Add Lightness: A wild Softail street tracker from SMCO
Suicide Machine Company build machines that go fast and turn well. Brothers Aaron and Shaun Guardado have a taste for speed, and…
Read more »Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson is an icon of American culture and the most popular marque for custom builders. Shortly after the company was founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, customizers started bobbing, chopping and dirt tracking the famous V-twins.
After WW2 Harley motorcycles were at the center of the bobber craze, and kept their lead as Californian bikers turned to choppers in the late 1950s. The 45-degree engines have their own nicknames and folklore: from flatheads, knuckleheads, panheads and shovelheads to today’s Evolution and Milwaukee-Eight motors.
The Sportster is the basis for more Harley-Davidson customs than any other model. Originally fitted with an ‘Ironhead’ motor, it turned 60 years old in 2017. It’s probably the single most customized motorcycle on the planet, and certainly has the largest supply of aftermarket parts.
Doragon: A Harley Sportster 1200 custom from Dubai
I didn’t see many motorcycles when I paid a brief visit to Dubai a few years ago. The streets were full of…
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XR338: The compact street tracker that Harley needs
It’s strange times at Harley-Davidson. Earlier this year, rumors and spy shots of a small capacity bike for the Indian market started…
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Custom Bikes Of The Week: 16 August, 2020
A rare Harley shovelhead Liberator spotted in France, a punchy Suzuki ‘DR Big’ from Brazil, an enormous Honda CB1300 roaming Bangkok, and…
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Custom Bikes Of The Week: Best of The No Show
The global pandemic hasn’t just shut down big events like Intermot and EICMA—a slew of grassroots custom shows have hit the pause…
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Dr. Skin: An S&S bobber built for a dermatologist
Like many accomplished customizers, Martin Becker has lived an eventful life. For almost twenty years he’s been building bikes in the beautiful…
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Kumram: A custom Heritage Softail Classic from Bangkok
The Heritage Softail Classic is the kind of bike most non-riders think of when they hear ‘Harley’—oodles of chrome, saddlebags, riveted leather…
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Korean style: An S&S shovelhead from Winterless Craft
We’ve never run a feature on a bike from South Korea before. The local custom scene is tiny, and builders are heavily…
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Thunder Chaser: Rough Crafts’ 10th Anniversary Softail
It’s been ten years since Winston Yeh launched Rough Crafts, less than a year after Bike EXIF started up. It didn’t take…
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Purpose Built Moto turns the Sportster into a dual sport
Custom motorcycles don’t always need to be practical… unless, of course, you need a purpose built machine that can handle a two…
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Building a Street 750 custom with a No. 8 wire mentality
In rural New Zealand, where I am writing this, you often hear that someone has a ‘number eight wire mentality.’ ‘Number 8’…
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Built Under Pressure: HardNine’s Harley XLCR tracker
Building a custom bike is often beset with difficulties: there can be unreasonable client demands, unforeseen technical issues, cashflow problems, and in…
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