This article was written by James Fawcett, the founder of Slipstream Creations. When possible we like to bring you the story of a custom in the words of the builder, to give unique insight into their thought process and methods. This bike is a tribute to all those boxes of old parts and storage sheds full…
Penton: The John Penton Story is an upcoming film due to be screened at the NYC Motorcycle Film Festival (September 24th to the 27th in Brooklyn), the story of John Penton is a remarkable one but up until now it’s only really been known to motorcycle geeks and well informed KTM owners. The full story of John Penton…
The Yamaha XT500 is one of the more important motorcycles from the Yamaha back catalogue, it’s based on the same engine as the iconic SR500 – a single cylinder 499cc engine with one valve in, one valve out and a following that a numbers in the millions. The XT500 was an instant success when it…
The Triumph Scrambler has quickly become a prime target for custom motorcycle builders, it’s based on the Bonneville and because of this, there’s a huge aftermarket parts catalogue rivalled only by the likes of Harley-Davidson. The Triumph you see here started life as a Scrambler, before being rebuilt after it was wrecked with just 900…
Husqvarna is a motorcycle marque that’s always been a little unusual, the company start life all the way back in 1689 as a firearms manufacturer before moving to the Swedish town of Huskvarna in 1757 and taking the same name. By the late 1800s the company was also producing bicycles and then in 1903 they…
1974 was the first year that Penton produced its 250 model with longer travel front and rear suspension, and frames made from high-grade chrome-moly steel. These engineering advancements combined with engines supplied by KTM made the Pentons a force to be reckoned with on motocross circuits around the world and even today, 40 years…
Håkan Persson is one of those curiously talented people that seems to be frustratingly good at everything he puts his mind to. Take this bike for example – it started life as a stock Yamaha DT50MX (pictured inset left) and despite the fact that this is only his second attempt at building a custom motorcycle,…
The Honda FT500 (also known as the Honda Ascot) was a motorcycle built in the early ’80s to fill a niche that Honda saw for a mid-sized motorcycle designed with flat-tracker styling cues (the FT in the name stands for flat track).
This bike started life as a 1982 Honda CB750 before Richard and Lex at Left Hand Cycles got their hands on it and set about creating the rather unique bike you see above and below. Left Hand Cycles is based in the Netherlands and tends to focus on motorbikes from the ’60s and ’70s, their previous work has included a Yamaha XS650 and a beautiful old air-cooled Moto Guzzi.
This 1971 Triumph Trail Blazer looks to me to be just about the perfect weekend warrior, the single cylinder 250 never really caught on when it was released in 1971 and so now they’re quite rare and tend to be viewed as collectibles.
This bike was built by Clay Rathburn over at Atom Bomb Motorcycles, the garage is based in the historic town of Richmond, Virginia and Clay specialises in building custom vintage British motorcycles from discarded, damaged, abused and forgotten Triumph and BSA relics.
This bike is based on a classic Italian SWM Enduro motorcycle powered by a 280cc Rotax 2-stroke, he built the bike for his 17 year old daughter although there’s nothing girly about the finished bike.
