But the boy sure could keep them running and the boy sure could ride the living hell out of them. Even when mirrors and other various body parts kept falling off, he’d just pop them back while he was underway and charge into the next turn very smoothly I might add. He could make a POS BMW go like stink while I wouldn’t want to ride it around a block. When I pointed out what...

       Okie and I meet for coffee everyday to straighten out the world’s problems and it’s an excuse to get in a ride early. Lately, though, Okie had been driving his truck and when I asked why he said, “I don’t want to wear out my bike just riding here and not even really warming it up. Besides, it’s too big for these tourist-filled back roads.” Made sense to me. At his request, I...

  Most Hartz Bros builds usually involve keeping a stock frame intact with a bolt-on or welded-on hardtail adding a bit of spice to not only keep the cost very reasonable and the titling easy, but also to make any changes reversible if the owner gets the restoration bug. That was definitely not the case with our feature bike they built for John Young called John’s High Dollar Chop....

  The Steven Project from tbcworks on Vimeo.    The build of this bike began when Tim Bradham, owner of TBC Handcrafted Motorcycles in Fayetteville, North Carolina, answered an ad on craigslist for a 1978 Honda CB 750 thinking it might be a good flip for the shop. Speaking to the seller, he found out it was his old friend Dennis Robinson who was selling his recently-deceased...

       Such is the case with this Ducati bobber that’s bob-bob-bobbed its way out of a shop known for Harley-Davidson builds especially of the vintage variety. Pat Tozzi of Green Devil Garage in Virginia Beach, Virginia, recently showed his Harley chops on Barnett’s Magazine Online with his 1969 Flatside Shovelhead Chopper in Copper feature article that was a wowza moment in atomic...

     First off, I gotta say it’s a damn good looking build in spite of it being based around an ubiquitous CB 750 inline four cylinder engine. And, if you’re any student of history, you know that there were at least as many Honda choppers around back in the day as Harleys so it has some street cred. Maybe the fact that there were so many of these around led to their big chopper...

   There’s a bike builder I’ve never met or even had a conversation with that seems to share my cheap ass “No man can live on cheeseburgers alone” theory. That guy, Eric Allard of FNA Custom Cycles in Lakeland, Florida, unconsciously subscribes to my “… cheeseburgers alone” theory except his cheeseburgers are motorcycles. You want a great Harley-based custom? Eric can make you a...

    Now at first you might just be mistaken into thinking this was a 1972 Norton Commando with a couple of cosmetic changes, but there’s a lot more going on here than just that. The frame is not Norton’s famed Isolastic rubber-mount frame, but a rare Redline (of later BMX fame) oil-tank-in spine chromoly frame. If you don’t believe me, check out the oil filler between the steering...

      This worked-over Yamaha XS 650 vertical twin has been used a bazillion times as fodder for builds ranging from a street tracker, café racer, chopper, bobber, brat bike or whatever you got. It’s a tough, compact (although heavy) torquey SOHC mill that’s powered Yamahas of various guises from 1968 to 1985 so there’s plenty of those still around holding up garages, sheds, and...

     Okay, okay, I’m gushing, but it’s pretty restrained Palermo-gushing for me. Yeah, I got a problem, but have you taken a look yet at Jack Cofano’s photos of this BMW-powered custom?  You don’t have to be a BMW freak or even like anything about the Bavarian boxer, but you have to appreciate whatever the hell is going on there. You’ve never seen anything like this before and if...