1982 Honda CB750 - Left Hand Cycles

The smell of the campfire. The feel of sleeping rough. The taste of freshly caught trout. And the silence... the pure, natural silence. Sound good? Yes? Too bad you'll never hear it, because on a bike like this all you'd know would be the echoing tear of the unmuffled 4-into-1, the smell of wet leaves on exhaust, and the taste of flies in your teeth. Who wants to commune with Mother Nature when you could tear her a new one on Left Hand Cycle's latest creation, the LHC#2?

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1974 Honda CL360 - Josh Mott Racing

There's a saying that goes, “old Harleys never die, they just get faster.” Which, of course, is utter rubbish. Most of the Harleys I've known barely work fresh out of the box, let alone when they get old. Find and old HD in a barn and you'll have about as much chance of getting it running there and then as you'd have finding someone with good taste at a Nickleback gig. But the same is definitely not true for the works of one Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki-gaisha. We're not sure what dark, samurai magic the man possessed but it seems from where we stand, just about anything Soichiro Honda touched somehow gained the strength to never, ever, EVER die. Just ask Josh from Boise, Idaho's JMR Racing.

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1984 BMW K100 - BSK SpeedWorks

If you are anything like me, you'll always have your latest ‘bike of interest.’ To the uninitiated, that's the bike that is currently catching your eye. The one that you look at first when you surf eBay or thumb through the local classifieds. And for me right now, the bike is definitely the BMW K100. What it is about the K that really pushes my buttons, I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's the ludicrous car engine laying on it's side in the frame. Maybe it's the shaft drive, or maybe it's just the jaw-dropping mass of the things. Whatever the case, if I started a new project bike today, a Beemer K100 would be it. And it's not just me who's thinking along these lines. Take, for instance, one Ben Kingham of BSK SpeedWorks in Bedfordshire, England. He too has the bug, and I think it's fair to say that he been bitten worse than I have. A lot worse.

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1976 Honda CB500T - Caffeteria 36

Written by Ian Lee.

It feels so much more meaningful when you do something yourself. It’s even better when others have a chance to take enjoyment in what you have decided to do. And to be able to affect a whole area’s bike culture is an amazing task in itself. Sam Maksimovsky – who is only 16 years old – of Caffeteria 36 has done this, and along with building up the café racer scene in Moscow, has built a bike which is testament to his passion for this style of bike. Taking a 1976 Honda CB500T and his father’s advice, he has built into it his own styling cues, based on his fondness for the culture of the 60s & 70s. Oh, and having nine months of Russian winter to build the bike came in handy as well. 

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AD&RM’s ‘85 Kawasaki KH100 - “The Pickle”

If you're anything like us, you baby your rides - probably more than you baby yourself, or even your partner. Bike covers, wax, polishing, and a nice warm garage to keep them out of the elements. But you can't help but feel a little precious when you stumble upon a story like that of Ryan Wall's. After rescuing a bike that was going to be trashed by a mate, he left it's already shot and damage carcass under a tree in his folk's tropical Brisbane yard for 6 years before he decided to make it his next project. Meet the bike that beat the rust and just got fast - AD&RM's ‘The Pickle.’

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1994 Suzuki DR650 Street Dracker - Blitz Motorcycles

Written by Ian Lee.

The French always seem to be on the forefront of fashion. Clothes, perfume, and now custom motorcycles. Not that I pay much attention to the first two. The latest fashion in custom cycles appears to be to use a dirt bike as the base for a build. Rugged, simple design makes for an excellent platform to build on, they’re cheap as well, and the ability to get that big bore thumper note all add to the desirability. Blitz Motorcycles knows this, and has used this thinking to the best of their abilities to create a level of custom rarely seen, all from the starting point of a simple trail bike. It just makes sense, oui?

Taking a 1994 Suzuki DR650, the bike was completely stripped down, and the frame shortened by 35cm. Added to the frame at this time was the electrical box, somewhere to keep all the important bits that make the bike spark, and all without adding bulk to the aesthetic. The frame was then powder coated in shiny orange, along with a few engine and brake components. This is what really shows the theme of the colour scheme, which Blitz describes as "Lemans GT40 on acid". 

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Saint's ‘72 Triumph Tiger - “Tesla”

Of all the inventors that have taken their place in the annals of history, few have had quite the impact that Nikola Tesla has. Along with the many real-life inventions he patented or designed for others, Westinghouse and Thomas Edison included, there's a slew of wild rumours that have become associated with the man. Some say that he invented a machine that could display thoughts like a mental movie projector. Others say he mastered the technology to transmit electricity wirelessly like radio waves. All we can safely say now is that the man understood and saw things on a level us mere mortals could only dream of. Which brings us to the latest creation of Jeff Yarrington's Saint Motor Company. Now, we're not saying that Jeff's a mad genius or anything, but let's face it, anyone who can conceive of and build a bike like this has to be more than a little Dr. Emmet Brown upstairs, yes?

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Kawasaki KZ 400 - Free Kustom Cycles

Although we're about as religious as Karl Marx around this here blog, we thought that for Easter we'd like to show you bike from a country that would understand the irony of celebrating the religious holiday about resurrection with a rebirth of a slight different kind. Here's the latest build from Barcelona's Free Kustom Cycles, a bunch of guys who obviously know a trick or two about bringing things back to life. It's it a miracle? Probably not, but by gosh it sure is pretty.

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Ruleshaker’s Honda CB750 - “Old Spirit”

If you ever found yourself riding in France and the whim took you to see just how far you could go west-bound and down before you hit Spain, sooner or later you'd probably end up in Bayonne. Being the last real French city before travellers reach the border, it's famous as a stop over on the route from Paris to Madrid. It's also well-know for it's chocolate, ham, and as being the oldest bull fighting city in France. But we think it's probably time that something else was added to the list. Thanks to the city's Ruleshaker Motorcycles, it seems to us that killing angry cows or eating cured swine just got a whole lot less interesting, due to a certain new Honda in town.

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