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Contributors Richard Pollock of Mule Motorcycles, just get by. There are so many other things to do to
Alan Stulberg of Revival Cycles and Greg Hageman of achieve success besides just building bikes—
Hageman Motorcycles. promotion is huge and media coverage is a must to
survive.
Also Tim Rogers of Spirit of the Seventies in the UK,
Winston Yeh of Rough Crafts in Taiwan, and the Rogers: I’ll never forget a successful photographer
legendary Wrenchmonkees crew in Copenhagen: preaching a dispiriting sermon to us at art college
Nicholas Bech and Per Nielsen. back in the 90s. “Look around, most of you won’t
make it,” was the upbeat message. If you’ve got time
on your side, a desire to learn, an aptitude, and most
importantly, passion, you have every chance of
having a fulfilling career.
What advice would you give to anyone considering a
career as a custom motorcycle builder? Spirit of the Seventies ‘S7’ custom motorcycleFull
Size
Pollock: Like anything else, start with the basics by If you want to work with others find the best, be
working on bikes at a shop. It’s tough to start out proactive, be polite, and be persistent. If you already
just “building custom bikes” when the basic have a successful career, a young family and a fat
engineering, parts location, tuning—not to mention mortgage, stay where you are and commission a bike
making a bike ridable and safe—is where a bike build from the guys who need your business!
really should start.
Yeh: Stay hungry, keep studying, stay up to date, and
Web Surfer by Richard Pollock of Mule know what’s happening and what today’s standard of
Motorcycles.Full Size quality and technology is, so that you know where
It’s much more romantic to you stand. Also
call yourself a custom understand yourself,
motorcycle builder than a your strengths and
mechanic, but don’t skip weaknesses—make the
over the basics—there’s a most of your strengths
huge time investment up and figure out how to
front that you need to be hide your weaknesses.
willing to make. Also, the
current design trend of just Stulberg: Even though I
removing parts, wrapping ultimately committed to
the pipes and painting taking this hobby/
everything flat black is kind passion seriously and not
of a cheat. Designing parts going back to a ‘real’ job,
that have to function and I can’t say it was a
actually be installed back pondered decision
ONTO the bike. That’s what separates the men from between some other direction and THIS. For me (and
the boys. Stefan, my partner in Revival), it was simply an
inevitability that we accepted as something we had to
Hageman: My advice for new builders: as long as you try.
have the passion, and understand it’s no easy road,
you can do it. I’ve been building for years and still Nobody knew, especially us, that we’d actually end
