The third weekend of April marked the return of two-wheeled celebrations of speed and style to Austin, Texas. MotoGP races were taking place at the nearby Circuit of the Americas racetrack, while downtown Austin hosted the annual celebration of motorcycle art and design at the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show.
Open late for all to enjoy, the show attracted many MotoGP fans after racing activities wrapped up at the Circuit of the America’s racetrack.
The Handbuilt show returned to the cavernous underbelly warehouse of the Austin American-Statesman newspaper building for its eighth season. With more than 100,000 square feet of space, Handbuilt has grown from just a bike show into a cultural event that attracted 150 bike builders and thousands of onlookers from every slice of life. There was a large outdoor stage backdropped by the Austin city skyline with a nonstop lineup of bands and DJS, and attendees were entertained with a sportbike stunt show and the Ives Brothers Wall of Death.
The elongated and simple lines of “Aerotracker,” a stunning creation of Richard Dozer from Kentucky, wowed the crowd. The vintage F-Head Harley-Davidson powerplant is framed like a jewel.
The star of the Handbuilt Show is, of course, the collection of custom motorcycles and a few hotrods. Bikes came from all over America, as well as Canada and Mexico, and one even traveled from South Africa! A wide range of bikes were on display, and the curators have made it their mission to include variety in the show. There were motorcycles from champion builders and home-built creations alike.
The high ceilings and industrial finish of the cavernous warehouse under the Austin American-Statesman building provided an ideal setting for the show. The final placement of the bikes is mapped out by Alan Stulberg, the founder of Revival Cycles and the Handbuilt Motorcycle show.
We’ll bring you all the details and plenty of pictures of bikes seen at the show in American Rider’s June issue. Enjoy this taste of epic builds from Handbuilt below, and be sure to catch the full story in June! Subscribe here.
The Allah-Las closed out the weekend with a chilled-out groove befitting an event held in the laid-back city of Austin.
Makoto Endo spent the weekend painting this beautiful rendition of a 1928 BMW R62. Endo’s unique method of laying down Indian inks with chopsticks creates a recognizable style of his own.
Every piece of exposed metal on Tim Scates’ Harley build was chromed and then “hand-satined,” a laborious process with smooth, glowing results.
Cody and Kyle, aka “The Ives Brothers,” in their motodrome of speed known as The Wall of Death.
This 1947 Harley-Davidson EL was ridden by owner Russell Becker in the Cross Country Chase featured in our January issue.
The quality of this Shovelhead bobber took this young fan’s breath away.
Scrutinizing a clean design with cables and wires all hidden and tucked away.
A gorgeous Indian hillclimber.
Neat and tidy and exquisitely finished.
Simple elegance was a strong theme across the bike builds this year, like this Panhead Springer with all control cables and wires hidden from view.
There’s a lot to look at on “Voodoo Doll,” a creation of Charlie Giordano of Tailgunner Parts & Accessories.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
3rd Party Cookies
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!
Cookie Policy
More information about our Cookie Policy on our Privacy Policy
