YOSHIMURA GS1000R COOLEY/CROSBY

Japanese motorcycle culture is full of little side streets and half-hidden diversions: it probably has more depth than anywhere else in the world. And when the Japanese get into something, they reallyget into it. The scale model motorcycle scene is typical: it’s huge over there, fuelled by giants such as Tamiya, and it has its own subcultures too. One of them is the annual Modeler GP show, a competition for scale models of racing...

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DEUS BALI SUZUKI DR650

Motorcycles can be capricious creatures. But there are a handful that are essentially bulletproof—simple machines that are simple to fix, and cheap to run. One of those is Suzuki’s venerable DR650, which has been around for at least twenty years. The stock bike is as ugly as a toad, but it’s not hard to see why it still sells. In the US you can ride one out of the showroom for less than $6,000, and you’ll be riding on a wave of torque from the...

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JEFF DECKER’S BLACK LIGHTNING

For someone who doesn’t like stock Vincents, Jeff Decker builds a mighty fine Black Lightning. He’s a sculptor as well as a bike builder, and his eye for a line is evident with this beautiful salt racer. As these exclusive Horst Roesler shots reveal, Decker has managed to make the Vincent look fast even when it’s standing still on the Bonneville salt flats. Decker has received some flak over this bike from Vincent purists. But his Black...

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ZPSPORT 449 ENDURO

The small German town of Zschopau is famous for its motorcycling heritage. It was home to DKW and MZ, marques whose luminosity has dimmed in recent decades. But there’s now a chance that Zschopau could return to its motorcycling glory days. This is a prototype from a new company calledZPmoto; it’s a vintage-styled enduro inspired by the 1960 MZ ES 250 Geländesport. The ZPsport 449 is powered by a Gas Gas single which delivers around 45 hp...

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TRIDAYS TRIUMPH SCRAMBLER

The Triumph Scrambler must be one of the hardest bikes to customize. Along with Moto Guzzi’s current V7 and the Kawasaki W800, it’s one of the few production machines that have a retro-slash-custom feel right from the start. This hasn’t deterred the Triumph Tridays team though. The Rumbler accentuates the Scrambler’s classic good looks, and cranks the performance up a notch. The Tridays is one of the largest motorcycle events in Europe. It’s...

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KAWASAKI KZ1000 CUSTOM

Early Japanese superbikes seem to get more appealing as the years go by. The Honda CB750 is still going strong, and so is Kawasaki’s KZ series. This classy, understated KZ1000 is the work of London’s Untitled Motorcycles, and it’s owned by Anthony van Someren of the UK website the Bike Shed. “My Ducati became more and more customized and pretty, and less appropriate for my daily five-mile commute into the West End,” Anthony says. “I...

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BLACK BRIDGE HONDA CB400

It was only a matter of time before the nascent custom motorcycle industry started to blossom in China. We already have Bandit9: now here’s another recent start-up, Black Bridge. Black Bridge is the nom de plume of Beijing-based Adrien Macera. Macera has been tinkering with motorcycles for as long as he can remember, but this Honda CB400 is his first commercial build. “The bike was for a friend who owns a bunch of restaurants in...

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DUCATI MULTISTRADA “BIUTA”

The first incarnation of the Multistrada was an awkward machine. But this unusual custom has transformed Ducati’s ugly duckling into a swan. It’s called “Biuta” and it was created by Carlo Roscio of Pavi, a town in Lombardy some 35 kilometers south of Milan. With the help of his brother, Carlo has built a mongrel of a machine. The suspension is Honda-spec Öhlins all round—with forks from a VTR1000 SP-2, and shocks from an unspecified CBR. The...

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ROKON TRAIL-BREAKER

I’ve always been fascinated by the Rokon Trail-Breaker. It’s got charmingly oddball looks, and it’s two-wheel drive. But there’s a surprising dearth of information about these curiosities on the interwebs. So I was overjoyed when Robert Galbraith of Rochester, Minnesota, emailed me with images of his own Rokon. Galbraith’s interest in Rokon was piqued in the mid-90s after he read an article in the Old Bike Journal. “Like many others,...

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CUSTOM BMW R100/7

The French have an interesting phrase for an unconventionally attractive woman: jolie laide. The English equivalent would be “pretty ugly,” but the ambiguity of the French meaning is lost in the translation. The phrase sprung to my mind when I first saw this BMW, a 1978 R100/7 that lay in bits and pieces in a garage for years. Restored and running again, it’s far from beautiful—but it has a transfixing quality that would stop the traffic...

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