Sweden Special
Fast Steel, Long Forks, Wild Rides: Sweden.
Our man from the North, steel whisperer Mattias “LeBeeF” Andersson, was back in his native Sweden for a change and visited a few of his favourite workshops there, where -as expected - he came across a whole bunch of magical machines from Milwaukee:
His first stop: Antiquebikes.se in Forshaga, pretty much halfway between Stockholm and Oslo. Founded in 2012 by father Mikael, who has been hooked on historic motorcycles for over 35 years and has long since infected his sons with the classic bike bug.
From the heart of Sweden, historic Harley-Davidsons are not only supplied with authentic new parts worldwide, but artfully restored H-Ds also make their way from there to where the Antiquebikes trio believes they belong: on the road! This also applies to other legends of American motorcycle history that are cared for in Forshaga: Indian, Excelsior, Henderson, Pope, Thor.
Vertical, Fast, Well Aged.
Legends are also the focus at “Skutt Racing,” tucked away on a bend in a country road, about 120 km north-northwest of Gothenburg. There, outside his day job, Ulf “Skutt” Nylén has restored an old Wall of Death circus attraction from the 1940s, in which he does vertigo inducing laps behind his house. On his father’s ’51 Husqvarna.
If that gets too slow or too tame for him, he can always switch to his golden 1,000-horsepower rubber burning nitro drag bike monster, which has already clocked the quarter-mile in 6.6 seconds (reaching a top speed of around 205 mph).
Unbelievable, but true: Skutt has some quiet moments too, and he finds peace and (relative) quiet in his collection of the finest two-wheeled machines, often hailing from Milwaukee, WI.
Ice-cold, Extra-long, Bombastic:
Since we’re in Swedish territory: we have quite a few historic pix from this Northern corner of Europe in the archives. Let’s see what we can find in our digital barn:
Nortällje Custom Show 2011
For the uninitiated it is just a one smørrebrød town on the Baltic Sea, for the devout customizer it's the pilgrimage of the year: Norrtälje: 8.000 bikes and 15.000 visitors...
More pics from Nortällje Custom Show 2011
Hang 'em Hi in Enköping!
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.
More pics from HANG EM HI
A-Bombers Backamo 2018
The shrill alarm rings: Old Style Weekend! “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.
More pics from A-Bombers
Orsa Speed Weekend 2013
Orsa reloaded, or rather respiked.
The Orsa dishonour smoldered on below the ashes.Tirewise this time we got hold of the good advice of Jens Krüper, who, in the middle of nowhere runs his shop NCCR, where he wrenches Harleys and other useful vehicles and has a ton of experience with ice racing...
More pics from Orsa Ice Sea Race