I started my bike building journey in Croatia in 2002, when I had the urge to change something on my bike because I wanted it to be a little special and not just a boring, stock ride. Later, my first real custom build was shown in the European magazine ‘Custombike.’ For me, this was a real milestone in my life, and it pushed me to start my own custom bike company so I could do what I loved full-time.

The International Six Days Trial is a true giant amongst motorcycle races. Celebrating its 100 year anniversary in 2013, it claims the prize for the world’s oldest off-road motorcycle race. Originally held in Carlisle in the north of England, in the Seventies it held its first race outside Europe. BMW put their brand where their mouth was and entered a four man factory team, including the renown Herbert Schek, in the race. To celebrate the event, France’s Lucky Cat Garage have come up with an amazing R80/7 that pays homage to BMW’s bold, muddy efforts during those six long days in 1973.

The more you ride and the more bikes you own, the more you realise that pretty much every bike is a compromise. If it goes fast, chances are it’ll be uncomfortable. If it’s great on the highway, it’ll suck on the twisties. And if it’s old, it’ll be totally unreliable. But the beauty of bike customising is that you don’t have to blindly take what you’re given. On the contrary, you can pretty much have it all. Which is just what the Boxer Metal client who now owns this ‘Weiss & Grun’ BMW 1982 R100T asked for. You name it, this cafe can pretty much do it.

Keen-eyed readers of these pages will no doubt be familiar with Dutch motorcycle workshop Moto Adonis. Just a few months back they turned out this spectacular R1100S build that’s equal parts beautiful and terrific to ride. This time around Daan Borsje and his team have returned to the marque, crafting this incredible cafe racer based around a venerable 1987 BMW K75 tourer.

BMW R-series customs. Go on, say it. You’ve seen more of them than Trump’s seen golf courses. You’ve seen more beefed-up boxers than a New York gym. You’ve seen more loud R’s than an overloaded pirate ship. We get it. But when we saw this little R100RS from France’s JRM Motorcycle, we were intrigued. Knobby tires? Nope. Bobber seat? Nope again. Murdered out? Extra nopes. Contrary to all expectations, this one has a road-racer-meets-motard vibe that we might just be digging. A lot.

There must be something in the Virginia air. When you consider the state’s track record for creating great bike builders, their batting average ain’t half bad. With shops like Classified Moto, Cognito Moto and MotoHangar all hailing from the Lover’s state, there seems to be little doubt that they are head and shoulders above most Eastern states when it comes to custom bike coolness. And as if to rub your nose in it, here’s perennial favourites MotoRelic with another killer build. Fresh from their place in our most recent Bike of the Year Award, we’d like you to meet their take on the build platform du jour, the mighty (square) BMW K100.

This old 1986 BMW R80RS has had four iterations. In its original form it was a tourer, designed to ferry middle-aged German men to Paris for wine tasting, to Madrid for lunch, or Kiev for sex tourism. Then Tattoo Customs got their grubby hands on it, stripped it back, painted it black and stuck Firestones on it, dubbing it a mixture of a cafe racer and a bratstyle bike – a ‘Brafe’. But the Firestones went all Firestoney and dumped the bike onto the road. So the third model was born: a nose down cafe racer with a psychedelic paint scheme. And now it’s been changed again – this time into knockout Bultaco-inspired flat tracker. Fourth time’s a charm.

Think about American motor racing legend Eddie Lawson for a moment. You’re probably picturing him on the early 80s Kawasaki Z1000 he made famous. Or maybe it’s the mid 80s 500cc World Championship Marlboro Yamaha. Or, at a stretch, it could be his Rothman’s Honda of the late 80s. And unless you’d had one too many disco biscuits, a BMW boxer is probably the last bike that was on your mind. That’d never work. Or would it? Maybe we’ve all had one too many biscuits, because from the moment we laid eyes on this Eddie-inspired No. 21 R1200R, the latest build from Switzerland’s VTR Customs, we were smitten. Eddie on a Beemer? Human sacrifice? Dogs and cats living together? Count us in.

Moto Adonis is a curiously named workshop based out of Roosendaal in the Netherlands. They’ve cut their teeth on a few staples of the scene over the last few years, producing a Virago cafe racer and some tidy old airheads. This time around it’s another crouched down, cafe’d up special but built around a rare sight in the custom scene – a late-model 2004 BMW R1100S – the dad jeans of sport bikes.

You can always tell when a shop reaches the next level. It starts with the outside-the-square thinking and the inspired bike builds that you totally weren’t expecting. Just when you’re thinking they will do ‘X’, they’ll come at you with ‘Y’. And a bloody good ‘Y’ at that. Almost like a guitarist coming back from a midnight meeting with a mysterious stranger at a crossroads on the edge of town, you’ll find that they’re suddenly playing on a whole new level. But the last and most telling trait is their through-put. A shop that’s perfected their skills seemingly has no problems sending you a killer bike every other week. And right now, that shop is Austria’s NCT Motorcycles. Here’s their latest deal with the devil, an amazing BMW R100RS scrambler they call the ‘Buffalo’.