My love of single cylinder motorcycles was developed at an early age. I remember clearly, although I must only have been about ten years old at the time, going to see the finish of the 1973 Durban to Johannesburg Run for motorcycles made before 1937 at the Johannesburg market. I know that it was 1973

  There is a descriptive term which I have heard several times recently with reference to certain custom motorcycles. The term is "a Frankenstein Bike" and it refers to a motorcycle which has been built up from the remnants of several scrap motorcycles. The older and more recognised term for such a motorcycle is "a

You cannot imagine my disappointment upon first seeing BMW's new R Nine T model, which has been launched to celebrate BMW's 90th anniversary of motorcycle production. When we did an article on 12 September featuring a lovely BMW R100RT, I was unaware of the R Nine T's imminent launch. In the article I suggested that

Normally one only recognises a lost opportunity after that opportunity has already passed. There are however times when one can see the opportunity being wasted right before your eyes. The Lambretta scooter is one such opportunity. Scooters are enjoying a huge increase in popularity internationally and the premium brand Italian Vespa has got the top

Ever since man first discovered the wonder of riding a motorised bicycle, he has  been modifying motorcycles to perform better than original. The first racing machines were merely stripped down and performance tuned standard models. It was after WWII that the returning US servicemen began buying up Harleys and stripping them of anything that added

When Marnitz and I first envisaged this blog, our goal was to show off South  African custom built old school styled cafe racers, bobbers and choppers to the  world. We seem to be achieving our goal and are very happy with our growth over  the last six months. What we did not anticipate was the

Whether we like it or not, development and advances in technology will continue at an alarming rate. Today's latest innovation is tomorrow's outdated frustration. Every innovation increases efficiency and puts us all in a world where we live in a constant state of fast forward. Although we have been conditioned to become far more adaptable

If you ask an enthusiastic Harley rider what the abbreviation CTFS means in Harley-speak, he should easily be able to answer the question with "Chop That F@@&ing Sportster!" Although CTFS applies to Harley Sportsters; the most customised motorcycles in the world, it is applicable to Harley Davidson motorcycles in general. CTFS is a call to

If anyone had predicted thirty years ago that I would one day be regularly writing articles about custom built Honda CX500s, my response would have been one of disbelief. This response would not have been because the CX500 was a bad motorcycle but because there were so many more exciting and more powerful motorcycles available

We have said it before and we will probably say it again; we support the resurrection of sad and neglected motorcycles, not the wholesale destruction of well kept, tidy and original motorcycles. There is a school of thought which believes customisation of any rare motorcycle is sacrilege and that a motorcycle should always be restored