360bikers.com

I love custom motorcycles. There’s so much beauty, so much personality in each custom bike. Each component is as important as all the others. In Sarasota, Florida there’s a company that pays attention to it all: Covington’s Customs.

Last year’s VTwin Bikers Ball winner was auctioned for the Boys and Girls Club of Broward County. This is quite a statement considering the number of great custom builders in South Florida and Sarasota being a few hundred miles away. Their motorcycles have a classy, clean look while still showing a lot of muscle.

If you’re just window shopping, you’ll love the views they give you on their web site. It’s definitely worth the visit. If you’re a serious buyer looking for a top end custom shop, you’ll probably make a phone call after you see their models.

Covington’s Customs has recently released a line of production bikes, too. This just makes it all the more worth the trip to Sarasota. Make sure you stop by their booth at Daytona Beach Bike Week, too.

Click the picture to see Covington’s wallpaper for each bike.

One of my favorite times to ride motorcycle is at night.  Living in South Florida has it’s advantages for bikers, especially at this time of the year.  Among night motorcycle rides, my favorite is definitely with a full moon.  Riding a long the Atlantic Ocean with the moon light surrounding you is something every biker should experience.  Timing it with the moon-rise is great.  Sometimes it even allows for a simultaneous sunset in the west, making it a truly incredible ride.  The lady bikers seem to appreciate it, too.

It’s nice to ride your motorcycle plus or minus two days to a full moon.  The lighting is great and you still benefit from seeing car lights before the car gets near you.  But you may not know when the next full moon is going to grace your midnight motorcycle ride.  I use the Old Farmer’s Almanac for my information.  It’s quick, easy to read table just gives you the dates, plain and simple.

Of course, it’s good for looking up a Blue Moon Ride, too.  A Blue Moon is the occurrence of a second full moon in the same calendar month.  It doesn’t happen very often.  In fact, the next time you can see a Blue Moon will be December 31st, 2009.  That’s not a good night to be riding your motorcycle, especially in the northern regions.

Victory Motorcycles, marketed as the New American Motorcycle, has been on the scene for a few years now. Victory bikes have come in 90ci and now 100ci. Most are cruisers with a couple touring bikes in there for the travellers. A recent study showed Victory as perhaps the best overall motorcycle experience from the sale to the ride to service. They have been innovative in their designs and take input from their resident customizer, Arlen Ness. Now, that’s a nice name to have as your design consultant.

Victory is about embark on an adventure no one else has taken in the production market. This fall they will release their new “Luxury Tour Motorcycle”, the Vision. This bagger looks futuristic and retro at the same time. Its design is not like anything you’ll see on the road today. Their obvious appeal will be for the baby-boomers looking for a nice traveling bike with a lot of amenities.

The bike features a few points that I don’t really like, but may appeal to the market they are currently seeking. First, it’s continuous band transmission requires no shifting. Like the system used in the Audi, it just goes like an electric motor. Feed it more gas and it goes faster. I like to shift, but this automatic-like transmission may appeal to the group they are marketing towards. I’m hoping they have a 6-speed version with it.

Second, the tentative design is for an 800cc engine. I like long trips and that engine seems very small for this kind of bike. Again, the market might want the lighter bike for the trip. This size is also not carved in stone as they have not yet finished all the specifications. Perhaps they will offer it in multiple engine configurations, but I’d like to see that 100ci engine on it.

As a V-Twin, the bike is really a competitor to the Harley-Davidson RoadKing or the Yamaha Venture. It has tons of amenities including a stereo system with all the power you need to listen to tunes as you tour the highways. The bags remind me a lot of Kuryakyn Beetle Bags, which I’ve always thought were cool.

It’s a bold move by this young branch of Polaris. Go to the site and take a look at the videos, pictures, 360-degree interactive views, and the descriptions. It may not be your cup of tea, but you have to admit the design is out there.

Every once in a while we like to recognize some great custom builders you may have over looked. OCC gets so much publicity, especially in the New York area, that other builders are often missed, in spite of exceptional quality work. While it’s nice to have a television show, there are some great builders out there that don’t get the attention they deserve.

Thunder Cycles of West Chester, NY has some of the most beautiful machines you’ll ever see. Every element is perfect. The paint on the bike to the left is incredible. Burled Walnut doesn’t look this good on a Rolls Royce.  The attention to detail is impeccable as all the cables and wires disappear into the frame.

Go to Thunder Cycles web site and take a close look at this bike and see functional art at its highest level in the custom motorcycle world. There is no best bike or best builder, but a class of those among the best. This motorcycle and this builder exemplify the best of both.

Daytona Beach Bike Week is one of two events of the year I would call THE mega-events for motorcycle enthusiasts, the other being Sturgis. Every year this event gets bigger and more innovative. If there’s a drawback, it’s that you have trouble getting a hotel room within the 50-mile radius. But that’s pretty much how it goes for an event that attracts hundreds of thousands of bikers to the Daytona Beach area.

Bike Week Daytona Beach is so big that is really isn’t confined to Daytona Beach. In fact, major motorcycle events are strewn north to Ormond Beach and Palm Coast. You’ll find vendors and events to the south into the towns of New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater. The party, concerts, vendors, restaurants, bike shops and endless motorcycle parade runs along the Atlantic Ocean for over 50 miles.

Lately, Bike Week Daytona Beach is running simultaneously with Bike Week Orlando. With Orlando only a little over 50 miles away we can see how this could someday blur into the largest mega-event in the world. From Disney to Daytona Beach there’s something for everyone from the hard-core biker to the family outing. Bike Week Daytona Beach is still the center of the universe for winter motorcycle events. If you have never been to this event, you have to make a point to come for at least one weekend. You will talk about it for years. You can spend an entire week just looking at all the beautiful motorcycles. If you get tired of that, there’s lots of other beauty to look at in Florida.

Bike Week Daytona Beach sometimes get the reputation of being a Harley Davidson only event. While the beginnings of Bike Week looked a lot like that, today you’ll see every make and model of motorcycle not only riding around, but in vendor areas. The Daytona Speedway is typically a test drive area for many manufacturers so you can try that new motorcycle before you buy it. You’ll see every major custom builder at Bike Week from Cyril Cruz to Orange County.

I needed to put a quick plug in here for all motorcycle enthusiasts that are looking so save some money.  360Bikers is currently free for all auctions and all auction features.  That means you can put your motorcycle, motorcycle accessories, motorcycle parts, motorcycle anything, cars, trucks, and bike trailers for sale here for nothing.  It takes a minute to register and email confirmation is required before you can bid or sell.

We have a special section for Harley Davidson motorcycles and have listed the American bikes first, followed by the most popular metric varieties like Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki. We created related topics because bikers need trucks and cars to transport things.  We need trailers to carry bikes in certain circumstances.  We even made space for those other items that we and our significant others want.

So, take advantage of the opportunity to sell absolutely free.  The offer is good through Bike Week Daytona Beach 2007 regardless of how many go out, but it expires after Bike Week or the number 2,000… which ever comes last.  We have really reduced rates on store fronts starting at $1 per month for up to 25 items.

One last item.  360Bikers invests hundreds of dollars each month in promotional advertising.  We recommend trying one of the ads listed to the left here.  Just click one of interest and you’ll find sites that sell a variety of motorcycle items from chrome for custom motorcycles to leather that will keep you warm on those cooler rides at this time of the year.

360Bikers is here for bikers, by bikers.  The intent is to offer a cost effective method of selling your motorcycle without the price gouging that other sites charge.  Even when our rates kick in, you’ll find our prices (which are listed on the site) are drastically under what other sites charge and there is NEVER an exit fee (percentage of your sale) when you sell your item.

Register now and share the news with your friends.  Free auctions is a great deal.  Try it now.

Well, the title says it all. After Hours Bikes (click the link) is a great custom shop that has two specialties for those that want their own statement in motorcycles. First, they customize some incredible designs off metric bikes. What amazes me most is what they can make from a relatively small metric bike. Take a look at the photos on their site and you’ll see bikes from 650cc to 1100cc that are incredible.The other specialty and their claim to frame. It’s not a typo. They make incredible frames for your new custom design. Starting with an After Hours Bikes frame will give you flexibility in your end product like no other design. “Lick” seems to be the hottest example of one concept they have developed.

Visit their site or their showroom to see more. It’s definitely worth the visit if you’re considering a custom.

One of the things I enjoy every year at the Daytona Beach Bike Week is the raffle for a custom motorcycle. They always have a nice custom bike that is worth about $35,000 based on current pricing. The kicker is that there are only 4,000 tickets sold, making your odds pretty nice. At $50 each it’s a pretty affordable raffle for most people with better odds than the lottery.