Events

Texas - One Lone Star? We give 'em 5! Everything is bigger in Texas, starting with our anticipation of the Born Free Show, Lone Star edition. For the third time now the iconic chopper party fills the bowl-like Yellow Rose Canyon, somewhere in the back of beyond between Mt. Enterprise and Henderson. If you're not familiar with the neighbourhood, it's 150 miles out of Dallas, Tx, just short of the Louisiana state line.

The Old Shovel Got Soaked. We got soaked not once, but three times :) Once across France to the Ferry, bc putting off putting on the rain gear for too long. Second time going from the South Coast to the Trip Out. And the third time on the way home. Foul weather indeed. When we started out, the radar images looked menacing. And then it got worse. Posing again that old question: why are we doing this! The good news was: the Trip Out itself was miraculously living in a bubble of warm mediterranean air all weekend while the rest of the country got seriously drenched. It was so absolutely good to roll through the gate, the clothes still clammy from the rain earlier on, and see the golden meadows of Euston Park, dry as they were under that blue East Anglia sky, already filled with hundreds of tents. Ah: to get out of those wet clothes! Changed into some dry clothes, hung the soggy kit over the bike to dry, and then went to the bar for a truly well deserved beer.

No one can tell if all the magnificent old clunkers that gather every year at the Old & Proud have been piloted to Calafell just because the paella they serve there from roundabout-sized iron pans is so otherwordly tasty. The queues were so long, that our local dude Mattias "LeBeef" Andersson could not wait a second longer and opted for a boccadillo con butifarra (a sort of regional sausage in a bap) to keep his body in top form, aided by a few pints of beer, which also helped to sharpen his check-out-the-bikes sensorium.

Prowlersfest or bust. When the "Prowlers" call, we don’t procrastinate, we roll. Kitzingen (zip code 97318) is only 30 kilometers from our headquarters and the parts / jewelry / leather craftshop „318Prowlers“ was having a party over there, so we saddled the ponies with fond memories of last year’s bash. The oil had barely reached operating temperature when we rolled into the lovely venue, ready for the first of many cold beers to cool down our sun-heated noggins and many long chats.

Picture Book Test Ride The plan is simple enough: give the Baja Twins an airing in the almost Baja-like desert outside San Diego, to road-test a few new parts. We plan to go down to the garage on Thursday night to do some last minute tweaking on the bikes, and with an early start on Friday morning we’ll leave San Diego, Ca. heading North-North-East for the Mojave desert. Just before reaching Joshua Tree, we’ll take a left turn to Pioneertown, a former film set posing as an old timey frontier town, built in 1946 by Hollywood big money. There’s an actual working bar / restaurant / music venue named „Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace“ and a convincing philosophy: "bbq, bands, bikers, booze, boots, music, mezcal, families, friends + vets’ together at one magical desert roadhouse". Who could say no to that! Since last year they also sport a major chopper party.

Loads of Wheels, not so much Waves. It’s not quite the world’s beard balm-and-surfboard mount-using hipster crowd hotspot by the shining sea, but maybe that’s the reason why here, not far from the "Biarritz of the North", Bremen, at "Wheels & Wake" in Nethen, the vibes are way different. It’s all there: the wheels, the beach and the waves. With a twist.
It’s all about wheels at the Friday night flat track event on MSC Moorwinkelsdamm’s own dirt track. Fierce eliminations are happening in the afternoon. The weather is nordic and slightly moist, but the crowd of riders is going all out, lots of spectators, lots of runs. Racing fun until the floodlight came on.

A Tank Full of Ideas Very few bike shows can actually make good on the promise contained in their name as FUEL Cleveland can. Everything here is fuel: Fuel for phantasies, fuel for wrenching, fuel for just going for a ride. And above all, for the joy of appreciating artfully built motorcycles.
Accordingly, there's an invitation policy at FUEL: if you're a builder of original chops, are the owner of rare bikes, or an artist, know how to handle a camera or have other specialty talents somehow intertwined with cycling culture, chances are you'll end up in the grounds of Hale Farm & Village (near Cleveland) with your work.

The Verdict: Wrenching for Life When in the 70s the Factory named their lineup "Freedom Machines", little did they know that this here chopper show venue would be the harshest contrast imaginable with their lofty motto : The "Party at the Pen" brings an exquisite selection of custom bikes behind bars in a former prison: today a historic site, between 1872 and 1973 a working slammer, the Old Idaho State Penitentiary.
Sensitive souls may think it kinda weird to walk around, beer in hand, to appreciate artfully curated motorcycles, where in former times felons spent the rest of their lives and even death penalties were executed. But who could say no to Luke’s invitation (thanks, Luke!), and we bravely bore the moral dilemma.

Two Years, Two Wheels, Twogether "Avoid Autobahns" was the order of the day, even when our destination was SCHNELLham, meaning FASTtown in German. So we took our time when going to the Cycloparty. We had a good look at our roadmaps and found a long and winding track on Bavarian backcountry roads, ending close to the border to Austria. The road was dry, the guys were guiding their rumbling, snorting and thrumming Harleys over the small roads Niederbayern is famous for, and there were no breakdowns, no hassle. Two years ago we were here the last time, when they had a beach party. In the mean time flooding had washed away the beach, and everything was kinda overgrown, so no beach :)
They did however have a big wooden vat for those desperate for a swim, all others crowded round the "Sissy Bar", where an effective rehydration process made necessary by the long ride could be sustained.

Banked Turns Into the Past and Back When they announced a race meet steeped in tradition, more or less round the corner from W&W headquarters, and to top it off the name’s "Full Throttle Racing Fun", we just needed to have a look. Pointing to "full throttle" in the literal sense is the venue: it’s a racing oval with banked turns just like in the good ole times in the 1910s when board track racers in the USA drove their murdersickles around ovals that had been built like European bicycle ovals. Classic motodromes were popping up left and right, some of them still in use for NASCAR racing. But here, on the Darmstadt velodrome it’s a lot less NASCAR, and a lot more racing FUN, due to the extremely mixed field of vehicles: Classes such as "cult scooter", "mopeds up to 50 cc", "Velosolex", "Postwar/Wirtschaftswunder", "historic automobile" and "three wheeler" made sure of a varied afternoon.

Rolling with the Dudes It takes a special kind of Harley rider to go on a Superrally. The keyword here is "long distance". Every year there’s a new destination on the map of Europe - "to discover other countries and cultures … from the salmon up North to the pasta down South ", at least that's what it says on the FH-DCE Super Rally® website, as the whole thing is officially called. FH-DCE however is not another inscrutable H-D model designation, but stands for "Federation Harley-Davidson Clubs of Europe". Which originated in the 1960s, when German, Belgian and Dutch Harley riders used to meet at "rallies", of which the Pinkster Rally of the Utrecht H-D Club was the most notorious.

Across the Customverse Let’s think about the art of wrenching on Harleys as a limitless space, of which you only ever see a tiny, tiny part. Let’s say you’re fiddling with a home baked belt shroud, or you’re trying to apply your own sense of style to a Panhead rear fender you picked up for cheap at the swap meet, and all you’re missing is a vintage tail light that’ll pull everything together. Faster than you can say "rabbit hole" you’re on a journey to nowhere …
Once a year though a window opens into the bigger customverse: The Born Free Motorcycle Show at Oak Canyon Park, in, sure enough, California, USA.

Some trips never end. This trip has what it takes to become one of those indelible memories: our dude for all things Swedish steel, Mattias "LeBeeF" Andersson, unexpectedly found himself on the exclusive guest list for the "Sunburn Chopper Rally 3".
An unexpected invitation to a select circle, which could have something to do with the fact that Mattias two years ago had offered the tired gentlemen passing through a place to rest their weary heads when the they were looking for a night stop at their Sunburn premiere San Sebastián - Barcelona and back.

Just Like a Well-Tuned Engine... … buzzing along, that’s what the Matchlight Show in Eindhoven feels like: The venue is set smack in the middle of Eindhoven creative quarter Strijp-S, helping the show to fire up on the first kick in its 5th year. The combustion chamber is being provided by a former production building on the ex-Philips campus, and the combustible mix consists of first rate two-wheeled fuel comprising many Harley-Davidson highlights, high end craftsmanship and customizing skills of the first order.

Dance The Texas Fandango. When the Cherokee Chapter of AMCA (Antique Motorcycle Club of America) is beating the drums for the annual Texas Fandango, it’s clear that all vintage motorcycles are welcome to dance, with one little caveat: they have to be older than 35 years.
The dance was to go down at the Gillespie County Fairground just like last year. The venue is located in historic Fredericksburg, better known for its cattle auctions, horse racing, rodeos and similar activities befitting a rural Texan leisure culture. This weekends it was two wheeled ponies instead of the usual four legged ones scrambling round the track.

THE BISBEE CHOPPERITE RUSH In a "I’ll-go-and-get-a-taco" distance to the Mexican border, in a remote corner of Arizona, there’s this little mining town that has been in a deep slumber for the last one hundred or so years. Bisbee is the name of the place, and apart from a main street ready to shoot yet another episode of Bonanza there hasn’t been much to write home about here. Until it got voted one of the weirdest towns of the USA in 2000. And, erm, in 2013 they outlawed … plastic bags. After that, everyone went back to sleep, in spite of the noise of the tumbleweeds.

Moon Landing in Sweden. Happily, this is the kind of Moon experience you don’t need rockets or spaceships for, and you don’t even have to be an astronaut. Almost extraterrestrial though were the machines that had landed in the former ironworks "Verket" in Avesta, Sweden. Altogether some 50 impeccable motorcycles were lovingly parked in a Victorian world of rusty iron and bricks.

On the Grass, under the Palms and by the Beach. What else could you wish for when organising a bike meet. The pre party on the night before got things rolling nicely, and when the sun came up next morning, bringing friendly temperatures with it, we knew we were in California. In Ventura, to be more precise, some 30 miles North of L.A.

DIRTY JEWELS As if the Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show wasn't mind-bending enough, a few friends of oval racing have cut an additional, very special little gem to grace the calendar of Japan's vintage motorcycle scene: The "Have Fun" flat track and short straight race the day after the big show.

Customizer Toshiyuki "Cheetah" Osawa and his friends meet regularly on the first Sunday of the month in the "off-road village" of Kawagoe, Saitama Province, to thrash their vintage machines around the local dirt track oval. Because of the Yokohama show, the whole thing on this weekend is moved to the Monday, but the motto remains "Have Fun": no aggressive jostling for position, just having fun together driving absolutely show-worthy, detail-obsessed vintage gems and custom jewels through dust and mud - on the oval or sometimes on a short dirt track.

THE CHERRY ON THE CAKE Don't worry, your diet resolutions for the new year are not at risk. But you simply NEED a superlative when you've SEEN Yokohama. More specifically the Mooneyes Hot Rod Custom Show. The grand finale of the custom year 2023. For the 31st time. One day, and only one day crammed with everything (but Yul Brynner). Among other things they had a pre-party, called Little Get Together Party on the Saturday after setting up the show. You meet everyone there, or almost everyone. And some way or the other you know people. From old times, from Born Free, Texas Fandango, One Show, Mama Tried, or maybe from e-mail conversations, or from the logo on the jacket. You’re right in the middle of the conversation. We met Mooneyes Los Angeles, former WILD magazine guys from France, Australian builders, Bavarian neighbours from SSC, dudes from Hawaii, from Korea … the whole world (of customizing ) is there. And everyone is expectant like children before Christmas.

A Summer’s Day to Remember Admittedly it was a little more than a day, we had to get there first of course, and Ouistreham in Normandy, France, isn’t just round the corner. But time is relative we all know, and more so at the Normandy Beach Race. Which is all about tearing up and down a big (at low tide) flattish piece of beach where they had marked off an 1/8 mile drag strip for bikes and cars. The time machine said "before 1947", and make sure you’re dressed in some period correct garb.
Period correct attire has been a W&W specialty for a long time, so no problem there. Let’s focus on the vehicle: Paul Jung, the engine behind our "The Cyclery" brand a while ago had spied a skeleton Harley on the Internets, kept a close watch on it, did some brisk haggling and had it shipped across the Atlantic ocean onto his workbench. In a months-long wrenching safari he turned the remains of a 1936 VLD Harley into a wild beach racer as a homage to motorcycle engineer and hillclimb racer Andrew Koslow. (the long story can be found in Greasy Kulture Magazine #94)

Amid the falling leaves Mannheim is calling. Veterama, the biggest (so they say) rust-fest in Europe is opening its gates and we couldn’t wait to go.
If your life has been centered around the two wheeled tractors coming out of Milwaukee you probably know already the hazards of coming here. Among all that hubbub in the mega large grounds there’s always parts looking for a new home, complete bikes even, unheard of period accessories, and of course the odd wrenching inspiration might pop up out of nowhere. Add the inevitable chance meetings with old acquaintances at the refreshments stall, and you get the picture.

Everything is larger in Texas, yeehaw! The second edition of Born Free Texas was proof, if it was needed: more days, more real estate, more action, more anything. Just for the bands’ lineup they needed a separate poster to hang along the poster for the attractions: Wall of Death, flat track races, dirt drag racing, stalls offering anything from art, clothes, lifestyle, accessories, parts, (parts incidentally brought here by a company named W&W Cycles), food stalls, the humongous Lone Star stage and of course The Bowl, an, ahem, bowl-like depression in Yellow Rose Canyon, just the spot to park any number of Harleys, Harleys, Harleys, Harleys, and, yes, Harleys. If you had a Grass Pass. If you came early, you had a chance to grab a pitch for your tent close to the action.

The Italian Moment The sun was beaming from an azzuro sky, when a wild bunch of gleaming, burbling, thundering and of course very stylish vintage motorcycles were descending on the seaside town of Lido di Camaiore in Tuscany: yes, it was that time of the year again, it was time for ruote e onde, sorry, Wheels & Waves!
The legendary French custom event has taken a little detour into neighbouring Italy, a little smaller, a little more al dente, a little more Italiano. Our favourite brand of murdersickle was on hand in droves, with many, many flatheads, Panheads and so on, but also – and that’s what makes the special flair of Wheels & Waves – many non Harley brands of bikes. The piazza was crammed with attractions: There was vendors’ stalls, a Wall of Death, a halfpipe, a bandstage – entertainment "al gusto"! Just next door "El Rollo" was attracting the crowds, eager to see vintage flat track racing in many classes. Old metal being thrashed around as fast as possible, gentlemen going sideways in the dust that darkened the sun. Eccezionale!

Pictures and story by Mattias "Le Beef" Andersson:
Plan was to leave after lunch on Friday to ride to La Cantera Biker Bar in Calafell about 1hour south of Barcelona where Old & Proud Gipsy Camp takes place, and since it is sunny 300+ days here in Barcelona area it never crossed my mind that the weather could mess up those plans. But guess what, yes raining cats and dogs Friday afternoon. For some reason my buddies changed their plans to go Saturday morning instead, so teamed up with some other friends from the area and decision was made to go a bit later in the afternoon.

This was a hot weekend in more ways than one.
The Trip Out is set in rolling Midsomer Murders country, wheat fields gleaming between the copses, the absurdly short legged East Anglian deer walking by the roadside stared at me riding by. Grouse and pheasants looked on from the verge, ducks flew in pairs over the rolling parkland and flocks of geese went wherever geese do go in a day’s work. All very fine, but: The Heat!
The weather was absolutely scorching, it was so hot the phone stopped working, there were the fiery sun ups, there were the equally hot Meyer Dancers, the hot rods, the hotted up Indians, Sportsters, Pans, Shovels and Knuckles, a huge bunch of which crowded the show field. Check out the pics to make sure you see all those nice little details that make the UK builder scene so unique. Another bunch of custom builds were corralled in the show tent. At the prize giving, these beauties were all (ok all but one :) started up and roared over to the main marquee where Andy was mceeing the prize giving while the big twins idled, until they roared out the other side.

Our favourite ghost town, Virginia City, Nevada, with its smell of the Gold Rush, Mark Twain, the gunsmoke of the nearby Ponderosa Ranch (remember Bonanza?), and starring in the famous Lucky Luke comics has a new entry in its history book: Choppers magazine had sent out invites to the „Virginia City Round Up Motorcycle Rodeo“ extravaganza, right on the foot of Mount Davidson. The burble of uncounted numbers of Harleys mixed with the creaking of the old wooden sidewalks in front of the dozens of saloons, snorts of untamed bulls and mustangs, the rollicking sound of "The Rhyolite Sound's" steel guitars and the sweet noise of beer gurgling down numberless throats. All this rolled together into an epic brain meltdown on our part, meaning, we only have rather fractured memories of the event :)

When SpeedMcLean flings out invitations for the B-Bombers Flight #3, his far flung circle of friends (D, A, CH, F, NL …) are ready to roll, ’cos here it is all: lots of heavy wrenching talk, a well sorted gourmet grill, historic motorcycling milestones, multiple memorabilia, and of course museum quality machines, many of which are Harleys, making the many miles to the meet.

A few days later crowds would line the streets to cheer on the riders of muscle powered bikes, but before that the throaty roar of well tuned Harleys echoed in the rocky valley of Courchevel 1850. Cruising up the switchbacks, the views over the breathtaking mountain crags, icy slopes and green pine trees was a little limited this year, but it takes more than bad weather to keep riders away from Punta Bagna, the literal high point of this year’s event calendar.
The place was filled with all those Punta Bagna favourites: As always, there were plenty of stalls and entertainment, and some ten painters were on hand to express their wildest ideas on helmets, tanks and complete bikes ...

Welcome to history on two wheels - and we don’t exclusively mean the historic machines that gathered for the weekend in the Dutch greenery, between The Salland Hotel and the American Motorcycle Museum in Raalte, The Netherlands. This year’s meeting’s motto was "Military Bikes", an unhappy historic coincidence. The meeting itself however was more like "Peace, Joy and Internal Combustion", as always, when the Antique Motorcycle Club of America calls for their European Meeting. One of the regulars there is Paul Jung, our man for the really old Milwaukee clunkers. He’s also the guy behind "The Cyclery". This weekend he had the honour to serve as one of the AMCA judges*. Here’s his take on the weekend:

This year Fuel Cleveland was to run for a full two days which was great, because … Fuel Cleveland is the preeminent invitation only motorcycle show for builders, owners, paint artists, photographers and other artistes given to every aspect of motorcyclistic locomotion, historic or otherwise. In short, awesomely rare bikes, mind blowing custom bikes and tons of epic accessories and stuff, that’s Cleveland, Ohio for you.

The pine trees were shivering when the pack of Harleys rolled up to that hidden blockhouse deep in the Black Forest. A small circle of friends had asked a slightly larger circle of friends to their notoriously delirious decibel extravaganza … in short HRW. Erm, that’s supposed to mean Hard! Rocking! Weekend! The concept is in the name: Friday the electric guitars were screaming over the beergarden tables from canned recordings, later to be replaced by live bands, giving an even harder push to the wrenching talk.

Going to the Superrally, Europe’s biggest Harley-Party takes a long-distance-capable bike, an iron will and a lot of space in your calendar. Especially when it takes place in far off places. This year, Greece was the far off place :)
Our Man with a Plan, and with the License to Roll, Don Pedro himself had picked a well trusted ’85 Tour Glide Classic as his ride, appropriately named "The Pipe Organ".
With his wingman, also on an ample example of Milwaukee shipbuilding, they start off in a refreshing drizzle at 13°C. The first stop will be across the Alps in Bolzano, Italy. The further south the wheels are rolling, the friendlier the temperatures. Next stop painted on to the tank is PsT (Passignano sul Trasimeno being way too long). The weather stays dry, but the thermometer drops again to 10°C, not funny. Combined with the headwind a definitely North Sea type of climate. Day 3 sees party weather though, 20°C and sunshine the friendly town of Pescara, right down the middle of the Italian boot heaves into view. Friends await the riders with food, drink and a place for their tent. The start on next day’s part of the trip is a slow one … still, they catch the ferry at Bari, gently crossing in the night to Igoumenitsa.

So we went to Born Free, across picture book landscapes under the California sun, full of anticipation of a day of burbling, coughing and rumbling V-Twins, and we thoroughly enjoyed the ride,, saving the space on our camera chips for the awesome moto show that was waiting for us. It's gonna be, the organizers let us know, the biggest Born Free ever.
OK, great. We unpacked our show tent on the shores of the little lake in the Oak Canyon festival grounds. The neighbours were just the same bunch of nice dudes we knew from last year’s show, Cycle Zombies, Max Schaaf, Juniors Handmade … there’s a lot of how-ya-been-ing and nice-to-see-you-ing.
After the traditional pre show party at Cook’s Corner Bar (where an amazing lot of very new machinery was to be seen) we had a hard time refocusing our eyeballs to the world fest of chopper wrenchery the next day.

Strijp-S is one of the booming neighbourhoods of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. It used to be part of a huge Philips industrial estate where they made matchsticks and later light bulbs, hence the show’s name: Matchlight!
The matchsticks and light bulbs are long gone. In came the fancy high-rises, the condos, the creatives, the artists, the stores, the skaters, the BMXers, the boulderers … and, for one day only, the two-wheelers. Painstakingly curated bikes had been fork-lifted and parked on the bel étage of an impressive former production building where restaurant tables usually stand.

Let’s start with the verdict for a change: what a great, terrific, unreal weekend in Texas! With a far out assembly of absolutely ass kicking classic and historic motorcycles from all around the globe, something for even the most jaded bike connoisseur. In short, everything we always connected with two wheels and an engine, riding and wrenching as a way of life: "What the hell, let’s just do it, man!"
Quick rewind back to the beginning: „The Texas Fandango“ was the reason we went all that long and dusty way from Arizona to Texas – we just hoped they were for real when they promised the "largest public exhibition of vintage and classic motorcycles in Texas".

We’re off to Arizona, so close to Mexico you can almost smell it. The copper mining history of this here town is oozing from every crack in the quaint old-timey buildings they sort of forgot to bulldoze to dust, down here, in Bisbee, Arizona.
But it’s not stagecoaches and cowboys crowding out the winding streets between the copper-filled hills. Instead, it’s chopper dudes and dudettes checking out "The Prowl", the almost-undiscovered hang-out-with-old-Harleys festival, with live music and the sound of low revving Big Twins reverberating in the narrow streets.

The idea to spend a weekend at the the Paradise Road Show, right inside the Ace Hotel & Swim Club, Palm Springs, CA, where everything is cool, colourful and vintage in a Hollywood kind of way filled our hearts with joy. Especially since we had been here before, when we drank it all in at the „Classic Car, Hot Rod & Motorcycle Show inspired by ’79 and older classics“, according to the organizers.
And what do you know: everything was cool, colourful and vintage in a Hollywood kind of way. The quirky Ace Hotel by itself with its two pools and the apartments around the courtyard is reason enough to come to Palm Springs. Throw in a dozen extra palm trees and loads of cool bikes and cars and you’re set for any type of instagramming and chopper magazine shooting conceivable.

When in 1905 a bunch of petrolheads were screaming down a New Jersey beach on their 2 and 4 wheeled racing machines from hell, little did they know what they started. Over a century later, in 2012, a group of friends recreated the event in the form of The Race Of Gentlemen, in short T.R.O.G. The idea caught on quickly, and eventually came to California.

There’s a bike show out there without showbikes: Superrally. It’s been around since the late Sixties, getting together once a year, somewhere in Europe, adventurous Harley riders from all over Europe, organized by local Harley clubs in the „Federation Harley-Davidson Clubs Europe“. After two long years (you know the reason) this year’s choice of country was Sweden, and the location was to be the island of Oeland.

If you’re the type of person to get your Harley some pine-scented mountain air every now and then, this year you had the chance to add another notch on your gas tank after two rather flat Punta Bagna-less years.
The venue is Courchevel, which is split up in to three levels, Courchevel 1550, Courchevel 1650 und Courchevel 1850, the numbers being the altitude above sea level in meters. Sure enough the Magic bus, the new PanAm Oil Chevy pickup truck and a few vintage Milwaukee two wheelers from the W&W stable grind and growl and clatter to the top at 1850 m.

Take a crispy motto, some 600 motorcycles well past their sell-by date (pre 1984 bikes only, please), a few pallets of chilled drinks, lots of ice and a set of paella pans the size of volcanic crater lakes.
Let stew under the hot sun of Calafell/Spain for a long weekend and when you lift the lid you discover the appetizing smell of "Old & Proud".
For this feast, being served with the usual panache by Valencia Chopper Crew, Shovelhead Spain and Panhead Spain, diners descended on the La Cantera Bar, splendidly located in an abandoned quarry. "Old & Proud 4" was, as were the three preceding it, a feast for eyes and ears of connoisseurs of well aged two- and three-wheeled hardware out of Milwaukee, artfully blended together with the secret ingredients H and D.

The Born Free Texas idea was this: if thousands of California chopperistas can’t stay away from a friendly named canyon to gawp all day at vintage American motorized metal, why in tarnation shouldn’t that same idea work in Texas? Just swap the baseball cap against a ten gallon hat, drop the Vans in favour of some cool cowboy boots and Yee-haw!, Bob’s your uncle! The Lone Star state should be a-brimming with barn finds, discovered and undiscovered, they reckoned, and filled with dudes ready to appreciate a nicely customized Harley when they see one. So the Born Free creators called some friends, did some PR and fixed a date. As we had the Baja Twins (our narrow forked, magneto sporting rigid Shovels) over in California anyway for some road testing and photo shooting, we were ready to give it a go. So we brought the sleds to Mt. Enterprise, Texas (right out there in the boondocks) and hooked a left for the Yellow Rose Canyon to have a look see.

If you’ve never been there: The Trip Out is a place like that lost island with no connection to an outside world, where dinosaurs still are alive; beautiful Knuckles, Pans and Shovels in all states of wrenchification roam the grounds, with a handful of English classics thrown in for good measure...

Since 1982, when Customizers East were founded, they evolved from a group of friends into a respectable custom institution, able to self-customize if needed. When in the early days the customizers got together to do the C.E. Bike Show or the Drag & Bike Show, now, 40 years later, they organized the third edition of Custom Stage.
Said stage is located in the "Kulturhaus" at Hirschberg a. d. Saale, and around it we found a well curated selection of custom motorcycles of different makes and U.S. cars on display. As is usual with shows of this kind, the parking lot also offerered excellent quality bikes, so we just sent our Magic Bus on its mission to explore and report. On board were Minako, Joe and Rudi.

Rudy was diagnosed with a heavy case of Flat Track Fever, we reported earlier this year. Fine with us we thought, at least there'll be a few great pix and stories to share. The latest one is from the town of Wolfslake, where Krowdrace, a very active private enterprise, were hard at work organising the Go-fast-go-left fever for Germany. We got proof: with Rudi it already worked.
After the Thursday BnBinB stopover (beer and barbecue in Braunschweig) the Friday saw Rudy doing his first training laps - and his first brush with danger: his first ever highsider (it's the bike abruptly going from a slide to full grip in an instant, flinging the rider into the air, or, in Rudy's case, slamming the handlebars into his belly, as if Muhammad Ali had landed a nasty swinger. But it wasn't a knock out, so all was well. The handlebars were bent a little out of shape, but Henning or, as his friends on the track know him, Murmel, soon had them straightened again.

It’s been 4 years now that a bunch of people were terminally fed up with over styled bike shows with that "curated" gallery vibe, as if they were next in line for a UNESCO world heritage nomination. The real fun in bike shows are the pre show parties, they were sure. So they got their act together and started a tradition of "hop on your bike, ride over, listen to really loud music and have fun" events named Helter Skelter. If we want we can eyeball our scooters later, they decided.
The spirit is still the same, the thing has grown somewhat, but not too much. The venue itself would have acommodated a few 10.000 people more: Helter Skelter 3 was launched at the former US airbase in Giebelstadt. The address is "Panzerwerkstätten 1-3" if you have to know, but what they did with tanks on an airbase remains a mystery. Or are there flying tanks now?
So that no-one got lost looking for the place they parked the Magic Bus as a landmark early on, erected a few hundred feet of mobile fencing around it to keep everything nice and cosy, set up a band stage and a matching high octane sound system, deployed a few fridges (let’s do a little quiz here: were these fridges for a, keeping the oat milk for the USB powered barista pumped hand curated breakfast frappuccino or b, for beer?), filled a small pool with cool water to play in and had a marquee for some safe chatting space out of the scorching sun.

If you ever - just for one short second - spent a thought on the idea to build your own motorcycle, the place to see is here: Born Free. It’s not only the fact that here any (and we mean any) kind of custom bike is on display, it’s the absolutely overwhelming love for detail, for craftsmanship, for creativity and passion permeating everything. And of course a sprinkling of some totally abysmal stuff. Well.

Contrary to what you might think, Cyclo isn’t a new Caribbean crypto currency, but the name of a bike rally in the rather anglophone sounding town of Schnellham, near Pocking, Bavaria, Germany. So not really far away, which is a nice change after the almost 3.000 kilometers roundtrip to the Superrally in Sweden and back last weekend.

KKF: Kustom Kulture Forever cancelled again. Another year without the KKF? No way! Instead of getting mad as a bunch of wet hens, a few Herten KKF regulars got their shit together and organized their own little custom show of dreams. What better location for a bike show than a cool lake on a hot summer weekend. The Kronau Lußhardt lake welcomed some 40 vintage bikes and a couple dozen four wheelers – proof that in this day and age craftily bent steel and vintage paint still rule the passing lane. 

We’re not sure when Rudi got infected with the Flat Track Fever. These are the known facts: his first attempt at getting off the bike in a controlled way while underway - and his first rounds on a dusty oval at Dirt Quake, UK on a, let’s say, uncooperative Shovelhead. Stage 3 was Rudi checking out the Krowdrace finals in October. The rest is history.
But there’s no flat tracking without pratt-pratting. So Rudi went and built himself a rigid hand shifting Panhead, with a nice, stockish ’53 / ’54 Pan engine in a Paughco frame, with no frills, but with a nice megaphone endpipe. He went testing the rig in march and then registered his first active Krowdrace weekend. The plan was: get the feel of the bike and the track on Friday, and spend Saturday watching the action.
So off he went on Friday to join Meißen’s 400 m speedway track. "Eat my dust" has been their motto here for over 70 years.

End-of-season race meeting anyone? Germany may not be world famous for its flat track racing scene, but, keeping well under the radar there’s an active, international group of go fast, turn left aficionados, ready to sling mud and eat dust at the drop of the starting flag all day long was here for one last day of racing. Would you believe they have half mile tracks hidden away in this country?
A multinational group of about a hundred "fast and loud" loving people has come together since 2019 under the "Krowdrace" banner. These folks have been organizing a series of events, in spite of all the spanners the world has been throwing in the works during the last two years. They even managed to attract Harley-Davidson’s forever arch nemesis Indian as a sponsor.

Traditions require sacrifice. That's especially true for regular coverage of Brexitania's most monumental open-air accumulation of Harley related wrenching excesses and Milwaukee metal preservation aficionados: the Trip Out. But, you know, someone has to do it. And it's our man with the best reason to talk about boattail shovels: a boattail shovel.
Started at sunrise, the '83 Shovelhead reels off the miles, interrupted now and then by the usual side effects: minor ignition gremlins, ferry, rain gear on, off, on: Ah, England! To be precise: Euston Hall. A sprawling 17th century Palladian-style estate with church, hall, park, gardens, ponds, bizarre ornamental buildings - nothing could fit here better than the one-man tent of a Milwaukee iron rider.

We had to pinch ourselves to convince us that this was really true: Real people were going to meet other real people IN PERSON, to talk bikes, beer and decibels in Corona times. At the Großheubach Chicken Run. We didn’t have to think twice and packed our bag.
Großheubach is cut off from the rest of the world by the mighty Spessart forest with its tall pine trees and lonely roads snaking around its valleys and hills.

Ain't it great when you have the time to see some old friends on the way to a bike show. The other day we went to the Palm Springs Paradies Road Show, in the state of California, USA. SoCal is crammed with choppers and chopper builders, and who knows, you might even meet people who invite you over to their shop.
Anyway, the first stop was yellow. Now, what place in California is yellow to the max? Right, it's Mooneyes in Santa Fe Springs. They had been kind enough to let us send them some brand new parts over from Europe. Among them the Cannonball Stealth Starter electric start system for vintage Big Twins, new engine cases and new 4.00-18 Bates Baja tires, stuff we wanted to exhibit at the show. Big thanks for the support, Shige san and Chico!

When you're at the Palm Springs Road Show, doing a few miles on the roads outside Palm Springs sounds just right, given that they have plenty of roads to discover out here in SoCal. Let's go, then, to see our old buddy Mario of MB Leathers, who made the move to SoCal from Switzerland a couple of years back. Judging from the size of the flag on his premises, his decision to set up shop in Long Beach, where he performs his leather art now, must have been the right one.

Talking about right decisions: we decide not to miss out on a true gem of automotive history: The Petersen Automotive Museum is only a small detour, and boy, is it worth any extra mile you drive to see it. They're having a special exhibition right now about "Hollywood Dream Machines", comprising many old friends from cinema and tv. They have an actual Batmobile, a Jokermobile and a Catmobile from the Batman tv series on show, they have the Interceptor out of Mad Max and the Probe 16 (AB/4) out of A Clockwork Orange. Other iconic cars make the heart of the aficionado beat faster, such as the legendary Cadzzilla mega-custom, built in '89 for ZZ Top guitarist Billy F. Gibbons, based on a stock 1948 Cadillac two-door sedan.

The sky is a blue straight out of a 60s post card, the venue is a hotel complex looking like a Coen brothers Technicolor dream. The parking lot is jammed with hopped up 4 wheeled legends, the courtyard is bulging with Harley choppers assembled with devotion for unusual details right down to the almost real looking pre aged stickers – this is too good to be true.
Right, if it wasn't for our own, very real booth sporting our Cannonball parts, we would have started doubting our sanity. How on earth did we stumble into this dream, or, rather, what did we take to get there. Let's see if we can find out why this Palm Springs event is being called "Paradise Road Show".

We shouldn't wonder if a few visitors of Verona Motor Bike Expo went home with seriously sore optical nerves. The sheer number of bikes left only seconds for each if you wanted to get a glimpse of all of them. Which wasn't an easy job if you wanted to look at details too or got held up in fact finding conversations.
Sure enough they call the event "World's largest Custom Motorcycle Event" , and divide it into "Mass Production, Custom Universe, Racing World, Tourism on Two Wheels, Motorcycling Academies, Business Young Guns, and Outdoor Shows". It's kinda hard to keep track of everything happening.

Taking the mountain air is always good for you, so we grabbed our alpenstocks and went for a little hiking among the Swiss motorcycle mountains, crossed the foothills of aftermarket parts and scaled the precipitous attractions that had been promised. With steady feet we climbed the three storeys of SWISS-MOTO, together with many moto-mountaineers who had decided to attack the numerous summits all at once. The views of the current moto landscape from these dizzying peaks was magnificent.
A monumental Everest of a booth was the Harley-Davidson stand, giving far reaching glimpses of a motorcycling future with their electric LiveWire, which could be tried on for size and even test ridden on a simulator. Also, the prototype Panamerica was on display.
Indian had rope teamed up with the ACE Café to give well earned refreshment to the tired and thirsty hikers.

If you organize the best indoor show ever (at least in the eyes of the Harley riding community) year after year, you better have a few new sparklers up your sleeves every now and then. And that's just what they managed to do at the Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show in its 28th year. They celebrated the 30th aniversary of Japanese pin striping legend Hiro "Wildman" Ishii, and among other things, the customization of bathroom slippers. They had a Pin-Up Girl contest, they had four live bands, they had the parade of all the guests of honour and a lot of other micro events we just plain missed in the short time between 8 am and 5 pm. The prize giving of 30 trophies alone took ages.

If for no other reason than to see two of our long standing friends in action, wrenching against each other at the European Bike Build-Off, this last weekend was the right time to come to Bad Salzuflen and enjoy the Custombike Show.
Winding our way through the halls to the Build-Off show stage, we could easily appreciate that Custombike is fighting with claws and nails for their reputation as a hotspot of international customizing trends. It's all there, and not everything is to everyone's taste. But never mind and stay chill, if you don't like it, just move on to the next bike and be surprised by the wealth of precision-wrenched detail, always good inspiration for the basket case sitting at home on your bench.

What would be more fitting than a big bowl of porridge at the start of a two-wheeled journey to Brexitannia. The question remains though, why am I doing this – and at four in the morning?
But the ferry has been booked, and the satnav is telling me the way. I don the helmet, start the Shovel, the fire breathing machine slowly warming the cold oil in its innards. After the first rather chilly early morning hours a welcome coffee, fuel and croissant break warms the body again, as does a severe case of fuel anxiety a few hours later near the French border. Friendly natives do their best to help us make the ferry just in time.

Les citoyens of Ouistreham are by now pretty well used to the noise of tanks and Willys jeeps rolling over their endless beaches, what with all the memorial days and anniversaries of the D-Day landings going on, Sword Beach being nearby. For a change a bunch of peaceful hotrods and vintage motorcycles filled in to produce the usual pratt-pratt and vroom-vroom. Even our very own Paul with his '41 FL Knucklehead did his best to keep up the decibel levels.

It's a good family tradition with the 50 Brothers CC to ask their friends to a gourmet feast on the beach once a year.
The specialties that get served up are international top notch cuisine: Well aged prime cuts of the (mainly American) horse power industry, spiced up by their owners according to all known rules of the arts of hopping up, decorating, welding, brazing, grinding, boring out, flow benching, accessorizing and wrenching.

One fine Saturday morning a small bunch of intrepid motorcyclists gathered at an ungodly early hour (OK; so it was 7 am) to set out on an expedition to the past.
There was no real plan, but something would turn up, it always does. That's what Veterama was invented for, anyway. If you come to find something specific, you lose out in more ways than one. You spend endless hours and strain your nervous costume, and IF you do find the thing eventually, your money is gone as well. So much better to think of Veterama as a way to spend a few happy hours among friends. Great if you make it there without traffic jams, if the sun shines full power and your first beer is ready for you when you arrive.

Already two years since the last Customizers' East bash. Now they had invited to the 2nd "Custom Stage", to keep their reputation for righteous meets growing. Customizers East (the East in their name coming from a time, wenn their German hometown of Hof was one of the most easterly places in the free world) started as a loose band of dudes iin 1987 nterested in everything wrenchable, not even stopping at slotcars.

You give me a party, I give you a party! It all started at W&W Gladbeck's HonkyTonk Party a couple of years back. Arguments were flying over the finer customization details of a two-wheeler. Possibly Sporty. Accounts differ. The circle of debating experts grew, and soon it was decided, that important questions like this should be debated with even more people, more time, more bikes and more loud noise. One party could never be enough. So, shortly after the 2nd Helter Skelter Custom-Show Pre-Party (see our report) a committee of experts set out from Würzburg on a Panhead, an E-Glide, a Shovelhead, and a custom Kawa to Hemmingen near Hannover. Where Ölich & Fröhlich (could be translated as "oily and fun loving") number 2 was due to take place. A small event in a bucolic setting, lots of room for your tents and a show area, bar, stage, seating and the very recommendable food stall(s). The details made the experts' hearts sing, especially the many custom bikes. It was hard to see where the parking lot ended and the show area began, which tells you something about the quality of bikes on show.

June is the time for the highest high, the loftiest ride: Punta Bagna. As if this wasn’t enough for a righteous party, the summit of all the custom destinations was able to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The Magic Bus was there to help the party along, and the cherry on the birthday cake was the brand new S&S motor fresh from our warehouse.
After a 14 hour cruise the yellow Furthermobile scraped around the last hairpin bend and dropped anchor on its by now traditional moorings in Valloire. While others still were setting up their tents, we already surfed on the good vibes of sunshine and the waves of bikes rumbling up the switchbacks. Come evening, the bands tried their best to blow the birthday candles into the next valley.
The Friday saw the action climb new heights, a never ending stream of bikes shook, rattled and roared up from the deep valley below, up at the party zone there was an equally never ending „salut!“, „hello!“, „¡hola!“, „ciao!“ and „bottoms up!“, „Prost!“, „salud!“ and „santé!“.
Time had stopped, the sun beat down, the bands were going all out and the party was boiling higher than the horizon of the surrounding peaks.

There are decisions in life that can have long consequences. In this case, the consequences were 2.000 kilometers long one way, 'cos we had decided to go to the Finnish Superrally. After attending the Czech and Polish Superrallies in the past years this year we again rounded up a few of our long distance-loving friends to bring you a few glimpses of what you were missing out on.
Who can forget the first Superrally in 1975, when a couple of European Harley clubs decided to get together once a year, switching countries every year. This time the destination was to be Finland, to be more precise the skiing resort Himos some 250 kilometers North of Helsinki. Yeah, that's quite a few gas stops to make when you start out from Würzburg.

This was one of the afternoons that leave a hint of Milwaukee iron in the famous Würzburg area wines, together with a decidedly rubbery aftertaste on the palate. The way to the "Helter Skelter" Custom Show Pre Party went through well hung vineyards, as it did last time around. The first wave of tastefully modified sleds coming from Hannover and Fulda missed, as is now the tradition, the right exit to the grounds, while the guys from headquarters had painstakingly planned the route, but still needed 2 hours for the 30 kilometers :)

The last time we went to Raalte, our favourite cylinder count (2, for those who are new here) was king. But the AMCA this time just went on counting. When they reached the magic number 4, they stopped, and sent out the invitations. Knowing that AMCA stands for Antique Motorcycle Club of America it was kinda clear that there weren't going to be a lot of customized Jap 70s four-bangers in the parking lot. "Four Cylinders" was the word, and under blue skies not less than 50 (that's right folks, FIFTY) US-American four cylindered bikes found themselves parked in front of the American Motorcycle Museum in Raalte, The Netherlands. They were all there, Henderson, Excelsior, Ace, Indian, Cleveland, Pierce …

So last year we actually stumbled into this neighbourhood party by pure chance and guided by reflections of sunrays on chrome radiator grilles and endless upsweeps peeping over the hedges when we rode by on our long forked flathead. This year, we intentionally combusted our way to the Strul* MCC's get together in Enköping, Sweden. Which went under the rebel yell "HANG ’EM HI" motto, meaning "High level hang out" or something of the like. The action was happening at the municipal Motorpark, which is situated in a shady grove in lovely Enköping.
It was a family afternoon in every way: tents, children, bike shows without the show stress, sissy bars with pallets of beer, open belt drives, upsweep pipes so long the noise got lost inside :). Most of the stuff on the bikes was home made in Sweden and adjacent countries. The bikes were relaxed. The people: relaxed, nordic and friendly. The night was a long one. We wouldn't be surprised to see some or all of those we had a beer with again at the Twin Club MC's Custom Bike Show in Norrtälje. See you later, dudes! Skol! Prost and Rømpømpømpøm!

Forks so long that the front wheels can get lost in the fog, a compressed air driven V2, loads of inspired Evo builds, a new category for custom e-bikes and a 1974 show winner back from the tomb. All this can mean only one thing: the Twin Club MC Norrtälje has asked to its Custom Bike Show.

The things people out there do to their sleds even on a normal day somewhere, is usually pretty amazing. Here at Born Free this goes into overdrive. Or low orbit. Or to the moon. Just to see and appreciate all the more normal takes on classic themes would take weeks, considering the sheer number of bikes on display here in the Oak Canyon Park. Or just being parked in the visitors' space.

After checking out the Flanders Chopper Bash in Belgium we rolled a few miles over to Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
The 2nd Matchlight Motorcycle Show is the perfect extension of the Chopper Bash. Outstanding bikes, but this time under a roof. Around 30 machines were on exhibit, many Harleys, but metric stuff as well, lovingly chosen, no, curated.
There was incredible detail to be appreciated, starting at the handcrafted rocker boxes and not stopping with the mile-deep paint jobs, with hundreds of hours spent on getting it just right.

We spent last night distributing locally sourced lubricants in our own innards with the expected effect of a non-dynamic start into the day. Think clogged up moped carb. As a logical consequence (logical in the greater context of EDR) today racing was on the agenda. In order to not overload the aching noggins, there was the slow race, with girls driving and dudes on the p-pad. Setting down a foot meant instant disqualification. Yay!

First and only item on the agenda for today: Breakfast in Mexico! Slipped into Mexico with no problems, stopped in Mexicali.
Had some refreshments in a roadside kitchen where chicken and dog greet each other with “¡Mañana!”. Topped up the fuel tanks (no gas next 100 miles, and a Sportster tank)

If you’ve known us for a little longer, or have been hanging out in one of our digital places, you may know that every now and then we pack up and go on a test ride. These notoriously end in unexpected spots, for example a boat on the Southern tip of Argentina, a bottomless mud track in Panama, a frozen river highway North of the polar circle or right beside the laid back birthplace of Daiquiri in Cuba.

It was about time that we went for another test ride: a couple of our Wrecking Crew dudes are doing this year’s El Diablo Run. They start out from San Diego on our Panamericana proven rigid Panhead and our scramblerized late model Sporty. They want to find out how far the knobby Bates Baja tires will carry them, and how the PanAm 60 weight handles the expected high temperatures.

They say it’s best to get out while you’re having fun. Well, the boys and girls of the Flanders Chopper Bash may be on to something here. Even though the sheer numbers were again up from last year’s, the last ever Flanders Chopper Bash was as usual a furious festival of the bygone century’s finest machinery. There were Flatheads, Panheads, Shovelheads and Knuckles galore; Evos and Twincam were mild curiosities, and the rather unreal futurist Milwaukee Eight was as crazy as a unicorn for most. But no surprise here, they had it even printed on their poster: Custom Oldtimer Motorcycle Festival.

When The One Show went live for the first time in 2009, two items were on the agenda:

first, to celebrate motorcycles that had actually been built. Not could have, would have bikes, just plain and simple built bikes, ready to roll. The “one” bike, that someone, in a garage somewhere out there wanted to see the light of day. No matter if small or big, no matter if it had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or six cylinders, no matter which brand – as long as it was there.

Oh, and secondly, that the show would be twice as awesome the following year.

If you missed the december 2018 Yokohama show (boooo!) and like your motorbikes loud and noisy (yeaaah!) instead of spending the day in a crowded hall, you were in for some real comfort a couple of days after the Mooneyes Hot Rod Custom Show. Here comes the Okie Dokie Vintage Race.
It’s a dirt track race with machines that in any other place would stay in the sheltered space of museums. Here the parking lot alone looked as if half of the Yokohama show bikes had been ridden here by their owners.

The calendar is looking thinner than a narrow fork chopper. Which can mean only one thing: The Yokohama Mooneyes Hot Rod Custom Show is on. The Best right at the end of the year. A few precious hours of chopper bliss. Which looks like this:

When we walked around the halls this year we took our time to check out every last of the 300 custom bikes in the competition in a solid 18 categories.

If you’re going to the Glemseck 101, you know what to expect. Burnt rubber, roaring engines, a load of homebuilt drag bikes, the big brands showing off their latest stuff, great atmosphere. In short, a meeting to warm the heart of aficionados. The only snag is, Harleys aren’t at the centre of events for a change.

Instead, it’s an impressive round up of German, European and Japanese bikes, plus all their incarnations derived from thoroughly mixing all their components, from NORZUKI to completely home brewed sprint monsters. And don’t get us started on the visitors’ bikes :) 

In the blue corner: the healthy rumble of the vintage internal combustion engine, exhaling through shorty pipes, if only you could hear them. In the red corner: the infernal wind noise (Arai certainly doesn’t mean “aero” in Japanese) courtesy of Autobahn speeds. It's the umpteenth round, and the referee decides to call time for a much needed gas stop.

Going to the Trip Out? No problem, if you live in London or Manchester.

The shrill alarm rings “A-Bombers”!!! Our special “Wrecking Crew” commandos grab their bags and fire up their machines, Sweden bound. “A-Bombers” is the code name for a bunch of Swedish iron lovers who every year gather round them a load of other lovers of American iron, together with their vintage American machinery.

This disused part of Waterloo station is now the home of skateboarding aficionados House of Vans, who have made these railway arches under the tracks their home. Here they celebrate street art, skateboarding, music, BMX, and streetwear. OK, what’s all this got to do with Harleys …
There being a big overlap between the above activities and riding custom Harleys, House of Vans did the right thing, and gave the Assembly Show of custom bikes a temporary home in their awesome subterranean halls for the second time now. There was of course a ton of spraying, styling and skating going on, but the impressive halls, ramps and bowls had no chance against the bikes. They were the heroes for a night.

There’s weekends, and there’s WEEKENDS. This one was the latter. The Old & Proud weekend, the not-so-secret-anymore insider’s tip for the owners of Milwaukee tractors to have laid down their first rubber before 1984 is one such weekend, brought to you courtesy of Panheads Spain, Shovelheads Spain and the Valencia Chopper Crew.

And this is how Old & Proud works: take the right exit from the coastal highway, watch out for the “Welcome Old & Proud” banner, find the right forest track through the mountains until you see the sign “La Cantera Biker Bar”. A few more yards of rumbling through the foliage and there the welcome committee is lounging on an old sofa, guiding anything pre-Evo to the left into the old quarry. All others, car or bike, are politely detoured to the parking lot.

Before anyone starts whippin' out their calculators: it's been 60 years now that S&S Cycle was founded.
The first kick was provided by none other than George J. Smith with his 1939 HD Knucklehead which he in 1952 had tweaked a little, giving her a little more bore (that was the easy part), and a little more stroke (try that at home).
These judicious measures helped him to garner a few race wins and a 152.02 mph run on the Bonneville salt. And eventually to form a company that at first with aluminium pushrods and today with everything from carbs to flywheels to exhaust systems helps to make those Milwaukee (just 170 miles from Viola as the crow flies) thoroughbreds a tiny bit faster.
60 years of making Harleys faster, if that isn't reason enough for a righteous birthday bash, then we don't know.
The guests had the opportunity to check out the inhouse museum, the production floors, the warehouse in Viola and the LaCrosse exhaust system production.
At the official friday night dinner company founder George J. Smith again told those tales again of nitro and alcohol from the days before electronic ignitions and injection systems, of historic race tracks and irresponsible speeds. And always there was the vibe of what S&S is all about: more horsepower. Going faster.

They say, it’s a sea. A sea of motorcycles. An ocean of Pacific sized custom madness. Well, let’s dive into Born Free 10 custom show and see, if what they say is true. But you better beware of your senses being drowned in this tide of bikes that swept into the Oak Canyon Ranch, California, the parking lot in front of it, the many parties and events on the days and nights before. And don’t get us started on the whale-sized crowds that flooded in with them.

Going on a rally can be fun. It can be a wash-out. Or, it can be super. In this case, a load of super dudes came from all possible directions on their super rides to a super place to have a super load of superfun. 
Does that sound right to you? It did to us, so off we went to be part of the Superrally at Bydgoszsz, Poland. Never heard of the place? No matter, it’s nestled between Lodz and Gdansk on the map of Poland and is a long way from where we live – almost 900 kilometers. Too much even for us to ride in one go, so we turned it into a super-relaxed cruise, with the first stop in Wagner town Bayreuth, where we picked up some friends coming from the Black Forest. The night was spent at the Customizers East’s club house, a drink or two included.

As the seasons change, summer in Sayoye turns yellow. A mythical transports winds its way from the boiling plains to the cool switchbacks under the clouds, big inching machines swarming round it, piloted by helmeted batallions, whose inner compass is firmly set for weekend fun.
When the altimeter in the ultimate hairpin reads “Valloire/Punta Bagna”, the yellow behemoth crawls to a stop between vendors’ stalls, parked bikes and more bikes coming in. We get a feeling that this party could be BIG.

You know, mates are quick to have wacky ideas. Let’s do a custom bike show in a derelict old industrial building, get a few gnarly chops, set them on some shabby chic pedestals … waiddaminit! Before we go to all that effort, let’s do the essential bit first, the pre-show-party. Let’s find a catchy name and a decent location. A location that means actually riding the bikes to!

Wide open throttle, the bird deflector busily deflecting birds, the Linkert butterfly vibrating in the staccato inhalations of our Big Flathead with its long springer pointed North, Norrtälje bound. The 80 cubic inches are filled with combusting gasoline, the ancient engine pushes the long forked beauty along with tractor-like thrust. The reason for this expediency is that we got held up at the Enköping “Hang Em Hi” longer than we expected. Still, we make it in time to the port town of Norrtälje, where the show opens at 10:00 sharp. Five hours later they already close shop again, the prize-giving being at 15:00. 5 hours to see 240 choppers, bobbers, trikes, Finnish CBR 1000 F baggers, Roman chariots and whatnot. OK, lets see what they have:

Rev counters twitching all over the Mediterranean beaches. Riders giving their hosses the whip. Sand by the bucketful, being catapulted into the stratosphere. Si, signori (e signorine), for yet another (six, if you want a figure) time the Boccini Bros and the 50 Brothers CC asked to the Roll&Flat, the sandiest showdown in the motociclismo calendar.
But before everything else we take the ride in Jack’s ’58 Cadillac to the first pre-party of the weekend. Eraclea is the venue, and before you can say “two pizze with everything and molto cheese” we’re on our way back to the real pre-party. Well chilled fluids are in ample supply, the night’s sound track is being hand produced by the UB Dolls, four ladies working the electric guitars, the mic and the drumset, making the gents’ hormones dancing the stroker fandango into the small hours of the morning.

Phew! We were almost relieved to find a few halfway normal bikes among the really well thought out and executed examples of custom machinery in this show of wrenching savvy, antiquated two wheeled transportation and plain good taste. You can tell these dudes think that time can’t be spent any better than in the garage and on the open road. The high percentage of awesome bikes went together well with the venerable venue, which is a complex of former industrial buildings dating from the 1900s, now in use as artists’ studios and event location, close to the shores of mighty Lake Erie. The FUEL Cleveland Show used the main hall, which is filled with artefacts ranging from vintage hoists, cranes and insects to mannequins and huge suspended geometric structures, giving a David-Lynch-inspired feel to the show.

With all the buzz around bobbers, cafe racers and scramblers, our long forked big flathead showed first signs of a depression coming on (drooping headlight, sagging sissy bar, clogged up carb) so we decided to bring it to its natural habitat for some well earned reconvalescence among fellow creatures. Sweden. Not only do they have there the longest forks on the planet, they also have the longest days!

So we strapped some gear to sissy bar and rabbit ear handlebars, pointed the long forks due North and kept her wide open until we saw moose in the lane going the other way. Well, almost. With a teardrop tank like she has, you’re well advised to stop at EVERY gas station that comes your way – or it’s teardrops of desperation and a long, sweaty push across endless forests if you haven’t got a reserve can somewhere tucked away. There are plenty of forests on the road to the legendary Norrtälje Custom Bike Show.

But what’s that: long before we’re even near our final destination, the roads fill with hot rods, US cars and: long forked choppers! That’s just what the doctor ordered for our bike. Strangely, she feels more relaxed and revitalized, as if all this had been long master-planned. And lo and behold, just as we pass through the town of Enköping, her side valves a-prattling merrily along an overgrown yard we glimpse through a hole in the hedge chromed fenders, long hoods, Chevy trucks, tanks in bright colours and endless front ends … WHAT THE FORK! We hit the binders, and after some perceived three minutes come to a dusty stop a few blocks later. We turn the long springer around and go back to that shiny apparition in the hedge. And what do you know, a few dudes wave us in and we ride through the hole in that hedge …

We’re not sure if our chopper had a hand in all this, but this CAN’T be coincidence. We park the bikes, get a beer and start chopper spotting. There’s a lot of them already here, and they keep on coming, VRATT-VRATTing and timing gears a-whining, through the gate.

A fine event Hi-Revs CC's and Lynchmen's HANG EM HI is, top notch bikes, nice people. We recommend it. If you’re the dude who wants some good company for his good old Harley chopper, try to be here next time.

The road to Norrtälje will be there tomorrow too, we decide, and get another cold one.

This year’s Art and Wheels Basel made it hard to decide where to go: inside they had this hand-picked collection of jaw-suspension threatening pieces of wrenching art. Outside, there were the terrific visitors’ bikes, parked in the glorious may sunshine. Anyway, the whole weekend was a feast for eyes and ears. Friday night they started off with the arrival of the exhibitors. There was a common dinner, and then it was off to the pre-party in a local place called “Kaschemme”. Even more promising than the club’s name (meaning dive, or gin palace) were the evening’s headliners: The Lords Of Altamont from L.A. and The Hip Priests from Nottingham, UK, throttled up their electric guitars to get those beer bottles really bouncing, the Lords pumping out a dark mix of noise and grungy depression, while the Priests got to it much more sprightly, and possibly even louder.

Premiering a major contender in the international custom bike show circuit is never easy. The dudes behind the first ever Matchlight Motorcycle Show got it right first hit though. Just one sec, Matchlight? Because of “Matching Numbers”? No, because Eindhoven used to be a major centre of matchstick production in the last century. Do you see the light? Well they did, as you can see. They found a top venue, lured the best vintage bikes to Eindhoven and the weather played along brilliantly. The former Philips factory was just right to house a skate park, a host of vendors for everything style related, rest areas, much needed refreshment vans and stalls and a smallish but excellently curated collection of custom bike jewels. The „Klokgebouw Cultuurhallen“ turned out to be just the place to be on a Sunday. A one-way-trafic system had been set up, so it was easy for visitors on their bikes to parade around a little and fill the air with the sweet smell of burnt gasoline and hot rubber, to the delight of a youngish audience who had turned up in large numbers.

Some say Six Towns, the others call the town that’s been wrenched together from 6 villages: Stoke-on-Trent. That’s where they have a century old china factory, now converted to an awesome venue, and a few miles over to the left they keep the fine Stoke Speedway. So, what do you do with all that on a weekend in middle England? Right, you organize a chopper show in the factory, and on the day before you lay on a flat track race. Not a revolutionary idea, but a solid premiere for the Six Town Chopper Show.

When roundabout one hundred first rate builders are coming to dance, it must be Mama who called. The Milwaukee, Ill., Eagles Club Ballroom was crammed with visitors swirling around the beautiful bikes, that had been parked on the dance floor. Good for us to have shown up early, ’cos to get a clear view of the bikes and their often marvellous details was somewhat difficult later in the morning. There was excellent inspiration for that next wrenching session to be found, no matter what style. The ballroom was a temporary cross-section of the world’s customizing history, from the almost-as-found ratty Knuckle bobber to the glam-and-glitter chopper, from the 70s racer with Japanese genes (fully faired) to the 1903 French bicycle with an early auxiliary motor.

We’ve been straining our noggins for years now, still we haven’t been able to figure out, what makes the Portland, Oregon ONE SHOW such a special thing. Sure, it might be the bikes of all makes, that just stand there in dreamlike perfection. Well, they’ve been selected very carefully by the team around Thor Drake of See See MotorCoffee Co. because space is limited even with 59.201 square feet to play with. Every one of these bikes ist just like, you know, the ONE bike you always meant to build. To build with that engine you’ve had lying around in your garage for years now; to build from that basket case you bought from your pal, ‘cos his wife needed the space in the basement; to build from that barn find to make a true believer cry, or from that old clunker that’s been toiling under your weight now for so many years.

If there’s one thing you can usually expect from the Swiss, it’s quiet understatement. Well, here at the Swiss Custom show you might have had to adjust your expectations. At least when bikes (they call ‘em töffs in Swiss German) are concerned. Because after two storeys of stock motorcycles the meticulously parked “Handmade motorcycles” made for an astounding virtual flight over the Swiss custom landscape. Here they have longer forks, scramblier scramblers, longer shocks and lower stances than anywhwere, customized to the extreme just like the 10-foot cruiser with 30” wheels up front and out back.

Foreversixwheels: it’s grinding the curbs on four wheels and cruising the night on two of them. Fueled by wrenching bikes, music and the urge to skate the days away a few dudes got together and let it rip. For a couple of precious moments we were invited to come along for the ride through this wild and wonderful world round Columbus, Ohio.
After a little welcome party, the next morning at around eleven we got off to “Ride or Die”. Naaah, it wasn’t quite as dangerous as it sounds. The plan was to take the bikes around the city’s skate parks, give the boards a good shake and move on. There were all kinds of bikes, classic Trumpets and late model Harleys, with some Hondas in between, neatly tweaked to accomodate the all important board rack.

Clearly we’re not talking about the endless green pastures where tasty wheels of cheese are being produced, we’re talking about the annual meeting of the „European Chapter of the AMCA“. AMCA as in Antique Motorcycle Club of America. This year’s motto “Export Green” was referring to the typical green paint job on Harley-Davidson’s export models in the 20s and 30s.
But what the AMCA members rounded up at the American Motorcycle Museum in Raalte/NL for this year’s show was far more than just a breathtaking exercise in Harley-Davidson paint history:

(Barn find of the digital kind)
When our French friends called for us to come again to the Linkert Attack rally to Jars in France, we felt just as Ulysses on his ship must have felt like, when he heard the sirens’ song. So on the kick starters of our ‘37 EL and ‘41 FL we jumped and went off for some 800 kilometers of French country roads. The fine weather made the ride a pleasure, even the numerous French farmers with their huge combine harvesters blocking the road were having a fun day. Overtaking them was a bit of a challenge for our ancient steeds, but on the long farmer-free stretches we breezed along merrily, the trusty V-Twins droning underneath us.
Our traditional last stop before the rally usually is on the terrace of the Restaurant de Rempart in Sancerre, where we moisten our parched throats with a first glass of glistening local wine, grand views over the vineyard-filled valley included. John from England is already here, celebrating his 50th aniversary. Not a normal birthday, mind you, because he is actually 77 already, no, he’s celebrating 50 years in the saddle of Harley-Davidsons. He doesn’t even have a driver’s license for cars. Chapeau, man!

When we take the average chopper rally as a benchmark, this one is definitely different. The numbers say it all: 400.000 spectators lining the streets, there are 8.000 bikes, they have a big, fat, massive parade, 50.000 spectators are crowding in the partyzone. This is one big inchin’ mother of a Harley party, and they know it at the Hamburg Harley Days.
The spacious grounds around the Großmarkthalle are solid with parked Milwaukee steel of all flavours. We take a walk among the thousands of hogs, and enjoy the customizing artists’ efforts to promote custom culture, even when we don’t find many bikes of our favourite vintages.

A wild bunch of raindrops, single digit temperatures, sunshine over rolling parkland, mediterranean trees. In the midst of it all choppers, a sweet little swapmeet, a few merchants selling apparel, beer, tasty burgers. Cool music was on. A great weekend at the Trip Out. For some, it is a trip, and a lengthy one too, to the island in the maelstrom of time: Bentwaters Park, where decomposing planes and hangars are the only distraction during the week. For a few precious hours this cold war relic (complete with museum) was an island of good taste in the sea of customizing liberties.

So they promised us a couple of hours of dust, dirt and a bunch of lunatics going in counterclockwise circles. Who would not drop everything, load up the truck and set off for one of the finest motorcycling events there is. Ever. Dirt Quake. Bike racing on a dirt track for bikes that weren’t made for that sort of thing. Sounds like proof for our long standing suspicion, that the Brits are several plates short of a complete … um, we had that already.

BEYOND THE DIRT THERE’S FUN. Or the other way round, we couldn’t find out. Anyway, DirtQuake is being organized for the fifth year running now by the very fine crew of Gary Inman, head honcho and impresario of Sideburn magazine. Which is the authority on everything dirt track. Or to put it more general: motorcycling culture of the faster kind.

Of which there was a lot. Across all brands and makes, styles and flavours. Vintage English bikes of course like BSA and Triumph, but also home brewed Vespas, chopped mopeds, hide covered Japanese bikes, Bultacos, Ossas, racing bars, apehangers, shining customs, flat black and rotting 80s wrecks. The riders too were out in style or whatever you call it when a dude dresses up as a frog, complete with helmet. Or as Marge Simpson.

Once a year, on the beach of Caorle, Italy the sandworms and crabs have to be very brave: a wild mob is tearing up the sand, when the '50 Brother CC is having their Roll & Flat beach race. Exclusively for cars and bikes of 68 vintage and earlier.

To take advantage of the training sessions we got there early. Racing on a flat beach Daytona style it's not something you get everyday round here. So we rise early, have a light breakfast and hit the beach track.

The first few meters tell us that this beautiful beach will be no walk in the park with Rudi's '55 Panhead and the '48 Pan from our headquarters. After some chilling on the beach we ride the convoy to main sponsor BCC's party zone. We wash down the excellent fingerfood with even more excellent cold beer. After that we get a glimpse of Boccins workshop, where they do the wrenching with heart and soul. If you're in the area, give the guys a call and see for yourself.

But there’s a race on tomorrow, and we head for the hotel. Unfortunately, we get waylaid by the Mosquito bar. It jumps us with its famous liquor filled chocolates. Deadly. On the other hand, tomorrows racing is just going in a straight line, we’ll manage. We think.

A guy setting out on his old Shovel at 4 am on a pitch black morning to check out a bunch of way cool choppers in mid England, listen to a handful of obscure bands and spend the night in his flimsy one-man-tent can only have one destination: The TripOut. But, if that weren’t tough enough, England has more to offer, like its traditional rain. Woe to the man who forgot his rain gear. Like the nice bloke on a rigid Sportster we met outside London at a petrol station. His smart phone had predicted a pause in the rain that had been drizzling away all day, so from his several bikes he had picked the fenderless Sporty for the ride to the TripOut. Big mistake: the drizzle didn’t care what the smart phone said, it went into overdrive. I almost felt guilty in my waterproofs when I saw him slip-sliding around the roundabouts in my rear view mirror, getting sprayed all over and soaked to the bone. Bummer! Double bummer was, when he had set up his tent, to his horror he discovered that his sleeping bag was drenched too.

When the Harleysons MC calls, the echo from the forest of legendary bike rallys is a deep rumbling from historic air cooled engines.

Historic too was the reason the call went out to gather in Erlach, Germany. 500 years since the Deutsches Reinheitsgebot (the German law governing the making and marketing of beer) had been set down. If you ever needed a reason to party, this was one of the better ones. Far away from human habitations the Erlach grounds are the ideal meeting place for vehicles that are propelled by the ponderous explosions of fuel mists in dark and voluminous iron tubes. No one to take offence at the loud band, too. Heaven.

Concerning the beer, no mass produced suds from tanks the size of container ships here. Craft beer brewed up by ambitious hobby brewers too is less than welcome here in the homeland of traditional microbreweries. The impressed guests were delighted to find a choice of very local beer varieties, served well chilled from small kegs. Aaaahh! Even the wine afiçionados from France forgot for one weekend their favorite red wine to sample these German delights.

(A barn find of the digital kind)
Got there early to set up camp. With the bus there's not much to do, though. Rain is falling hard, and the move from the old grounds to the Zeche Ewald in Herten, Germany proves a true powermove. Not long ago the weekend would have been a mega mudwrestling event with weather like that. When the doors open to the public, everything is ready for a first rate bike show – if Old School is your thing. Chopped Evos are pushing the envelope with their "modern" engines, stylistically they fit in perfectly with all the old clunkers. Some 150 bikes of all makes are on display, Harleys, Nippon bikes, BMWs. Not many Limey bikes though. Many booths are selling custom parts, handmade parts, used parts, T-Shirts and whatnot. The Magic Bus provides a nice backdrop for our own bikes, the vibes are relaxed. Bikes are constantly coming and going, a crackling symphony of idling air cooled engines. Just watch, listen and enjoy.

Meeting people at parties and meetings is the salt in the soup for every true wrencher. A shared beer (one each, to be sure), a little chat about the nightmares in the workshop, a couple of ideas for the next project, and Bingo! You have a plan.
Anyway that's what happened to John and Tom Jørgensen from Denmark. Their plan was to celebrate their 50th birthdays on the racetrack. The first venue was the Orsa Speed Weekend on a frozen lake in Sweden last winter. There they were having fun with a huge iron barbecue, which had loads of combustible power, but speed was lacking. It was however put to good use in securing a steady flow of tasty meat to the hard working W&W crew also at hand at Orsa.

(A barn find of the digital kind)
It’s a thursday, the weather report is favourable. We think it would be a shame to miss this weekend’s noisefest at Finsterwalde, way east of Würzburg. They’ll be having a 1/8 mile drag strip set up. Ancient American, Brit and German vehicles (on two and four wheels) are welcome. Rumours speak of cold beer. Always wanted to check out this event. So we grab a Panhead, the Servi-Car and four guys and set out for the Headbanging at Finsterwalde, organized by Hot Heads East.
450 km later we coast to a stop on an ex-Russian airbase, a bit run down, but very cosy. Around us a seething audio mix between percolating V8s, the potato-potato of Harly V-Twins, booming AWOs and the banshee-like shrieking of MZ two-strokes. The smell of burnt rubber and two-stroke oil is in the air. In the hangar, the size of a … erm … pretty humongous hangar, folks are going wild to the music of Rock-a-Billy-ing string instruments. There’s heavy chatting about engines, cubic inches and all the rest, and cold beer is gushing into our highway-dried system. Whoa, better ease off the suds, tomorrow we’re to drive in a straight line still.

(A barn find of the digital kind)
You can never be too early at a swap meet, especially if said swap meet is taking place in the land of the rising sun. You know you did it right when the sun is still rising while you shake, rattle and roll your way to the 7th Mooneyes Motorcycle Swapmeet in Odaiba/Tokio, Japan.