix Messenger by Phoenix Motorcycles

bikes cafe cafe racer Cruising custom Honda Honda XR600 Other Motorcycle Blogs Randy Rothlisberger

Randy's Cafe XR600

Post author By Morgan Gales
Post date February 16, 2016

Amber Hiles

Randy’s Cafe XR600 right side profile

Thumper: A four-stroke, single cylinder motorcycle.

Honda’s XR600 is a unique and awesome motorcycle. Unique like a family of rednecks, that is. Honda has made a handful of real similar thumpers, all a little different, but sharing the same basic DNA. The 600 was the big boy in this class, putting out just about too much power for the trails, being too big and heavy to jump, and still being just a little too tall and uncomfy for highway use. It’s always been known as THE baja bike, but hasn’t had too many places that it fits in quite as well.

Choosing this style of bike for a full cafe conversion is no new concept, and no small task. The stock bike is too tall, with a clunky tail section and gearing that is entirely too low. However the narrow frame, lightweight and torquey engine, and natural steering dynamics point the way to an awesome tracker/ cafe bike once the work is done.

Randy Rothlisberger

Randy riding a Honda thumper back in his hayday

Randy is one of those rare gems that possesses both incredible talent and humility. I met him out on the Hot Bike Tour in South Dakota last summer, at Klock Werks, where he works part-time as a fabricator. When he rode up on this bike, I nearly dropped my helmet. Being 6’4″ I have always had a soft spot for large displacement thumpers and the way they fit me. Being a hooligan, I have always drooled over torque monster that is that engine in that lightweight frame.

I don’t even remember what I said when I walked up to him, something along the lines of “Wha– Did yo– Is this your– XR600?! Ohmahgerdddd I love it,”

To which he responded, “Oh yeah, I like it. I built it in my garage with some parts I had lying around. Actually rides pretty nice!”

Amber Hiles

Randy Rothlisberger in his home garage

You bet your sweet Honda that this thing rides pretty nice. The forks and brakes up front are Buell XB9R parts that have been machined to fit. The inverted forks lower the front end (a key part of the cafe conversion on this bike) as well as vastly improve the handling in the twisties. A massive disc brake on the front wheel gives this bike pro-street level stopping power, which it now has the rubber and suspension to handle. A rear wheel off of a Kawasaki Ninja 250 fit after a little bit of machining, but does wonders as far as giving the bike that pure street stance. The engine has more than enough power stock, but the airbox was removed and replaced with a K&N filter to help get that open triangle under the seat.

Sara Liberte

Randy’s Cafe XR600 rear view

The exhaust pipe was fabricated at home using the factory headers and a muffler from Cone Engineering. A gas tank from a vintage Honda XL250 had it’s tunnel modified to fit the later model frame and the paint was all done in-house by Randy with some old paint that of course, he had laying around the shop. That wicked cafe seat is an aftermarket custom piece designed for a Honda 125. He used an old Klock Werks H-D fender with a few modifications on the rear and wired up a Trail Tech Vapor electronic speedo/ tach with a hand fabbed mounting system that he also made in his garage.

Amber Hiles

Randy’s Cafe XR600 front left side

When we asked him for a few words about his bike, he listed all of the parts that he put on there and gave us this brilliantly Randy description:

“Starts easy (kick only) lights work well(no battery) handles quick and solid, brakes like nothing you’ve ever ridden (one finger advised first ride), have seen over 95mph with more to go (via GPS) and could easily pull taller gearing. Comfortable enough that you’ll go looking for curves ( I’m thinking it could own Iron Mountain Road in the Black Hills!) Took me about 3 mo to build at my garage at home.”

Amber Hiles

Randy’s Cafe XR600 front right side

You don’t see a lot of build like this because there aren’t a lot of people like Randy. And if there are, they aren’t out there posting their bikes up on the web, they’re out hitting the twisties and building these machines to ride.

Randy Rothlisberger, you’re our type of guy. Making something incredible out of what you’ve got and riding the absolute crap out of it, even if you do live in South Dakota and have all that perfectly snowy riding weather (not).

Amber Hiles

Randy’s Cafe XR600 right side detail

Amber Hiles

Randy’s Cafe XR600 right side profile

Amber Hiles

Randy’s Cafe XR600 left side profile

As much as we wish we could give you a website to support this epic dude, we love that he doesn’t have one. This was one of the first projects for Amber Hiles as the new Photographer/ Media Guru over at Klock Werks and we couldn’t be more stoked with what she turned out, given the snowy South Dakota conditions. Head over to KustomBaggers.com to see more work from them and the other awesome people at Klock Werks.

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Our Favorite Custom Motorcycles from Indian's Project Scout Competition

Post author By Jon Mcdevitt
Post date January 29, 2016

Launched in November, the Project Scout competition is giving dealers from around the globe a high-profile forum to showcase their passion for Indian Motorcycle and their team’s talent by building a custom Indian Scout.

There are no restrictions on the bike’s theme, cost or build style, the only rules being the dealers had to use an Indian Scout or the newly introduced Scout Sixty as the base model and use a minimum of three authentic Indian Scout accessories from the current catalogue.
From now through Friday 19th February, Indian Motorcycle fans can vote for their favorite Project Scout by visiting
indianmotorcycle

Below we have 5 of our favorite builds from the project. There are many more entries over there so be sure to go take a look at the rest and get your vote in before the 19th of February.

Terrebonne, QC

BOARDTRACKER – TRIBUTE TO THE LEGEND

Terrebonne, QC

BOARDTRACKER – TRIBUTE TO THE LEGEND

Adlliswil, Zurich, Switzerland

I AM LEGEND – TO ALL AGES OF MOTORCYCLES

Adlliswil, Zurich, Switzerland

I AM LEGEND – TO ALL AGES OF MOTORCYCLES

La Colle-sur-Loup, France

FAST TRACK – FAST TRACK

La Colle-sur-Loup, France

FAST TRACK – FAST TRACK

Fargo, ND, United States

MUNRO’S REVENGE – MODERN CAFÉ RACER

Fargo, ND, United States

MUNRO’S REVENGE – MODERN CAFÉ RACER

Muskego, WI, United States

MIDWEST URBAN DIRT TRACKER – “DIRT TRACK” STYLE!

Muskego, WI, United States

MIDWEST URBAN DIRT TRACKER – “DIRT TRACK” STYLE!

bike shows bikes cruiser Cruising custom Events Motor Bike Expo Other Motorcycle Blogs standard

Motor Bike Expo: Bikes and Babes of Day Three

Post author By Morgan Gales
Post date January 25, 2016

Motorcycle Cruiser

Model with a custom Harley-Davidson Knucklhead

The Motor Bike Expo has to be one of the biggest moto shows in the world, spead out between the massive buildings of the Fiera di Verona. Each one of these buildings is packed to the gills with some of the most amazing bikes in the world, and the all the top gear and apparel brands in Europe. We could walk through the same show 100 times and notice something different every single one.

Motorcycle Cruiser

Custom Kawasaki cruiser

There seemed to be an overwhelming amount of Sportster and Triumph customs, as is the usual at custom shows, not that that’s a bad thing. But there was also a wealth of unique Japanese and European customs that are more rarely seen. The editors all had their Editor’s Choice awards to give out today and we picked an absolutely stunning custom BMW K100 from Marco and the guys over at Garage 65 on the west coast of Central Italy.

Motorcycle Cruiser

Custom BMW at the Motor Bike Expo

The whole experience of this show, the town of Verona itself, and the people involved has been truly incredible. So much character in the bikes, people, architecture, and food. This is a show that is really exceptional, and one we will be coming back to for a long time.