It’s always a great idea for the benefit of the whole motorcycle industry to motivate younger custom bike builders and to reward them for their creativity and craftsmanship skills. In November 2011 Axel Sherer, Marketing Manager of Custom Chrome Europe, got the idea of contacting young builders via Facebook, their preferred social network platform. Through a CCE Facebook digital page called “Generation Internet” young builders were approached, were given the rules of the Rookie Bike Building Competition (building the bike themselves without any outside help and to be under 29 to participate) and a deadline of July 2012 to finish their custom projects. From the entries, the top three competitors were invited to the 2012 annual CUSTOMBIKE show at Bad Salzuflen in Germany, one of the most important events on the European custom trade fair event calendar. I am happy to promote the top 3 winners. (photography copyright Horst Roesler, courtesy to Cyril Huze)
1st Place Rookie Award.
Enrico “Ricky” De Haas, Germany.
Bike “Messed Up”
1971 Ironhead Sportster
Rat Style rocks!
2nd Place Rookie Award
1st Place Jammer Old School Class
Roland Hirschmann, Austria
Bike “El Nagual”.
1975 Harley 1200 FX
3rd Place Rookie Award
Christian Gietl, from Bavaria Germany
1st Place CUSTOMBIKE Magazine Readers Choice
3rd Place Jammer Old School Class
Nice intention, but these youngsters are not going to support the industry by mostly recycling old bikes & parts. Very few new parts = no $$$ for the industry.
Nice paint job on the 2nd place bike.
But that’s one sexy dude! Lmao.
Seriously??? Somebody actually thinks the winner has something?? Seriously?
Junk
Is that Chum Lee
Remember the time when CCE had a nice background in their pictures, girls, big trophies and real custom bikes? They are so poor they have to award fat guys from Germany building ugly 71 Ironhead with parts found in the garbage.
Sure did snub the Readers choice award winner and Third place Jammer class winner. To me the best looking bike of the bunch. Hope the judges didn’t have an Iron Head fixation! Would have been nice if you at least identified the builder of this bike. That bike that won is junk!
Dude – put your damn shirt on!
Oldude. Dude, You are too old. The 3 builders are identified with their names under the pictures!
My bad must have missed that..Best Get the sleep out of my eyes! Sorry Cyril . Looked again and the winner still junk.
In some contests – and for some Jury members – it’s not just the look of the bike that counts. During the process of judging the bikes, favours swung into each direction – and at some times each of the 3 final competitors was top of the list (not to mention how difficult it was to select the 3 bikes from about a dozen entries). In this contest, there was not really a 1-2-3 winner, as all three finalist made extraordinary efforts in their life to build these bikes – which were taken into consideration too.
The idea of this competition was to encourage more younger people into customizing motorcycles – not to sell them any parts. In the long term, it is important to convince the kids that there is a life beyond the laptop screen and that it pays off to do some work with a screwdriver, wrench and torch. Not to win some prices, but to have fun and success while building, followed by the fun riding/maintaining the bikes and enjoying adventures on the road.
I do salute all three of them for their efforts, skills and craftsmanship. Not to forget creativity.
And just one last addition: If some of the commentators above would ever have to deal with German TÜV and Street homologation procedures (not to forget the Polizei, when stopped by the traffic cops…), you would comment different on riding such a “Messsed Up” bike street-legal on German roads.
Support the younger builders rather than discourage them.
Well said Horst! Merry Christmas from Down Under.
@ Horst , I wouldn’t call the winning bike a “customized motorcycle ” . Its called scrap .
Jut jesagt, Horst. Ick haette nicht so hoefflich jewesen. Die Meiten ham doch keene Ahnung.