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Bigtoe and Smalltoe, the Tallest and Smallest Motorcycles in the World

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by Elena Gorgan from https://www.autoevolution.com Size doesn’t matter, if you’re to believe some people. For inventor Tom Wiberg, size is everything, because he is the man who created the world’s tallest motorcycle and its counterpart, the smallest motorcycle in the world. June is autoevolution’s Two-Wheeler Month and we couldn’t celebrate it properly without talking about some of the two-wheelers that have written history. Enter the world’s tallest and the world’s smallest motorcycle, as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records: Bigtoe and Smalltoe. Both “toes” are builds from Swedish inventor Tom Wiberg, a man whose skillfulness is only surpassed by his creativity. Like most Guinness winners, Tom set out to create a new world record and spared no expense and effort to secure it. Take Bigtoe, for example. It was built in 1998 and certified by Guinness in 1999 as the tallest motorcycle in the world, measuring 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) in height. It was 5 meters (16.4 feet) long and weighed an impressive 1,645 kg (3,626 pounds), which means it was eight times the size of a sportbike and four times the size of a Honda Gold Wing. Because of its size and weight, it required training wheels in order to keep upright. It’s still a motorcycle, but one that uses training wheels. Bigtoe was pimped out, which is surprising given that it was constructed to set a record for height. It came with a 500W 4-way speaker sound system with CD player and even had a custom stainless muffler system for riders to enjoy the ride without excessive noise. Powered by a 1975 Vintage Type E Jaguar 300 hp 5.3-liter engine, Bigtoe was able to reach top speeds of 100 kph (62 mph) but – and this goes without saying – it was not made for cruising, […]

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Harley-Davidson Mugello Was Not Bred for Racing, Would Look Great on the Track

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com/ Being the point of origin for some of the most impressive cars and motorcycles in the world, Italy has its share of famous race tracks. The Mugello Circuit (officially called Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello) is one of them. It is there where races from the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) were once held, and it is there where each year the greats in motorbike racing gather for the usual MotoGP leg. Owned by Ferrari, the circuit is also the main testing facility for the Scuderia’s Formula 1 cars. As far as we know, what the Mugello circuit has not seen is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle doing a run there. And it probably never will, even if builds such as the one in the gallery above would look great under the clear skies of Tuscany. We opened with a bit of info about the Mugello track because this is the name German custom shop Thunderbike bestowed one of their Harley-Davidson Breakout creations. Named so in honor of the Italian circuit, it is part of a larger collection of bikes that also includes the Laguna Seca and Silverstone. Just like the other two, it was of course not bred for racing, but as some type of two-wheeled billboard meant to advertise the custom parts Thunderbike usually has in its inventory for Harley owners. And just like the other two, there’s plenty of parts going into this bike as well. From the derby cover to the exhaust system and large wheels (21 and 23 inches), a total of 25 custom parts were fitted on it, and all wrapped in a special paint scheme wearing the signature of Ingo Kruse, Thunderbike’s favorite partner in this field. The bike is not for sale, and it will probably never be raced on a

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Long Fork Harley-Davidson Chopper Has Fully Exposed Shovelhead Engine

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Because of the global health crisis, the world is missing out on all those extraordinary events it came to take for granted over the past decades. Since there is no end in sight to the scourge, we’ll probably not be back together at auto or moto shows until the end of 2020. As chance would have it, the crisis came at a time when luckily we have alternatives. The Internet proved to be humanity’s best friend in these times, and has also become the place to go for concerts, movies, and more recently motorcycle shows. Harley-Davidson, the supplier of so many motorcycles for custom builds that they’re impossible to count, is currently holding an online motorcycle show as a replacement for all those canceled live events. Called The No Show, the event displays for a week, ending on June 21, the work of 60 American custom bike builders that were supposed to be featured in the flesh across America. As part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage, we’ve already talked about a bunch of such builds. None so far seems to be as extreme as the one here. Built for a 2019 custom show by a guy named Hawke Lawshe from Montana-based Vintage Technologies, the bike is a wonder to behold. The first thing that catches the eye is the extremely long front fork that ends with a 17-inch wheel, the same size as the one in the back. Then, the frame, custom-made by Lawshe from scratch, holding a 1981, fully exposed Shovelhead engine that has been stripped of the cooling and oiling components. The engine starts by means of an exposed kicker mechanism, is controlled by an EMF auto clutch, and breathes through an inverted fishtail exhaust. Lawshe would have taken the bike to an

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An Interview with the MB Master

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Mario from MB Leathers in San Pedro. By Buster and Bandit with photos from MB Leathers Buster is a social media master, who works full time for Saddlemen seats. He’s also helping around the Bikernet/5-Ball nerve center and he’s a major motorcycle enthusiast. He’s going to bring some of his connections to the Bikernet family. The first is Mario from MB leathers in San Pedro. Buster interviewed the leather master about his history and leather learning experience. CLICK HERE TO READ THIS INTERVIEW ON BIKERNET Join the Cantina – Subscribe Today https://www.bikernet.com/pages/custom/subscription.aspx

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Harley-Davidson Silverstone Is a Motorcycle Bumblebee

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com After talking for quite some time about the builds coming out a German shop by the name of Thunderbike, one can confidently say that once you’ve seen one their builds, you’ve seen them all. Based largely on the same Milwaukee machines, they are generally moving displays of German custom parts, a sort of two-wheeled billboard if you like. Yet these guys somehow manage to make each of these billboards look unique, and from time to time stunning. Like it’s the case with the heavily modified Breakout displayed here. The bike is called Silverstone, and is one in a longer series meant to celebrate various racetracks around the world. Thunderbike calls this series GP, and we’ve already talked about two other builds belonging to it, the Laguna Seca and Grand Prix 2. The series comprises both motorcycles based on custom Thunderbike frames, like the Grand Prix and Grand Prix 2, and ones based on Harley frames, like this here Silverstone. As said, this one is at its core a Breakout, one of the Germans’ favorite models. Designed largely like most of the bikes in its series, the Silverstone is a wealth of parts combined and make to work together. From small to big (read from license plate lighting to fuel tank), they all make the build look uniquely incredible. The perfectly matched parts are even more impressive thanks to the bright yellow color chosen for them, a color that fits it just as well as it fitted the Camaro-based Bumblebee from Transformers. In fact, with all the metal twisted together to form the bike, and the black and yellow sprayed all over, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to imagine this is how the Autobot might look like if it were a two-wheeler. As most other

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1964 FL Panhead Is Today’s Dose of Old School Custom Harley-Davidson

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Ever since Softails have come onto the motorcycle scene, garages across the world flocked to use them as a base for whatever project they had in mind. That means most of what’s out there now is based on newer motorcycles that, despite being generally cool, lack the old school appeal of older Harleys. Take the 1964 FL Panhead in the gallery above. The FL is one of Harley’s historic lines, having started out in the early 1940s, and is generally seen as one of the best representative of the classic Harley look. Whereas custom bikes based on more recent Harleys are favorites of the present-day online media, older ones such as this one here are stars of motorcycles shows big and small. But for the first time since ever, a global health crisis ended pretty much all such events planned for the year. To fill the gap, Harley-Davidson announced on Tuesday (June 16) a week-long online event dedicated to some 60 not-so-famous bike builders that would have been the talk of show-goers at the now-canceled or postponed events. The custom 1964 FL Panhead in the video below is a build made by one of those 60 builders. Its creator’s name is Eric Stein, and he is by no means a full-time motorcycle tuner, but an “operation’s manager” at some North Carolina company. Since 2014, Stein used most of his spare time to customize motorcycles. This particular one, the most recent of the batch, is his 11th, and a good looking one at that. Keeping things simple, the Panhead keeps true to the “older style bikes that are appreciated more” while at the same time adding a custom flavor through fine touches like the rear fender or the unique fuel tank – watch the video below

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Harley-Davidson Prison Break Is a Fat Boy Let Loose

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The garage behind this Harley-Davidson Fat Boy conversion calls its creation “one of the elegant custom conversions.” They also call it Prison Break, despite it having nothing to do with the TV series, nor the actual act of breaking out of a prison. The custom motorcycle is German in conception, being the work of a shop called Thunderbike. On the market customizing Harleys for the past 20 years or so, Thunderbike is one of the most active such garages outside the United States, and one we’ve become quite accustomed to as part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage. Generally, the shop goes out of its way to create unique interpretations of Milwaukee-made machines as a means to advertise the long list of custom parts it makes. The Prison Break is an advertising tool as well, and it was gifted with the name just to attract attention. And it succeeded, bringing the build before our eyes in a “simple and elegant” form. Thunderbike based this build on the Fat Boy from 2018, making it a relatively recent creation. It sports the usual complement of custom parts that range from tiny elements like the license plate frame and turn signals to the more prominent wheels and the functional air ride suspension. The wheels, which have always been the highlight of Thunderbike builds, are in this case of equal size front and rear, at 21-inches each. They’re not the most spectacular we’ve seen, yet they do seem to get the job done on this particular Fat Boy. Mechanically, a Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde exhaust system, a pulley brake kit, and a fork lowering kit are all on deck to make the Prison Break look, feel and drive like an unchained Fat Boy, a tad different from what Harley

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Harley-Davidson TwentyOne Pirate Craves an Outlaw’s Life

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com “Treasures, women and fame: These are usually the intentions a pirate wants on land. Maybe this Fat Boy is not so far away from it…” This is how German custom motorcycle garage Thunderbike describes one of the most exciting addition to their garage, the TwentyOne Pirate. As that short description reveals, the base for this build is the Fat Boy, one of the families of HD bikes born closer to our time. Only in this configuration it appears to be much cleaner and simpler in design, and it shows a somewhat more elegant stance. The TwentyOne in the name is of course a reference to the bikes massive wheels. Not one, but two equally-sized 21-inch metal circles of Thunderbike make wrapped in rubber are the main connection between the motorcycle and the road. As from where Pirate comes from, that’s probably just marketing, and a rather good one at that, as we’ve previously seen on other Thunderbike machines. The bike is named so just for kicks, because it doesn’t lack a leg (or a wheel, for that matter) and it doesn’t come with an eye patch. It does come however with a long list of custom parts, over 40 of them in fact, some extreme and others less so. The handlebars, mirrors, turns signals, and pretty much every other small-sized hardware on the bike is new. And new or modified are some of the other, larger parts: fuel tank, fenders, swingarms, and so on (the full list of changes made can be found at this link). Like most other Thunderbike builds, this too is a one-off, a display of what is available for purchase from Germany as aftermarket parts for Harley owners. It looks good enough though for it to be featured into some motorcycle

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This 1927 Harley-Davidson Model J Tracker Bike Looks Best With Mud On It

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by Mircea Panait from https://www.autoevolution.com Justin Walls describes himself as a perfectionist. The founder and owner of Built the Traditional Way – BTTT on Instagram – pays so much attention to the finest of details. The Model J in the photo gallery is one of Justin’s one-off creations, and H-D has selected it for The No Show that will end on June 21st. Originally produced by Harley-Davidson for military service, the all-round motorcycle was converted after World War I for civilian use. With this change, the Milwaukee-based manufacturer has also leveled up the J as the top-of-the-line motorcycle. Driven by the technological advancements of the war, the Model J boasts… wait for it… battery ignition and even electric lights! Jokes aside, the two-cylinder bike has helped Harley-Davidson grow as a company and the U.S. consumer go places at a time when cars were still relatively expensive and hard to repair. Now that the history lesson is over, let’s take a look at the one-of-a-kind Model J that Justin Walls converted into a tracker motorcycle. “A cut-down racer or whatever you want to call it, I built this bike in 2016.” Currently belonging to a friend of Justin, the muddy and scuffed J looks like it’s been enjoyed to the fullest in the past four years. Quite a difference from the full-blown show bike, but a tracker looks best with scars on it. Featuring a 29 frame and a shortened seat post, the Model J also boasts redesigned castings that give it a hill climber look. The JD front end has been reinforced for obvious reasons, along with the three-bar reinforcements at the rear. Justin has sourced the transmission from a 25 while the hub comes from a JD. The twin-cylinder motor “started life out as a 61 cubic inch (1.0

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2016 Harley-Davidson Street 750 Indie Is a Custom Cafe Racer Played by Ear

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com/ A lot of auto and moto shows have been canceled or postponed this year because of the health crisis, and that robbed us, at least momentarily, of the chance of seeing in the flesh some incredible machines. Like this custom 2016 Harley-Davidson Street 750 its builder calls Indie. The bike was supposed to be shown at one of those many postponed events, but is now a star of a Harley-Davidson initiative called The No Show that aims to bring some of the custom bikes we missed in the flesh this year into the spotlight, via Internet of course. The build we have in the gallery above and the video below started life as a 2016 750. That means it is part of the Street series, the one that when it was announced back in 2013 ended more than a decade of drought when it came to new models made in Milwaukee. The Indie is an evolution of the 750 in that it was supposed to be lighter and better in handling than it’s stock counterpart. The bike’s maker, Dan Torres, is the owner of a “small garage shop called Milwaukee Moto,” and even if there was no actual design plan for this customized motorcycle, he must have known what he was doing. The modifications made to the bike included the replacement of the front end with a Yamaha R1-based hardware, a new Honda CB200T fuel tank on top, and the placement of an external fuel pump right under the seat hump. The paint scheme is custom as well, and dresses the Indie – named so after Indianapolis, from where the original 750 was purchased – in a cool combination of black and yellow. The 2016 Harley-Davidson Street 750 Indie is part of a long list

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