GALLERY: Individuality Is The Ethos Of The Handbuilt Motorcycle Show

Photography by Steve West

This past weekend marked the fourth year iteration of the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show in Austin, Texas, and the display of craftsmanship and style in each bike culminated into an emphatic statement declaring the ongoing viability and vitality of building things ourselves. It is a soothingly hypnotic and arguably beautiful thing to watch videos of modern automated production facilities churning out lab-sterile products one after identical other, but surely that should not be the only way things are made.

It’s all complementary after all, right? It takes a lack of sanity to think everyone should personally personalize their means of transport, as it is equally silly to expect everyone to line up their identical beige boxes on the freeways of hellish dystopian boredom. The outnumbering masses of the bland only help to make the unique stand out all that much more. There is a purpose for both ends of the individuality gamut when it comes to how we get around on two wheels or four, one is the affordable and efficient and sensible, the other the expressive and individual and alive. Clearly though, the latter is the kind of stuff we want to talk about, and the recent Hand Built Motorcycle Show is one of the best places around to see it.

You can see more of Steve’s work at silverpiston.com, and you can learn more about the Handbuilt show’s event organizer, Revival Cycles, here.