8 Gorgeous Contest-Winning Custom Harleys

Nearly 100 Harley-Davidson dealers built their own custom bikes for the inaugural Harley Custom Kings contest.

We’ve all seen the reality custom motorcycle-building shows, with their loud personalities, staged emergencies and arbitrary deadlines. Other customs are created in big-dollar shops and come with off-putting price tags. But what if real people decided to build their own custom motorcycles, without any of the television cliches, just to see who could build the coolest bikes?

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Harley-Davidson asked its dealers that question, and nearly 100 of them responded with their own customized versions of Harley’s entry-level model, the 750 Street.

Alex Stewart’s creation for Yellowstone Harley-Davidson, which he calls “Next-Generation Board Track Racer,” was named the best creation in this first annual edition of the U.S. Custom Kings competition by Harley. The bike was inspired by the insane board track race bikes of the 1920s and ’30s, which roared around banked wooden ovals at breakneck speeds.

The winning bike is on display in the lobby of the Harley-Davidson Museum at the company’s Milwaukee, Wis. headquarters.

Photos by Harley-Davidson Motor Co.