Held in a former newspaper plant, the show gathers as many as 150 unique motorcycles, each perched atop a low plinth and precisely spot-lit, all arranged in a voluminous warehouse with 50-foot ceilings. And every year, the show and the crowds get bigger, proving there is no shortage of fresh design ideas and a growing audience to embrace them. “The spirit that animates all of these motorcycles-and elevates each to a work of art-is the knowledge, ingenuity and skill possessed by its maker,” says Revival Cycles founder Alan Stulberg. Since 2014, Revival Cycles, the custom motorcycle shop known for building wild, one-off machines of its own, has thrown a moto-festival in Austin, Tex., called the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show, inviting an international who’s who of peers to present their latest creations to thousands of bike-crazy attendees. Other bikes-labors of love-remain with their creators and have no price at all. A quarter-million dollars is not out of the question, although the pain threshold for most customers is typically in the high five figures. Some reveal the precision of mil-spec parts and surgical fabrication others express the handmade flair of an eccentric metalsmith. Some bikes are the products of companies employing teams of specialists others are the work of lone actors wrenching away in spaces the size of a small garage. Today, many builders have achieved international renown for ingenuity and artisanal skills unimagined back when Woodstock was just some town in the Catskills.Ĭustom motorcycles are more popular than ever-and represent big business. Otherwise, things in the custom-motorcycle world have changed dramatically since 1969. And more than 50 years after Easy Rider, the film’s Captain America, a Harley-Davidson “Panhead” with extended forks and ape-hanger handlebars, remains the quintessential bad-boy chopper. The outlaw-biker persona has shadowed respectable motorcyclists ever since Brando kick-started his Triumph in 1953’s The Wild One, portraying an unruly rider-with an uncouth machine-as nothing but trouble on two wheels.
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