Peter Ström of Stockholm, Sweden, is just a perfect example of a Swedish chopperbuilder/lover and has built bikes that have graced many American magazines. But when it came time to build a bike for a loved one, his young stepdaughter Janine Nikula, he took a different approach and frankly, I think it paid off handsomely in a bike that’s gotta be a relatively easy, fun bike to...

  That’s just about exactly how El Paso’s Brian Sowder got to feature his customized ex-police FXR. Not that it’s not a cool real-world rider or a neat custom bike, there are a lot of them out there. It was an FXR. As soon as I saw the email from Mark about an FXR he was going to get photos of, I knew it was a go if I valued my job at all (and I do). Luckily (for me) Brian’s 1991...

  Gabe’s interest in motorcycles goes back a long way. “It comes from my father, Raul. As a kid in the late ‘70s, I remember sitting on my dad’s Yamaha 650 and pretending I was riding his bike. I also remember putting on a retro orange glittered helmet with a Cracker Jack sailor boy and his dog sticker and going for rides with my dad,” said Gabe. “As an adult my dad, my brother...

  Robert explained how this all came to be saying, “Cory wanted a hot rod FXR with a very street rod-ish look, lots of detail and style. We started with a whole bike, disassembled it, and stretched the frame two-inches, dropped the neck two-inches, widened the rear section one-inch, and extended the swingarm two-inches. With a final neck rake of 36-degrees, I used 2000 FXR4 lower...

I bought my first Harley-Davidson in 2003, a 1997 H-D Custom. In 2008, I decided I wanted to get it custom painted in Steelers colors. Unfortunately I knew I had to wait to do it as I was a single mom and my priority was my son. In 2010 I bought a 2005 Fat Boy. My son was grown up now, although still living at home. I started thinking more and more about the Steelers theme for my...

Jack and I differ about paint jobs and what we think is cool, for him, the nuttier the better it seems (maybe that’s the photographer in him), while I’m so much more boringly conservative about paint and the simpler, the better. But after taking a look at Jacko’s photo gallery of Rick Levitan’s Beatles Bike, the paint job by Chris Cruz Artistry (www.chriscruz.com) adorning the...

I walked back inside as Julio, one of Corbin’s master seat builders, was asking some guy if the aforementioned bike was his. He nods in the affirmative and I pipe up that it’s a weird some kind of Sportster. Julio says “That ain’t no Sportster” and walks with the owner out to the bike. As he approaches his eyes get wider and wider and he circles the...

Tracy DeLux of Charlotte, North Carolina apparently feels the same way with her neat looking customized 2001 Night Train built by her husband Chris. Tracy picked up her bike on eBay and Chris worked on it “a little at a time” until she had the super-sano real-world rider you see here. “I wanted the bike to look like a classic Old School Harley,” said Tracy. “I picked out a hot rod...

JF “Hi Jerry, I would like everything and I mean everything changed on my bike but what I need to register it. I want it wild, fast, and no-holds barred. Tell me when it’s finished and I’ll send a box truck full of money out to your Woodward, Oklahoma, shop.” JC “Sounds good. How big is your truck? JF “I’ve also got an 18-wheeler. . . ” JC “I’m your man! Call you in a month.”...

Making this possible is Jack’s convenient Kaiser, Missouri, home base that also happens to be the home of one of the country’s top hot rod and custom bike builders and a really nice guy to boot, Dave Jordan of Dave’s Rod Shop (www.davesrodshop.com). We’ve featured Dave’s work many times in print and online (see archives) and his high-quality work (including being a Ridler Award...