I had the pleasure of attending a Melbourne custom bike show organised by a group called “Oil Stained Brain” at the 1000 Pound Bend Gallery. The organisers are Jimmy Goode who runs Kustom Deluxe and Geoff Baldwin, of Return of the Café Racers. Both guys are deeply passionate about the custom bike industry and feature a wide range of interesting work by independent builders.
The show was a well populated by black leather clad bikers, rockers and guys with very neat hair. It was the first of hopefully many shows featuring builds from local and interstate bike builders. It also features films and artworks on bike culture as well. Some highlights include a very steampunk styled 1974 Shovel head with a pneumatic front suspension and a glass bottle fuel gauge, a beautifully restored BMW R1000RS with just the right amount of modern bits, and an iron clad 2008 KTM 250 EXC-F. It was an impressive exhibition considering the small but strong subculture of custom motorcycle riders in Australia. To be honest, some of the patrons rode up on some pretty sweet machines as well. It was a proud day to be a motorcyclist and I hope to see many more events put on by the passionate folks of Oil Stained Brain.
