What kind of motorcycle would the king of cool, Usher ride? Well, a custom one that his brother bought him of course. Custom created by Darwin Motorcycles, based on their Brawler GT model, the sports cruiser does ooze all types of cool. Riding it in a suit certainly doesn’t hurt its image.
It honestly doesn’t take more than a set of clubman bars to get me excited about a motorcycle…
I so want to ride this. It’s a scooter and I want to ride it! Roland Sands Designs get their hands on a Yamaha 500cc TMAX and do their thing.
As I sit in an non airconditioned home in a week of scorching summer weather, this video comes as a bit of a relief. The winter slumber of the Northern Hemisphere is turned into a time of deep meditational of the mechanical kind as a builder from Cast & Salvage in Philadelphia throws another log on the fire and continues his customisation work.
WAITING OUT WINTER from Andrew David Watson on Vimeo.
A photojournalist friend of mine lent me his lovely Canon 1d Mark IV and a 300mm f2.8 lens to play with on this day at the Phillip Island race track. It was a steep learning curve as I’m more a portrait shooter rather than a sport shooter, however, I did come back with some images I was quite happy with. The Sidecar races were a real surprise for me as to how much I enjoyed photographing the riders hanging on with their helmets nearly scraping the ground. Hope you find something you like too.
Click on the images for a larger, sharper view.
The Harley Iron 883 is once again justified as one of my favourite bike to customise with Roland Sands‘ latest creation. Created for the audio brand Technics, the bike is detailed with graphics inspired by the era of retro vinyl and analogue goodness. The video at the end of this post is worth watching to see the bike in action.
Via Freshness
Just incase you were thinking of a Christmas present for me…
Link
A great gathering was organised last Sunday to bring together custom bikes and scooters in a massive ride ending up at Kustom Lane Gallery in Hawthorn. A few of the bikes there were featured in the Oil Stained Brain exhibition from the previous week but there were also plenty of other gorgeous two wheeled machines to enjoy. The people there were generally very inviting and willing to chat about their customised rides while others enjoyed the entertainment and sunshine.
I decided to edit these photos in black and white as it was like stepping into a different time in history as you entered the closed off lane; literally full of classic Nortons, Ducatis, BSAs and much much more. Check out the images below.
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.
Nothing to see here, just go about your business. Nothing except a nimble and sleek looking 1975 Honda CB200T crafted by Florida bike builders Bare Bones Rides (Jim and Joseph Lang), who have embraced the cafe racer ethos and stripped this bike back and rebuilt it with nothing but what makes this bike essentially cool.
Via Silodrome
