Widely considered the world's first superbike, the Honda CB750 changed the game when it hit the scene in 1969. 57 years later, it has another claim to fame—its immense popularity as a donor for custom motorcycle projects.The CB750 breathes the same rarefied air as bikes like the Harley Sportster and...

Between its cruiser ergonomics, giant fuel tank, and 251-kilo [553.3-pound] dry weight, the early-2000s Moto Guzzi California is hardly café racer material. But that didn't stop Eastern Spirit Garage from taking a crack at it.Based in Poland, just outside Warsaw, the workshop is renowned for buildin...

If you were to draw a Venn diagram of "legendary reliability" and "unapologetic 90s plastic," the Honda NX650 Dominator would sit right in the center. Launched in 1988, the Dominator was Honda's answer to the growing demand for "soft" dual-sports—bikes that could handle a gravel fire road on Saturda...

It's easy to forget how disruptive the early days of the pandemic really were. Routines collapsed, work stalled, and for a lot of people, the forced downtime exposed more than just free hours. For Ben Rowett, August 2020 marked a low point—out of work with stress and struggling to find footing. But ...

In the world of middleweight performance, the Triumph Street Triple is the undisputed hooligan of the bunch. When Hinckley launched the first 675cc model in 2007, it was a revelation: they had taken the world-class chassis and high-screaming engine of the Daytona 675 and stripped it naked for the st...

Founded in 1958, S&S Cycle is one of the most respected names in American V-twin performance. From their carburetors and iconic teardrop air cleaners to their exhausts, engine parts, and full drop-in motors, their stuff is everywhere. But their passion for the scene goes beyond just their manufa...

Based in Florida, USA, Cohn Racers is mostly known for its Muscle R2 series—burly Sportster scramblers swathed in carbon fiber and dripping with high-end components and bespoke engineering. But they like to shake things up from time to time, with projects that fall outside their usual domain."We do ...

We first came across the work of Martin Aveyard through Instagram. He posted a photo of a well-stanced early '80s Volvo 240 Turbo, carrying stacks of flat-pack IKEA boxes, parked at a gas station pump. As suckers for tastefully-modded vintage Swedish autos, we were awestruck and envious of the drive...

When we talk about Harley-Davidson, the conversation usually gravitates toward two poles: the nimble (by Milwaukee standards) Sportster and the massive, mile-munching Big Twins. While the Sportster is the frequent flyer of the custom scene, it's the Big Twin—spanning engines from the legendary Knuck...

Custom motorcycle builders often get requests for machines that either replicate or, at the very least, draw inspiration from ones that they've built before. But what happens when a customer likes one of your previous projects, and then deviates from the source material with a totally different dono...

The 90s were a wild time for motorcycle graphics—and if you need proof, the Honda NX650 Dominator has it in spades. Throughout its tenure, it wore everything from traditional Honda red to vibrant swathes of turquoise, purple, and pink. Seeing a custom Dominator that harks back to that radical era is...

When BMW Motorrad pulled the silk off the R nineT in 2013, it was a pivotal moment for the custom scene. Designed as a "blank canvas," it arrived just as the "New Wave" cafe racer movement was reaching a fever pitch. We first looked at our favorite R nineT customs nearly ten years ago, but in the wo...

Motorcycles, adventure, nostalgia, and impeccable taste—these are the hallmarks of Malle London. Run by Robert Nightingale and Jonny Cazzola, the British company not only produces stylish moto gear, but also runs myriad events and rallies to put that gear through its paces. So every piece they make ...

January marked the start of another new year, and as we turn the page to February, it's time to take a look back at our most-viewed custom motorcycles of the last month. Once again, the donors are completely different than last month, except for another strong showing by Royal Enfield—a brand that c...

A low-slung and compact 1978 Harley-Davidson FLH with hot rod underpinnings, masterfully built by Fatech.Countless parallels can be drawn between hot rods and custom motorcycles, but no one celebrates them quite like Minoru Watanabe. Watanabe-san runs Fatech in Tokyo, Japan, where he builds nostalgi...

Thickly veiled in mystique, the Harley-Davidson Knucklehead engine is arguably one of the most iconic powerplants ever built. Nearly nine decades after its debut, the silhouette of those fist-shaped rockers still carries a kind of mechanical authority—part engineering milestone, part cultural shorth...

In the pantheon of Japanese motorcycles, Suzuki has always been the brand that speaks to the "black sheep" of the motorcycle world. While Honda focused on approachability and Yamaha on artistic flair, Suzuki built a reputation on raw mechanical grit.From the legendary "thumper" singles of the DR ser...

Although it looks like a pristine restoration job, this BSA Gold Star café racer actually uses a bespoke frame and a brand new motor.You'd be hard-pressed to find a better donor bike for a truly British café racer than a BSA Gold Star. But what if you want your Gold Star to stand out from all the ot...

Set to compete in the MotoAmerica Super Hooligan class, the Lightfighter V3-RH is a naked electric racing motorcycle with a proprietary battery pack, an enviable parts spec, and a unique partner program.Those who heap hate on electric motorcycles usually cite their cost and limited range as factors....

The Triumph parallel twin is more than just an engine; it is the structural and aesthetic heartbeat of the cafe racer movement. When the ton-up boys of the 1950s and 60s were looking for the ultimate combination of speed and style to blast between cafes, they reached for the Triumph Bonneville and T...

Limited edition motorcycles were all the rage this week. MV Agusta announced the new Rush Titanio super-naked, while Triumph pulled the wraps off the Speed Twin Cafe Racer Edition. Here's how they stack up...Triumph Speed Twin 1200 Cafe Racer EditionAs implied by its name, the Triumph Speed Twin 120...

The future is inevitable. Sometimes it feels like a freight train and we're tied to the tracks. Fortunately, the future has yet to be written, and we have the power to shape it. We love to speculate about what the future might look and feel like, so we've rounded up eight motorcycles by artists and ...

Yamaha and flat track racing are inseparable. It's a legacy forged in the 1970s, back when Kenny Roberts famously wrestled a TZ750-powered framer around the dirt ovals of America, draped in the iconic yellow-and-black "speed block" livery. That competition DNA has trickled down into the custom scene...

Designed with the help of AI-powered software and realized in forged carbon fibre, this Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 has factory prototype written all over it.Between CGI whizz-kids and AI prompt-jockeys, it's getting hard to separate fact from fiction these days. But while we admire their skill, the...

Two London creatives join forces to produce an alluring BMW R100 café racer."We're not pros," says Andrea Felice, one half of the London-based custom bike outfit Settenero Motorcycles, "because we earn a living with other ventures. But it wouldn't be fair to call us garage builders either, consideri...

Misunderstood and often overlooked, Harley's Ironhead Sportster has always been one of the Motor Company's underdog engines. While there's some truth in its reputation, there's a lot to like about the old Ironhead if it's the golden age of choppers that trips your trigger.The iron lump has cooling f...

Yamaha's history is a relentless pursuit of the "Kando"—the Japanese philosophy of simultaneous feelings of deep satisfaction and intense excitement. From the screaming two-strokes that dominated Grand Prix racing to the bulletproof reliability of their "Master of Torque" hyper-nakeds, the Iwata mar...

Two Triumphs lead the charge this week: a Speed Twin café racer from Spain and a Bobber from the UK. We end things with a classy Ducati Monster 796 featuring miles of forged carbon fiber.Triumph Speed Twin 1200 RS by Tamarit MotorcyclesStraight out of the box, the Triumph Speed Twin 1200 RS is the s...

When Miguel Galluzzi stripped a Ducati 888 of its fairings and sketched a fuel tank that looked like a muscular hunchback, he wasn't just designing a bike—he was inventing a category. Launched in 1993, the Ducati Monster (or Il Mostro) adhered to a simple, yet brutal philosophy: "All you need is a s...

Few motorcycle companies pour as much energy into the custom motorcycle scene as Royal Enfield. The Indian marque farms a staggering number of bikes out to the world's best customizers each year—and the creations that come back act as rolling advertisements for whichever model the brand is focusing ...

When Polaris announced that it was selling a majority stake in Indian Motorcycle to the private equity firm Carolwood LP, the internet buzzed with the usual chatter that accompanies such announcements. But despite the naysayers, the American marque hasn't skipped a beat.This year marks Indian's 125t...

When it comes to the motorcycle world, the Honda name carries a weight that few others can match. It's a reputation built on the "Power of Dreams," but reinforced by the reality of bulletproof engineering. Whether it's the air-cooled thumpers of the '70s or the high-revving inline-fours of the moder...

In the early naughts, Pierre Terblanche ruffled the feathers of Ducatisti worldwide with the radically redesigned Ducati 999 and 749. While both bikes' engines evolved from their predecessors, aesthetically they were a bold departure from the Italian marque's well-established playbook.Aside from the...

Kork Ballington occupies a rare space in Grand Prix history, the kind reserved for riders who combined speed with mechanical sympathy and timing that bordered on prophetic. Born in Rhodesia and racing under the South African flag, Ballington arrived in Europe during a period when Grand Prix paddocks...

The Harley-Davidson Sportster is a paradox in the custom world. Since its introduction in 1957, it has arguably become the most customized motorcycle on the planet, yet it remains one of the most challenging to get "right" as a cafe racer. To turn the American cruiser into a canyon-carving weapon re...

This week's edition of Speed Read kicks off with a stonking supercharged Suzuki GSX-R / GSX 1100 hybrid from Finland, built for flat track racing of all things. We shift gears to profile a svelte Honda CB750 café racer from an award-winning Japanese workshop, before focusing on a Baja racing-inspire...

Known for its wild customs, Rno Cycles tones it down with a Triumph Bonneville T100 street tracker that cuts a timeless silhouette.As the man behind Rno Cycles, Arno Overweel specializes in custom bikes that range from wild to outright nuts. One minute, he's slapping a turbo-charger on a Honda CBX 1...

When BMW Motorrad unveiled the R18 in 2020, it wasn't just launching a motorcycle; it was reclaiming a piece of its soul. Designed as a direct challenge to the American cruiser hegemony, the R18 is a paradoxical machine—a modern vessel that feels like a pre-war relic. At its heart lies the "Big Boxe...

For over 25 years, Harley-Davidson has offered riders with deep pockets the opportunity to own highly exclusive models through its Custom Vehicle Operations (CVO) division. The CVO formula is simple—The Motor Co. takes a handful of existing models each year, specs them to the nines, and sells them f...

The modern custom scene has no shortage of blank canvases, but few offer the accessible performance quite like the Royal Enfield Continental GT 650. Since its debut in 2018, the GT 650, alongside its sibling the Interceptor, marked Royal Enfield's triumphant return to the parallel-twin engine, a con...

The Honda CB750 Four was a hit when it hit the scene on the cusp of the 1970s. Often called the world's first superbike and the original UJM, it's now considered one of the Japanese marque's most iconic models. But despite its status, it regularly finds itself on the chopping block.The sleek styling...

Modern motorcycles have become rolling supercomputers, draped in plastic and governed by algorithms; the classic Triumph parallel twin remains a canvas for the minimalist. It is motor that looks like a drawing of an engine, housed in a silhouette that has defined "cool" since Brando first scowled at...

Our first Speed Read of 2026 boasts a racy Yamaha R5 café racer from the UK, a feisty Yamaha WR155R scrambler from Indonesia, and a burly Suzuki Bandit 1200 from Australia. Dig in! Yamaha R5 by Jets ForeverBuilt by Jets Forever's Tony Taysom and Jeff Duval in their UK workshop, this stunning Yamaha ...

Germany's One Way Machine takes a break from its usual fare to convert a 2001-model Harley-Davidson Softail Deuce into a chopper for the open road.Julian von Oheimb's signature style is as consistent as it is inimitable. The Harley-Davidson bobbers that roll out of his workshop, One Way Machine, are...