There are rare motorcycles, and then there are machines so scarce they blur the line between artefact and mythology. This 1916 Harley-Davidson 8-Valve Board Track Racer is one of those bikes. Just six were ever built by Harley-Davidson, and only for factory-backed racers. Today, this is believed to be the only complete original example still in existence, making it not just rare but arguably one of the most historically important motorcycles on the planet. All of which makes it easy to understand why, when the hammer fell at its most recent auction sale, this Fred Lange Restorations beauty fetched in the six-figure range.

The legend of the 8-Valve was forged on the board tracks of America, where motorcycles thundered around steeply banked wooden ovals at speeds that were outright terrifying for the time. With no brakes, no suspension, and no clutch, board track racing was as pure and as dangerous as it gets. In 1916, this very model won the Dodge City 300-mile race, setting a record time of 3 hours, 45 minutes, and 36 seconds. It was the fastest motorcycle on earth, and Harley’s answer to Indian’s dominance on the track. Irving Janke was the rider, and a hundred years ago, his average speed was 130km/h!

The Harley-Davidson Sportster has been a shape-shifter ever since it rolled out in 1957. Over the decades, it’s been chopped, bobbed, stripped down, and dressed up, and been seen riding the wave of whatever custom trend was cresting at the time. But every so often, a builder comes along who doesn’t just rehash the past; they push the Sportster into uncharted territory. That builder is the world-renowned Belarusian Yuri Shif of Shif Customs. And the machine is 'Ginzster', a razor-edged café racer born from the famed XR1200, designed to capture the essence of decades of Sporties, all in one bike.

For his part, Shif is one of the most highly regarded custom builders on the planet. In the years of the AMD World Championships of Custom Bike Building, very few racked up as many judging points as the man who likes to work alone. From his workshop in Minsk, he's carved out a reputation for being able to do it all, but what the judges love is his sheer creativity and attention to detail. We've featured a number of his masterpieces over the years, and while he's done incredible things with every brand of bike, like his supercharged twin-engined BMW, his best work often comes when it's based on something from the HD brand. 

The greatest motorcycles of all time hold such a sway over us that even their simple silhouette makes them instantly recognisable. Major manufacturers leverage this imagery to form a strong connection with their brand, making it so iconic that it can be transferred onto a t-shirt and sold by the millions. And yet, despite the fact that there is nothing factory, let alone mainstream, about the machine before you, it retains that unique feature of looking like a legend, simply standing still. Built by Cédric Camiade, this Norley is more than a transatlantic amalgamation of two icons of the automotive world. It's one man's vision, dreamed up in a jewellery store in Sri Lanka, brought to life by a French artisan, and eliciting a timeless appeal, it is The Onyx.

Cédric has been around motorcycles his entire life, introduced to the wild world of two-wheels by his father, the addiction has never abated. As a young lad in France, he was tinkering with bikes as soon as he was old enough to spin a spanner, and he raced 50cc machines too. Then, for more than seven years, he ran a restoration and customisation business, until eventually he decided he'd simply build bikes for his own personal pleasure. But when motorcycles have you on the hook, you're done for, so even when visiting the beautiful fort city of Galle, Sri Lanka, he was looking at what machines were for sale back home. 

A Discovery Channel TV show, a best-selling book, appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience and touring the globe, it's all just part of the world of Richard Rawlings. The fast, loud and proud Texan has been turning his love of cars into a wild success for decades now. But he's also a bike nut too, he owns plenty of cool motorcycles, competed in a biker build-off and successfully sponsored a team to victory at the Isle of Man TT. Then, in recent times, the Gas Monkey Garage head honcho has been stepping firmly into the custom bike scene, pairing up with some of the best builders to create kick-ass, one-off rides. The latest of which is this collaboration with Dutch outfit CNCPT Moto, a street fighter Harley-Davidson Pan America that proves orange is definitely the new black.

If you haven't heard of CNCPT Moto before, it's the relatively new offshoot of Powerbrick in Rotterdam, which are behind some of the best custom parts you can buy, particularly for BMWs. But as they have been diving further into the world of Harley-Davidson, they decided to come up with unique branding for this sector of their business, and at present, they produce and distribute products for the Sportster S and the Pan America. So, when Richard Rawlings saw what Tim and the guys were doing, they all agreed that a collabortion was in order. And armed with all of the parts they needed, the CNCPT Moto team headed for Texas, to transform a Harley, Gas Monkey style.

When it comes to events that truly capture what the custom motorcycle culture is all about, few do it better than the folks behind The One Motorcycle Show. Spearheaded by local legend Thor Drake, the four-day extravaganza takes place at the incredible Zidell Yards on Portland's waterfront. The old abandoned facility sets the stage for a gritty, down-to-earth vibe, where 'built not bought' and bikers with grease under their fingernails are all just part of the atmosphere. This year was the 16th edition of the show and featured 300 custom bikes on display, as well as a host of kick-ass bands, tasty beer to drink as well as group rides and after-parties to enjoy. So, sit back, relax and take in these stunning shots of all of our favourites from what Thor calls 'The Best Show on Earth'.

The One Show just seems to get bigger and better each year, and a huge part of that can be put down to the community-like vibe that washes over Portland for the event. Thousands make the pilgrimage on two wheels from near and far, and instantly it's time to catch up with old friends and see who is riding what. The first day is made up of the Thursday Night MX at the nearby Portland International Raceway and then it's off to a local cinema for the opening of the VAHNA Film Festival, a film competition and festival tour dedicated to the art of motorcycle cinematography.

Following on from the massive success that was the 'Number One' bike building competition, run by Harley Davidson Australia and New Zealand, the company decided to do it all again, just bigger and better for 2025. This year's competition earned the title 'Custom Kings' and welcomed motorcycles from the full 122 years of Harley-Davidson production, with four categories, public voting and one expert judging panel to determine the overall winner. And incredibly, Canberra's John Cage has made it two for two, having taken out the top trophy in 2024 and now in 2025 winning it all again and taking the crown. His 1987 FXR is a brilliant mix of custom parts and genuine Harley components, and twin-cam swapped, this Club-Style machine is seriously quick.

To win such a prestigious competition two years in a row is an incredible effort and each time, John has chosen the FXR platform on which to base his build. But he faced serious opposition, four categories - Milwaukee Eight, Twin Cam, Evolution and Vintage (anything pre-Evolution) – saw ten finalists chosen in each and the public was tasked with picking the winners, with the final four being judged by an esteemed panel of the industry's leading experts to come away with an overall champion. In the Vintage category, it was the stripped-back bobbers that proved to be the favourite, while all of the modern categories were filled with that unmistakable style of the Cholo HD and all the bling that comes with it.

There is a responsibility, a true weight of expectation, when you are blessed to own a truly unique vintage motorcycle. If it's in exceptional original condition, then the pressure is to keep it that way and not do anything to destroy it. If it's seen better days and a bit of a bitsa, then you owe it to the public to have it out on the road, race it and show the people what these old treasures are all about. Then there is a third way, a rarely trodden path left to an exceptional few who possess incredible knowledge and skill. And that is to build from scratch their very own vintage motorcycle as if they were one of those remarkable early innovators. Sean Jackson is one such man, and together with a group of highly talented friends, they've built a supercharged, 8-valve, V-Twin for the ages: the Pennsylvania 8.

Sean started his journey with motorcycles at a very young age, by thirteen he was building mini-bike choppers, straight out of high school he became a mechanic and it wasn't long before he was travelling the world with his friend Kevin O'Neal, developing improved systems for locomotives and scoring themselves a few patents along the way. “In 2021 I met Tom Banks and together we decided to go all in on an antique motorcycle business that came up for sale called Competition Distributing. I left my big corporate job and we moved the company back to my shop in Pennsylvania and started building it up.” Kevin would later join them, and together they continue Lonnie Isam's passion, which he started in 1968, as the industry leader in antique motorcycle parts.

The rise and rise of the Chinese motorcycle industry has been nothing short of amazing, with millions of bikes rolling off an almost infinite number of production lines. The criticism has often been around quality, but just this week CFMoto had the world's motorcycling press giddy with excitement, with the brilliance of their 675SR-R sportbike. The custom scene, however, hasn't been as productive but new friendships are accelerating the progress and Hangzhou city's LS Motorcycle has turned their regular trips to Japan into a learning exercise that's producing incredible results. And for the 2024 Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show, they took with them this incredible 1962 Harley-Davidson PanShovel, and headed home with a well-deserved trophy in hand.

The team at LS Motorcycle are by no means rookies to the game, they've been around for years now, and have largely focussed on building classic choppers to an incredible standard. But they've always known that to compete at an international level, they had to refine their style and take time to learn from the best before they would have a chance of taking home the big trophies. So, over the years they've immersed themselves in Japanese custom culture and developed friendships with the likes of Heiwa Motorcycle and a deep connection with Takahashi-san, who has been a mainstay of the scene, dominating the show circuit under his Kuruma-sakashita Motorcycle banner.

Maybe you're old enough to remember it yourself or you've heard the stories from those who lived during the days when plenty of bikes would literally bite back. These machines largely came from the '70s and early '80s, a time when manufacturers could achieve serious horsepower but didn’t exactly have the technology to keep it all under control. The Kawasaki H2 was “The Widowmaker,” you were warned that trying to kickstart a Honda CR500 could break your leg, and there was no shortage of two strokes that would hit their powerband and high side you down the road. It was a time when motorcycles earned fearsome nicknames because they truly were brutal if handled the wrong way. Enter 'The Beast,' as beautiful as she is badass, this stunning custom XR1000 comes from Laurel Classics, a dream build designed to sit next to Satan.

The man behind the monster is Cade Carradine, who learned the tales of those incredible times in motorcycling and grew up with the good fortune of having family and friends who lived them to their fullest. It only made sense then that one day this moment would arrive. “I built this motorcycle to fulfil a lifelong dream of having a “streeted” XR and to prove to myself I could get a bike together, this was my first attempt at a “custom motorcycle.” I also wanted to get a bike in the driveway that would complement my Uncle’s Silver XR750 Satan." Years on big twins meant Chris knew his love for the powerplant was strong, and inspired by his Uncle and researching the Street Tracker scene, he knew his own XR had to be created.

If you think of humans five thousand years ago, a caveman-type figure is probably what comes to mind. But no, it turns out that even that far back, humans had come up with dice for the purpose of gambling. And why do we gamble? To win a bunch of cash, so we can buy a ton of cool shit obviously. And if you're looking for a place to spin the wheel and then spend the winnings, where better than the 34th Annual Vintage & Antique Motorcycle Auction in Las Vegas, run by Mecum Auctions. Over four days, starting on the 29th of January, more than 2000 motorcycles will go under the hammer, and there really is something for everyone. So, we've sifted through them all and plucked out our picks, the bikes that would get us bidding if we'd won the jackpot.

First on the block, is a bike that you just had to own 110 years ago if you wanted to be winning races on the board track and the dirt, a 1915 Cyclone. This stunning example has been rebuilt to as new condition by expert restorer Stephen Wright, and he's done an incredible job. The eye-popping yellow paint was the signature colour for the short-lived company, and an identical example previously owned by Steve McQueen sold for the best part of a million bucks a few years ago.