So how old do you think this bike is? Here’s a clue (maybe). It’s a bike shot by Mr. Cofano at the Charlotte Easyriders Show and it looks like the Cofano-approved white paint with skull graphics panels is new and possibly still drying on the show stand. Yeah, not much of a clue, so try this one. This white and black beauty is old enough to get its own license. Better? Okay I’ll cut...

   Yeah, there’s some serious Old School spirit going on at Prism Supply and the best part about it is that it isn’t forced or retro-hip in any way. Zack and Jake are just two old spirits trapped in a young guys bodies and they’re having the time of their life building custom motorcycles. Along with a bunch of motorcycling friends with the same attitudes as theirs, they’re living...

      As far as I’m concerned you can have them both in the same package. To illustrate that point just take a good gaze at the 2012 Harley-Davidson Road Glide that Performance Machine has heavily customized from there long list of aftermarket bits and pieces. That ain’t no factory bike anymore and it’s something that would not be too hard to duplicate in your own garage as long as...

    The frame is a Rolling Thunder Love That Radius Bend frame (yes, that’s what it’s called) featuring plus-five-inches in the backbone, minus-one-inch in the downtube, and a rake of forty-three degrees. Along with the frame I got a Rolling Thunder’s springer front end as well as a final touch, a custom tank built to my dimensions to go with the stretched backbone. Sam at Rolling...

   Now I don’t think that Aki Kakamoto, owner of Hog Killers Inc. in Hawaiian Gardens, California, built this for the Yule time wishes of us, but it’s a pleasant thought anyway. What Aki’s done, time after time, is knock out a retro chop that’ll make you wish you were 18 again, but this time with a lot of money. Hey, if you’re gonna dream big, might as well go all the way. But...

     Breaking it down in my world, something old is obviously that stunning1955 H-D Panhead engine, something new could be the rear disc brake, something borrowed happens anytime you build a ground-up custom, something blue works out nicely with that lovely blue paintjob and a sixpence in your shoe is probably what Ryan has left to his name after building this bike called...

    Misfit is a repeat offender on Barnett’s Magazine Online with a slew of custom Harley-Davidson Road Kings like the Less Is More Road King, Chopper Or Custom Bagger Road King?, That’s A Road King?, Naked And Blown Road King and an outlier non-Road King bagger Element 13. It really is worth checking out those four Misfit Road Kings as each one is honestly different from the...

   With all the ups and downs the custom industry’s faced in the last decade, passion probably got a lot more builders through the tough times than sharp business savvy. I don’t think there was a builder out there after the crash of 2008 (and even before) that didn’t wonder if the party had come to a complete stop. But, a lot of them just hung in there doing what they do best and...

 Then there’s what I think of as the traditional way of building which is really Old School without trying to be even though that was the intention. To do it right, you have to be a real scholar of the genre that exploded after Easy Rider hit the screen on July 14, 1969. Choppers were cool and people built them by the shipload. Some were crazy, but some were a product of the times...

   Take this mystery ride that Barnett’s photog-extraordinaire, Jack Cofano, happened upon at the recent Smoke Out 17. Where in the hell does this bike fit into the current scheme of things? It’s rough and it’s ready and couldn’t be a more attractive hard core custom if there ever was one, but I bet it came in at a decent budget price. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it was...