Three Two Choppers ‘BYOB’ program

Much of the news around the custom bike business in recent times has been concerned with the closure of businesses as riders can no longer afford ground-up custom builds, turning instead to maintaining existing bikes. However, that does not mean that there are not opportunities for shops to generate new business from custom builds, one innovative example being the work being done by Three Two Choppers of Fort Worth, Texas.

In order to keep work flowing in to the shop the brothers at Three Two Choppers, Jimmie Lee and JC Coen, have created a Build Your Own Bike (BYOB) program. The idea is that the brothers will mentor customers as they build their own custom bike in the shop, working through the design process, skills, and as the brothers describe it ‘the stuff they don’t show on TV’.

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Apocalypsis 7.3

First seen in the Freeway magazine custom show at this year’s ‘Verona Show’ (Motor Bike Expo, Italy, January 2011) Apocalypsis 7.3 by EDSpecial is a showcase of original design and engineering craftsmanship EDSPECIAL set out to build Apocalypsis 7.3 as a ‘concept bike’ to show what the shop was capable of in terms of design and custom fabrication. The thinking behind the bike’s look was to build a machine which runs a 360-section rear tire without it looking out of proportion with the rest of the motorcycle.

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‘Consuela’

Bryan Schimke is a former motocross racer who has transitioned to custom bike building. However, his past as a racer has a strong influence on the bikes he builds, as can clearly be seen in ‘Consuela’, the bike with which he placed joint 12th at the 2010 World Championship of Custom Bike Building…

The traditional view of a custom Harley for many people is a bike with a wide back tire a stretch frame and over length forks. Fortunately, as the World Championship of Custom Bike Building continues to show, this is now very much a dated idea with designs ranging from mild to wild at the annual event. One of the builders at the World Championship who does not think bikes have to conform to the traditional wild chopper look is Bryan Schimke.

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Walton – the time warp Norton

It has been said that style never goes out of fashion. In the case of custom bike building, when the style in question is Choppers, then it is definitely never out of fashion. Reinforcing this belief is Walton – a Norton-engined Chopper that took fifth place at the European Championship of Custom Bike Building in Germany and 6th at the Sturgis World Championship

One of the defining features of the 2010 European Championship of Custom Bike Building was the diversity of power plants around with which the bikes competing in the show were built. While it is true that American V-twins are still the most popular choice of engine, many European builders are looking to other manufacturers for a starting point, and one such example is the Austrian bike shop ‘Blech & Drueber’.

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The Virtual bike builder

Mark van der Kwaak (left) and Aad Heemskerk with Mark's custom BMW designed with CAD software before being built by the pair and placing 10th at the 2008 European Championship of Custom Bike Building

Mark van der Kwaak may not have the highest of profiles in the custom bike scene, but many people will have seen his work when they visited his website http://www.dbbp.com. Mark, otherwise known as ‘Duckman’, is the man responsible for all of the CAD bikes seen on the site, with each machine carefully created by him in anticipation of being built in the future.

Many people when they were younger may have had ideas for wild rides; some of them may even have drawn them. Some of those people may even have gone on to build some of those bikes when they got older and acquired the skills and money needed to create them. One man, however, has continued to keep doing those sketches and has now become world famous for his work – that man is Mark ‘Duckman’ van der Kwaak. Mark is the person responsible for all the ‘Cadbike’ virtual bikes seen on the website http://www.bddp.com,where he now creates them with computer aided design (CAD) tools.

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Perse Performance ‘New School Vintage’ Classic front end

ROOSTER Custom Cycles has followed-up its reintroduction of Perse Performance parts with the launch of its Classic front end under the New School Vintage line.

The front end is centered around a Penske shock, which after consultation with Penske’s engineering department was decided upon as the best choice by RoosteR. Two options of shock are being offered; the entry level PS-8900 or the PS-8970, which separates high- and low-speed compression adjustment.

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Beezerker

Chris Flechtner, the owner of Speed Shop Design, built his first bike aged just 12 and has been building ever since. He honed his metal working skills learning to restore antique swords in Japan before returning to the US and establishing his bike building business. Beezerker acts as a showcase for his skills and earned him 5th place in the Freestyle class and 2nd in the Metric class at the 2010 World Championship of Custom Bike Building.

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Gary Maurer takes FreeStyle win in Detroit

Competing builders at the Ultimate Builder Custom Bike Show in Novi, Michigan

This past weekend saw the latest in the World Championship of Custom Bike Building program ‘Ultimate Builder’ affiliate events staged at the Progressive International Motorcycle Show at Novi, near Detroit, Michigan.

The win was taken by former World Championship competitor Gary Maurer, of Kustoms Inc and Evil Engineering (www.evil-engineering.com), the Michigan based belt drive manufacturer noted for their use of ‘herringbone’ style helical offset tooth belts in their primaries.

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Rick’s House of Custom Open Day

The showroom was busy throughout the entire day

RICK’S Motorcycles, who recently announced their appointment as an authorized Harley Davidson dealership, held its now traditional Open Day at itss House of Custom shop in October 2010 at Baden-Baden, Germany.

Each year the Open House gives Rick’s customers and custom bike enthusiasts the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes at one of Germany’s top custom bike fabricators. Throughout the day the team at Rick’s was on hand to take visitors through the workshop, production facility, CNC room and polishing shop. In the motorcycle workshop the visitors had a chance to see the first option available from Rick’s for the 2011 line-up of Softails, showing how the crew at Rick’s have adapted to technical changes including ABS and CAN bus sockets.

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Hardly Civilized

"Quantum Leap" from Hardly Civilized

QUANTUM Leap is a bike that is unique even in the world of custom bikes. Never before has a bike been driven by the front wheel and steered by the rear wheel. The creation of such a pioneering bike is the work of one man: Eddie Alexander Meeks of Hardly Civilized.

Eddie’s name may not be familiar in the custom industry, but he is certainly not new to the custom scene, as he explains:

“I quit the bike building business for 5 years because of boredom. I decided I would only build something so radical it would have to be a 180 degree turn from conventional, so swapping the drive and steering ends was my solution to end the boredom, and it worked.”

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