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...

  Work started at his shop, Chandler Originals in Lake Worth, Florida, the old fashioned way by cutting up a perfectly good Paughco frame. “We cut the ass end off and we ended up using only the wishbone part. A lot of people think it used to be a softail frame,” said Adam. “My guy Gumby (Roy Hall) and I made those plates so it would be structurally sound and not break. I took a...

Big Dog Motorcycles’ 2009 Bulldog Back in 1546, English playwright John Heywood coined the famous phrase “Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and haue your cake?” (You can’t have your cake and eat it too). Well old Johnnie boy wouldn’t have said that if he was alive today and wanted a bagger with bitchin’ bravado standard, all he’d have to do is check out Big Dog Motorcycle’s...