Well it’s about damn time Barnett’s Magazine Online is featuring a custom trike and it’s even better it’s based on a Motor Company-built trike and not a conversion. We’ve been hoping to feature more custom trikes especially since the introduction of Harley-Davidson’s Tri Glide and especially the sporty Freewheeler model, but they’ve been a little far and few over the past couple of...

     Unfortunately we don’t have any info on who owns it, but whoever it is, he’s one lucky guy. It’s bones are a 1959 Harley-Davidson Servi-Car in use by the Patterson, New Jersey, police department before someone got their hands on it and customized the hell out of it. I’d guess it was probably just an old meter maid bike that went to auction and sold for a song like they all did...

    Rodney Smith, owner of Southeastern Customs in Supply, North Carolina, is a total gear head with a love for hot rods and motorcycles so it’s no surprise to find out that he too loves anything Shelby. Building a Shelby Cobra themed trike he calls Shelster is not that far out of the ordinary as it’s about as elemental as one of Carroll’s ‘rorty roadsters. How he got to that point...

     Matt Ruthig, owner of Gateway Customs Trikes & Cycles in Odessa, Florida, just might unknowingly subscribe to that formula and his business seems to totally reflect it with this radical show-winning trike build. When he’s not busy building radical custom two and three wheeled motorcycles, he’s really busy converting stock Harleys into trikes with his company’s own bolt-on...

   T.D. Ward of Rods & Rides Motorcycle Company in St. Louis, Missouri, is one of those guys. Oh I’m sure he could do a regular old trike conversion for you, but the way he rolls he probably wouldn’t on sheer principal. The good news about one of T.D.’s trikes is that you get to keep your old bike as is. What? Yup, like all things T.D., it starts with a bunch of heavy-duty...

        The flamed trike you see before you is the work of Steve “Big Daddy” Stirewalt of Dirt & Street Cycles in Rockwell, North Carolina. Steve’s been a busy lad owning and running Dirt & Street for the past 35 years while also winning numerous AMA titles dating back to 1966. I don’t know if all that racing over 40+ years and the inevitable tumbles led to his interest...

        The part about swapping a perfectly good bike that basically does what I want it to for another that’s quicker, cooler, flashier, more comfortable, etc. is what makes it so financially dangerous. I know all my soft spots and can’t win an argument with myself if the thrill is gone. Sometimes there are practical reasons like Lori Jordan’s reasons for upping the ante on her...

       Steve wouldn’t have it any other way as he’s just a guy with a taste for extremes even in a custom world where extreme is just a starting point. Take his CBX six-cylinder chopper you can see (and hear!) in this video for instance, there can’t be too many CBX-powered choppers floating around in the world, but he’s got one and it’s a pip. Might not be your cup of tea, but you...

       In the meantime, one emailer/later phone caller brought up an interesting point and that had to do with the lack of custom trikes out there and his solution for it. As anyone with a pulse and an interest in custom bikes knows, there’s a glut of low (really, really low in most cases) mileage, basically brand new custom bikes from the crazed early 2000s...

       What makes the V8 trike so special in this case is that it’s really easy to ride in normal circumstances, believe it or not, it really shockingly is. But, it’s also easy to ride hard, fast, stupidly, whatever you want to call it, but it is easy and it is wicked, wicked fun. Fire it up, whack the throttle wide open like an idiot (although a happy idiot) and let those big...