- By Ron BetistPublished On: April 5, 2017
Regular readers already know the cool boy story of Ironwood Custom Motorcycles (if not, read more here). In short: owner Arjan van den Boom turned his hobby into a serious business. But if you build bikes for a living and have to maintain a couple of social media accounts with some […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: April 4, 2017
We all know the usual suspects for building a cafe racer, with the Honda CB-series and BMW R-series as the most popular platforms. Small displacement bikes are usually skipped, but in my opinion, a small bike can also be a great base for building a custom motorcycle. And if we’re talking about […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: April 2, 2017
While some may have a 12 month motorcycle season, here in Holland we’re glad if we can ride 6 or 7 months a year. Of course, there are some hardcore purists who ride all year, but unless you have a Husqvarna with ski’s, I wouldn’t recommend it. But the spring kicked […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 29, 2017
I usually complain about our six month riding season here in Holland, but when being snowed in every single year is a guarantee, it may be not so bad after all here. But when you’re not able to ride due to the weather, nice things can happen in the garage. The […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 28, 2017
The Suzuki SV650. My first real (road legal) motorcycle. I still can remember the day that we’ve picked up this half-fairing, sharp-lined v-twin machine. Not a lot of power, but lots of torque and fun for rookie riders who like to have a bit more “punch” than the regular four inline […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 27, 2017
To be honest, I have to say that bobbers are not a specific type of motorcycle that I love, but I must say that my perception slowly is changing in a positive direction. And if I take a look at the motorcycle market, I think we see a similar change in […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 24, 2017
Scramblers maybe one of the most popular type of custom bikes lately. You see them pop up everywhere and every self-respecting brand now offers a production model. While the scrambler motorcycle has its origin back in the 1920s, we may carefully say that Triumph started a “new wave” of Scrambler enthusiasm with the […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 23, 2017
The first successful naked bikes were launched in the 70s. There was a real battle between the four big Japanese (or big four if you like ;) brands in the naked bike market. Honda had their CB-series, Kawasaki the Z-series, Suzuki the GT-series and Yamaha was pretty successful with their RD-series. […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 22, 2017
Last week I’ve featured an incredible Moto Guzzi Griso Tracker which was a one of the finalists in Moto Guzzi’s “Lord of the Bikes”; a custom motorcycle battle. The Tracker was a winner in the 3rd round and here I have another one I’d really like to share with you. It’s actually […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 21, 2017
Ever heard of CCM Motorcycles? Chances are that you didn’t. Let me start with a brief history of the brand: CCM, short for Clews Competition Machines, was founded in 1971 by Alan Clews. Alan was a successful trails and cross rider in the 60s and raced mainly BSA machines. But when […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 20, 2017
VTR Customs is the in-house custom department of the official BMW dealer Stucki 2 Rad in Schmerikon, Switzerland. This independent custom shop specializes mainly in BMW conversions. No wonder that VTR Customs selected a current motorcycle from the range of models by the Bavarian manufacturer for participation in Essenza Sprints (check […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 17, 2017
While 100% electric vehicles are slowly adopted around the globe it’s only a matter of time before the EV-bike is embraced in our motorcycle culture. The largest EV-bike manufacturer is probably ZERO motorcycles, but smaller initiatives are emerging. Take this awesome Aero Racer EV we saw on the EICMA last year. The […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 16, 2017
The Honda CM-series may not be as familiar and legendary as the CB-series, but the Honda CM450 still is an interesting machine. The first bike in the CM-series was launched in 1979 and had a 395cc twin cylinder engine, which had a lot of similarities with the CB400T. But instead of […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 14, 2017
With two bikes from The Netherlands in such a short period it may be too early to call March “the month of the Dutch” but it sure is cool to see that the Holland is well represented this month. The bike you see here is built by Eelco in ‘t Zand, owner […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 13, 2017
If you’re a motorcycle brand without a custom motorcycle battle, you don’t fit in anymore. The last couple of years, several brands had their own battle: we’ve had the Custom Rumble from Ducati, Project Scout from Indian and Operation Octane from Victory Motorcycles. Moto Guzzi started in 2016 with “Lord of Bikes” […]
- By Ron BetistPublished On: March 12, 2017
With every bike from XTR Pepo I can start with a story about how amazing his work is, that he’s a true legend and a master builder. Just like this time ;). Pepo is simply one of the best custom bike builders out there. Most of his latest builds are bikes inspired […]