My original thought was an old Honda inline-four, but then I found this rather forlorn looking Gold Wing. I got a few Internet pictures to give me some ideas and inspiration and before I knew it, the project kind of took off. I really did not have a grand plan in mind and it just came together piece by piece. The original bike was a full-dress 1987 Interstate model that looked...

  My original thought was an old Honda inline-four, but then I found this rather forlorn looking Gold Wing. I got a few Internet pictures to give me some ideas and inspiration and before I knew it, the project kind of took off. I really did not have a grand plan in mind and it just came together piece by piece. The original bike was a full-dress 1987 Interstate model that looked...

    The first thing most builders do who want to take a step out of the V-twin  box is find an older Triumph twin and get to work making an acceptable to most V-twin freaks period-correct British vertical twin chop. Not Lee, though, as he took the Japanese vertical twin alternative, a Yamaha XS 650, and began a build that has a shimmer of board track with a touch of high-zoot show...

     Ricky Gonzalez of Mooresville, North Carolina, is a total first-class Ducati freak, but that doesn’t mean the only mods he’ll do is change what polish he’s using on his Ducatis. Personally, I think he’s at his happiest when he’s cutting and welding one of Bologna’s finest into something that he can truly call his own. Take the late model air-cooled Ducati 900SS Desmo engine...

And, no, to answer the question running around in your head, it is not an automatic conversion of some kind, but a production model (CB750A) made by Honda for reasons that are still unclear to me back in 1977-78. They even gave it the sexy name of Hondamatic, sexy in an appliance-like way. My guess as to how this came about is that the builder got the original donor so cheap he...

     What I do know is that this bike called I.R.I.S. built by Bronson Willard of Southern Metal Choppers in lovely Austin, Texas, kinda falls into that chicken versus egg thing, but not in the usual way. And “NOOOOOOOO!” before all you self-righteous keepers of the true riding faith start pecking away at your key boards of eternal death, this bike was not built for cross-country...

     What he was looking at was the original Suzuki B-King concept bike which looked about as whacky as anything the Japanese or anybody had ever made or were thinking of making. I probably should explain that what got Mark all excited was that it was purported to be a naked bike powered by a supercharged Suzuki Hayabusa engine and good for around 250hp. Mark loves numbers and he...

I first saw this bike last year at the Charlotte Easyriders Show and then again last year at the Smoke Out in Rockingham, North Carolina. My first chopper was a BSA Lightning so it’s no surprise I fell in love with the bike. Since it hadn’t been featured in a magazine, I felt that it was overdue to be showcased. The bike has done well in competition. It was a winner at Smoke Out X...

  This isn’t one of those cafes that just sports a set of clip-ons, rearsets, and a different seat and tail section to make it “special”, but a truly ground-up custom. Everything has been touched, tweaked, and replaced until the only thing left of the donor bike is the very basic engine architecture. Brian Schimke of TPJ Customs fabbed up the frame and swingarm with sport bike...

  I was born in a trunk. Mama died and my daddy got drunk. Left me here to die alone In the middle of Tobacco Road. Anyway, I’m sure you remember that little ditty now, but what’s that got to do with the story you say? Well it’s a lot like the vast piles of metric bikes that were used and abused back in the ‘70s and left to die alone on some tobacco road of their own. But not this...