Tins and plastic came off and got sent away to Razor Custom Paint Shop in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The remaining carcass was handed over to Bob Wright at R&D Performance, and his building-mate at their shared Watertown, Minnesota, facility, Küryakyn’s Performance Division Manager, Mike Rowland. Bob went to work on the motor, installing the Cheap Thrill Hop Up kit. This...

  Vince’s been a real estate broker for 40 years. A tough job in an industry that’s been particularly hard hit by this economic beating we’re taking. But he remains upbeat and said, “Anytime I feel a little down, life or business is not going right, I just get on the bike and ride. There’s no better damn therapy than that.” He’s been riding motorcycles for 42 years, beginning...

  Unfortunately, Meade won’t be building many more head-turners, unless they’re his own. He got an offer on his shop he couldn’t refuse; shortly thereafter Motorcycle Mechanics Institute made him a lucrative deal to go back to the classroom. Some guys have all the luck. But it gets better. When a holiday rolls around, say Christmas, it’s reasonable to expect a nice, thoughtful...

Okay, that’s enough weird blabber for one afternoon. Sometimes, we’re not quite satisfied with the first waking look of our dream bikes. Actually, we seldom are. One builder called this the “Fiddle Factor,” that incessant, pesky need to fool with what we initially thought was perfection, as if it was an itch hiding just beneath the surface, begging for the next custom scratch. Rudy...

  Peter told me, “I appreciated very much that he would do all this work for me, but I decided no, no, this is not for me because I’m not a mechanic and I cannot fix it. I just wanted something simple and rideable.” In fact, according to Peter, he had to put up quite a fight against his friend’s generous intentions to turn his straightforward build into a world-class show bike. As...

  Darque vowed to right an unnatural wrong and remake this red beastie, despite her horrible disfigurement. After some 36-months of ordering parts, making parts fit, returning parts that did not work or fit with other custom parts, or couldn’t be stomped or hammered into submission, and changing builders three times, the Softail was a work of rolling art, a boy’s dream come true....

  The build started out with Frank purchasing a 2003 Night Train with a 95” kit already in it. Some sheetmetal work ensued with a stock replacement gas tank being stretched to fit. Slithering 2.25” pipes were fabricated and received baffles. Pedersen also constructed a steel front spoiler, and made the tail section and seat custom. According to Frank, choosing the correct triple...

Now, a Harley-Davidson Heritage Springer comes straight out of the factory with a huge bucket load of cutting-edge mechanical technology, and a retro-look that flaunts the long H-D heritage, but some owners prefer to take their factory OEM machines even further back into the past. One such owner is Ben Vielitz of Ritterhude, Germany. Ben bought his first motorcycle, a 1953 BMW...

Tom Ghobrial knew what he wanted. “When he first talked to us it was a 124” S&S, then he came at us with this because he has a V-Rod and loved it and we said well, we’ll give it a shot,” Savage’s Sean Snyder explained. “He requested our Savage Cycles Violator frame, although many changes were made to it.” The changes took place not on the sketchpad but as the build took shape....

  The crowds on opening day were kind of light under sunny ideal conditions. Cold nights in the high 30’s and cool days helped to keep the crowd at the leather and sweatshirt vendors busy while the girls at the bikini bike washes just had to tough it out. The usual venues, downtown Daytona’s Beach Street on the mainland and the Main Street Crawl mingle with the lookie...