Onno "Berserk" Wieringa www.madnessphotography.nl: CUSTOMBIKE 2012 Messe Bad Salzuflen

CUSTOMBIKE 2012 MESSE BAD SALZUFLEN

CUSTOM BIKE SHOW

Kenji Nagai wins ‘Best of Show’

Hundreds of the finest custom motorcycles in the bike show, hundreds of trade stands and of course all the main bike builders, parts suppliers and the European Biker Build-Off. All were present in the Messe in Bad Salzuflen during the 8th edition of Germany’s biggest and best custom bike show ever; Custombike 2012!

Although Friday morning, reserved for press and industry traders only, seemed a little quiet, when the doors opened at noon for the public, the four halls were crowded in less than an hour. Saturday at the Custombike 2012 Messe was even buissier, at one moment around one o’clock, you barely could move yourself forward through the crowd. It seems that in Germany the resession didn’t hit on the economy as hard as it did in the rest of Europe. Germans are serious about the way they build a bike, spent their money and are usually pretty well informed when they plan on buying something. That, combined with their opinion about better having a nice bike or car in the garage than having a lot of money in the bank that could vaporize into thin air any minute, makes Germany a good country for bike builders whom’s products are high end, well built and rather ‘well’ priced too.

In Bad Salzuflen at the Custombike 2012 Show, held at the Messe (Trade grounds)the quality level of the entries in the bike show was pretty high. It looks as if people are looking for a new trend to follow, as the so called ‘bobber’ style seems to exit the scene. (Thank God!) The definition of a bobber used to be for many people; get your bike painted matt black, get a pair of red rims, white wall tires, wrap the exhaust pipes in tape, and the 'icing on the cake' would be putting a stupid STP or Dickies sticker somewhere… Sad. Sometimes even pathetic.

Lately more and more old style choppers are seen, but cheap, affordable old, mainly lightweight Japanese bikes are transformed into cool bikes too, any style, any make. Just like what we saw at the Custombike 2012 in Bad Salzuflen. The Yamaha XS and Triumph Bonnevilles are well represented, built in all imaginable styles.

The Café Racer style is gaining more and more popularity too. Being Dutch myself it pleased me to hear the organization of the Bad Salzuflen Custombike 2012 Show saying; “We Germans know how to build a nice custom bike, for years we looked at the Scandinavion bike scene for ideas and many bike was built influenced by the Nordic countries. But to be honest, the Dutch bikers have been building the best, most beautiful, and especially the most inventive, superb engineered bikes the last couple of years!” In the show were quite a few good examples of Dutch ingenuity, like Piet Smits’ ‘Olympic’ Royal Enfield bike, Arno’s more than perfect Moto Guzzi engineered racer, Rene van Tuyl’s weird Diesel creation and the HaDuc, a Sportster engine in a Ducati frame in café racer style built by Piet Breevaart. In the bike show 500 bikes competed for trophies in 13 classes, final results:

Here are the Custombike 2012 Bike Show Winners:

Best Chopper:

Tobias Reicher / AWO / Deutschland

Rookie of the Year:

Sam Customs, Sam Luginbühl / Home Made / Switzerland

Best Engineering:

Frank Ohle / Airplain Motor / Germany

Best Bobber:

Markus Fröhlich / H-D Panhead / Switzerland

Best Café Racer:

Shif Custom, Yuri Shif / Ducati GT / Russia

Best Old School:

H-D Factory, Thomas Trapp / Digger / Germany

Editors Choice:

Sbay Motor Co, Sergio Bayarri / Home Made / Spain

Best Streetfighter:

CAS-Bikes, Andreas Kaminski / Kawasaki ST 1100 / Germany

Best Metric Bike:

Hans-Ullrich Ullisch / Kawasaki VN 800 / Germany

Best Paint / Airbrush:

Michael Naumann / Home Made / Germany

Craziest Bike:

Piet Smits / Home Made / The Netherlands

Best Power Cruiser:

Fitil Metall Works, Aleksander Fetisov / Home Made / Russia

Best Radical:

Wolfgang Knitterscheidt / Home Made / Germany

Best of Show:

Cycle Kraft, Kenji Nagai / Home Made / Japan

Congratulations to the Winners!

(Stage photo's above courtesy and copyright Custombike '12 Staff photographers)

Europe’s main aftermarket Parts Suppliers brought their newest products. Zodiac, Drag Specialties, Motorcycle Storehouse, Highway Hawk, W&W Cyles, Custom Chrome all came to the Messe in Bad Salzuflen for Custombike 2012. People could see famous bike builders such as Kenji Nagai, Fred Kodlin (it was his birthday, congratulations!), Marcus Walz, Habermann, Penz, and last but not least, World Champion Custom Bike Builder Thunderbike.

Zodiac

Motorcycle Storehouse

Custom Chrome Europe

Ilse, Highway Hawk

W&W Cycles

Penz Chopper

Fred Kodlin, Happy Birthday!

Walz Hardcore Cycles

Hardknock 5150 Custom Bike, 125cc,

Limited Edition by Custom Painter Marcus Pfeil

At the Custombike 2012 Show in Bad Salzuflen was the introduction of the Hardknock 125cc Custom Bike with European Homologation, you could experience the Wall of Death with Henny Kroeze, daughter Kim Kroeze and Jagath Parera defying gravity on their old Indians, exciting and at the same time scaring the audience with their incredible riding stunts!

Jagath Parera

Henny Kroeze

Kim Kroeze

Jagath Parera

And the winners of the Custom Chrome Rookie of the Year Award are:

1) Ricky de Haas 2) Roland Hirschmann 3) Christian Gietl!

CCE Says: 'Thank you all for your participation!'

(Photo above courtesy and copyright Horst Rosler)

Airbrush demonstrations, body painting, entertainment, live music, cool shows by King Kerosin, the election of Miss Custombike 2012, there was enough to see at the Custombike 2012 Show in Bad Salzuflen.