Custom Chrome Europe: The hard parts to apparel, performance to gear distributor hosted its leading dealers at INTERMOT and continues to be one of Europe’s ‘Majors’ when it comes to product range and service. A major Jekill & Hyde exhaust, Lera Pera seats, Biltwell, BDL, UniBat and National Cycle windshield distributor, to name-check just a few from its massive portfolio of well-known brand names, latest new products include the German made Kellermann Atto 3-in-1 micro lights, Milwaukee-Eight covers and own brand Twin Cam generator style cam cover; www.custom-chrome-europe.com
DOT4 Distribution: Offering dealers access to a huge range of contemporary apparel and riding gear options, the British distributor’s program includes ‘Resurgence’ riding jeans and French made, customizable ‘Qwart’ helmets. Selling Europe-wide, DOT4 offers a range of exclusive brands of contemporary designs for emerging new generations of consumers. “Our objective is to introduce European bikers to new and exciting lines of motorcycle clothing which offer the highest levels of protection and comfort on and off the bike,” says CEO Stefan Barnes. “The clothing we distribute is technically innovative and offers the latest styling and technology”. ‘Resurgence’ gear is a “new wave of single layer protective jeans” that are described as “the world’s first motorcycle jeans to use the revolutionary new PEKEV Ultra single layer denim fabric”; www.dot4distribution.com
Cult-Werk: Popular Austrian custom parts and accessory manufacturer. Selected parts for V-Rod/Night Rod, Sportster, Softail and Dyna models include license plate brackets, fenders and struts, fuel caps, side covers, headlights, lowering kits, frame covers, fork cover kits and air cleaner covers; www.cult-werk.com
Büsch Motorcycle Products: German distributor Norbert Büsch is a man of many specialties, but he is best known as an ‘Exhaust Meister’ and handmade parts craftsman - for his own and customer bike conversions and builds. Norbert has been a distributor of Vance & Hines exhausts for years, but has been handcrafting fenders, tanks, spoilers, monocoques and more since the 1990s; www.motorradauspuff.de
Big Boys Cycles: One of Germany’s leading custom shops, Cologne based BBC first opened its doors in 1992. The company is a leading service and repair shop, customizer and builder of award- winning custom bikes; www.big-boys-cycles.com
ACE Cafe: Saved from oblivion after several years of closure in the early 1990s, Mark Wilsmore and the team at the legendary Ace Cafe London have been spreading their wings in recent years with ‘pop-ups’ at many leading events, including INTERMOT Customized, and a permanent Ace Cafe Orlando in Florida now firmly established as a destination venue; www.ace-cafe-london.com
Wannabe Choppers: Enrico de Haas is one of the leaders of a new generation of younger, inventive, forward thinking custom bike builders in Europe whose innovative parts designs are already to be found in many of the leading distributor catalogs. Most recently ‘Ricky’ garnered admiration and opprobrium in equal measure for the Shovelhead Sportster styled E-bike he built at the Bad Salzuflen show at the end of last year. Short-sighted, so-called purists took exception to the way he went about the build and see embracing contemporary technology as potentially killing the custom market. Whereas, in fact, armed with a thousand thinkers like ‘Ricky’, we’d have the whole world riding custom bikes and fuelling our balance sheets in a future, like all futures, that by definition cannot be the same as the past; www.wannabe-choppers.com
MMB-Messtechnik: One of Europe’s oldest instrument makers (once standard equipment on models from Simson and MZ among others) and nowadays owned by Pulsotronic, MMB’s contemporary range of German made, innovative electronic gauges for mopeds, motorbikes, trikes and quads are based on more than 50 years of experience;
www.mmb-messtechnik.de
Kawasaki: Another of the OEMs to have a second booth, in INTERMOT Customized in Hall 10, the focus for “Big Green” was its ‘Twin Project’ collaboration with Berlin based women’s motorcycle club ‘The Curves’. Celebrating the diversity of the brand’s reach and the diversity of the results that customizers can achieve with Kawasaki platforms, the project was designed to find the common DNA in a Z650 and a W650, two very different bikes - “Sisters From Another Mother" - with the finished bikes showcasing the often conflicting dynamics of form and function when customizing factory platforms. ‘Twin Project’ supporters include German custom parts specialist LSL, Berlin based instruments and accessory developer Moto Gadget, German suspension specialist Wilbers, leading Italian exhaust manufacturer SC Project and German retailer Detlev Louis; www.kawasaki.com; www.thecurves.de
