Written by Martin Hodgson

So it’s pressure you’re after; how does building a custom bike for the founder of the Backyard Axe Throwing League sound? Oh, and he also owns the incredible Dyna Guerilla by Rough Crafts that the new machine must be able to match and complement. For Rob Chappell of Origin8or Custom Cycle Co it was barely pause for concern. Because from the earliest of ages he’s been drawing up designs and then spinning spanners. So it comes as no surprise that the 1970 Triumph Bonneville they call ‘BATL’ had everyone smiling when it finally rolled out of his Ontario, Canada based workshop.

For all their marketing bucks, there’s one thing the motorcycle manufacturers’ money will never be able to buy. It’s the same stuff that Burt Monroe, Giacomo Agostini and Rollie Free have in spades. Authenticity. And for Triumph, their authenticity mostly revolves around Steve McQueen’s star…

When you’re a builder who has done it all and get to build amazing machines everyday for your clients, occasionally you need to set yourself a challenge so daring you just might fail. When it comes to his personal projects Rob Chappell admits he can get easily bored…

It is home to the 21st century’s most vibrant and powerful economy, with millions of high tech products created there every single day. Yet China is also a land with a rich history, a remarkable culture many millennia old and Confucianism that has spread great wisdom to the world…

I’ve been obsessed with custom motorcycles for the last fourteen years. And no small amount of that infatuation has been directed towards the Triumph Bonneville. I’ve got an entire folder on my home computer dedicated to the model. Thousands of Bonnie photos modified in every way you can imagine…

Red Clouds Collective actually make waxed canvas and leather goods out of their workshop in South East Portland, Oregon. And while their days are filled with stitching and designing gorgeous products for their store by night they flip the sign to ‘closed’ at the front door and build motorcycles like this…

Riding your motorcycle flat-out for nine miles across a shimmering carpet of hard packed salt is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re into custom builds and high-speed runs then you can’t look past Lake Gairdner – Australia’s very own version of the famous Bonneville Salt flats…

When is a Triumph Bonneville not actually a Bonneville? When it’s a Thunderbird T6 that raced and wowed the Bonneville salt flats in the sport’s golden era, that’s when. A full 6 years before the model name was dreamt up, a 13-year-old Californian named Bobby Sirkegian…

It’s a fine line between perfection and obsession. One that is probably crossed once you find yourself customising a bike more than once. After achieving what most of us would find almost impossible to do the first time, Analog’s Tony Prust took a perfectly amazing ‘68 Triumph Bonneville bobber he built 10 years ago…

There are plenty of interesting brand combinations in the world of motorcycles. You’ve got the classic Tritons, Tribsas and Norvins. Then there’s JAPS and Broughs. Hell, BMW and Peugeot even teamed up at one point. But I’m pretty confident when I say that we’ve never, ever featured a bike…