What is your definition of a “custom” motorcycle?

I hear a lot of folks describe their motorcycles as “custom.” A little further into a discussion and I learn they might have performed some simple “upgrade” like adding axle nut covers or some other pretty doo-dad they found online.

To me, a bike isn’t “custom” unless it has some major craftsmanship, like a one-off frame or custom-fabricated sheet metal.

My ride is a 1999 FLHP and looks nothing like the bone-white stocker I rolled off the dealership floor twelve years ago but I would never call it “custom.”

 

Thank You for making it clear for the masses.
You see stock bikes, w some chrome, and
custom paint ( which alone does not make a custom bike)
and it is like someone reinvented the world.

 

I own a Heritage, and like so many others I have added and changed things to make it mine. It's what we do with our bikes. We make them reflect our tastes.
Whether that makes it a "custom" or not I could care less.
I don't have the knowledge, the skills, the time or the money to completely rebuild my bike. I admire those that do but it doesn't lessen my efforts, as small as they may be, to make my bike reflect me.
JMHO

 

One definition of a custom bike is one that has had five grand put into it, and will only sell for five hundred extra. If you're lucky.

To me (and just my own opinion) custom means making it more comfortable...more ME. I have a "custom" seat, handlebar configuration, foot control layout. A little bling here and there, better horn, stage 1, tfi, and that's probably it. It's nothing that will fetch a better price if I sell it, but I didn't do it to increase the value to others, I did it to be more valuable to me.:Banane57:

 

I agree with both diggerwolf AND gasbag. My bag came off the assembly line looking just like the next guys. I changed up the exhaust and so did the next guy. It is one step to make my bike mine and his bike his and we each might add and swap out parts to get a look we want but I see them both as factory production bikes at that point. Factory bikes that we have made our own. Add paint and, to me, you now have a custom paint job, not a custom bike. I would say that when you start to modify the frame and or the tins and threrefore the look of the whole bike you're on your way to a custom beyond a doubt. But then there is also the CVO "factory customs" that I personally would categorize as true customs because they are generally radically different than the regular bikes. And I would of course say that a ground up build is almost always going to fall into the custom catergory. There's my two cents. :dknow

 

This is my last bike before the RK, is this a custom?

I don't think so, it still has the HD in the vin number...



Here it is after a few thousand more bucks...

 

WOW!!! Too bad you couldn have kept it and just added the Road King - they would have made a stunning pair!

 

If I had a bigger garage, I would have kept it.

 

Custom is a spectrum. Of course a "one off" is by definition custom. "Customizable" may be a better term for most.

I wonder though...If you bought a contract built, Jesse James, West Coast Chopper original and then added a new seat, is it more custom?

(I always liked the blue of your RK Avatar, Glider. Is that stock or custom?)