DEATH OF THE NEOCUSTOM

Of all the custom-bike trends I’ve witnessed in my motorcycling years, I’d have to say the neo-custom, or as columnist Paul d’Orléans likes to call the “alt.custom,” has been my favorite.

Because while any custom trend has its unrideable versions of work, what makes the neo-custom scene so nice—so cool—is that it’s mostly focused on cheap base bikes and has a sort-embraced, the hope and wish of builders seems to actually be a motorcycle you can ride a lot of places. And we have done our share of coverage. In fact, Gary Inman’s story on the Wrench Monkees (“Three Danish hipsters take a bunch of established ingredients and shake up a whole new biking cocktail”) in 2010 was a great piece produced when the neo-custom ignition kernel was just lighting off on our current Bike EXIF-fueled era.