Shop: Falcon Motorcycles

The converted industrial warehouse that houses Falcon Motorcycles is tucked away at the dead end of a gritty street just off the I-10 freeway in downtown Los Angeles. There are no signs, the exterior is bland and the surrounding buildings are still home to heavy industry and manufacturing. Inside, the large live/work space is brightly lit by massive skylights, where Ian Barry and his crew meticulously build Falcon’s homages to English motorcycling of a bygone era. But I didn’t shoot during daylight, during regular production hours. I photographed at night while Ian quietly toiled away on new designs from his lofted open office above the transformed dark and cavernous machine shop. Was he politely guarding an attic full of secret projects? Naturally. Click below for the feature.

Grant Ray. December 14th, 2011 - Permalink - Comments (26)

Shop: Roland Sands Design

Barely a year since the grand opening, Roland’s shop for RSD has been extremely busy. The back is crammed with projects for weirdo rich folk who demand insanity like glorious MotoGP replicas turned into desmo trackers, as well as one-off customs for A-list celebrities. Roland also just tracked down his TZ250 AMA Championship winner. Mmm, TZ250. Click below for the feature.

Shop: Roland Sands Design

Grant Ray. October 31st, 2011 - Permalink - Comments (16)

Shop: Wilzig Racing Manor

Wilzig Racing Manor is a 275 acre estate of dirt trails, woods, a lake, watercraft, guns, a 2+ mile road race course, race cars, race bikes, carts, dirt bikes, a multi-bay service station, the most amazing collection of Italian Superbikes I’ve ever seen and a chef who also likes blowing up the occasionally overripe watermelon. It’s also my incredibly gracious friend Alan and his family’s home. Since I can’t possibly document all that awesome in a single feature, I’ve decided to selfishly stick to only my favorites of the bikes. Click below for a sliver of heaven.

Shop:Wilzig Racing Manor

Grant Ray. August 3rd, 2011 - Permalink - Comments (57)

Shop: Earl’s Cycles

Just off the 110 Interstate, right before it dead-ends into San Pedro, California is a tiny unassuming shop where underground legend Earl Kane has quietly been building some of the best SoCal British bobbers the exact same way for decades. Click below for the feature.

Shop: Earl’s Cycles

Grant Ray. March 24th, 2011 - Permalink - Comments (5)

Shop: Century Motorcycles

Faded, marked up, plastered over, worn in, labyrinthine, and impossibly full of a seemingly infinite supply of categorized odd and rare parts for vintage bikes, exploring the back of Century Motorcycles down in LA’s San Pedro neighborhood is like falling into Wonderland. Click below for the feature:

Shop: Century Motorcycles

Grant Ray. March 11th, 2011 - Permalink - Comments (13)

Shop: Chabott Engineering

To call Shinya Kimura a customizer or builder is almost to denigrate his art. Because that’s what he really is, an artist. Just one working in metal and engines and speed instead of oil on canvas. Last week we visited his tiny Azusa, California garage where he works now under the name Chabott Engineering to create this latest in our series of Shop photo features. Click below for the feature:

Shop: Chabott Engineering

Grant Ray. February 15th, 2011 - Permalink - Comments (25)

Shop: Brooklyn Moto

Tucked halfway down a side street in the heart of Williamsburg and surrounded by families of old Italian mobsters, Brooklyn Moto is a converted auto shop that’s now home to Harneyboy Bikes and BM Cycle Works. While Harneyboy creates vintage Frankenbikes just becuase, BM Cycle Works specializes in fast and seriously dedicated track machines. There’s also parking for all their buddies, a trash can dedicated to empty PBR cans and a giant flatscreen for video games. The Miley Cyrus pinups are just there to fuel your jealousy of mancaves that are better than yours. Click below for the feature.

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Grant Ray. November 18th, 2010 - Permalink - Comments (10)

Shop: Giannini Racing

An Italian-American with a mouth as salty as they come, Frank Giannini is one of a handful of trusted master builders who restores and maintains the famous Team Obsolete collection. Descending into Frank’s basement, where he builds and restores racing machines as Giannini Racing for clients all over the world, is a lot like descending into the batcave if Bruce Wayne kept a tasteful 3 story mansion in the middle of an old New Jersey suburb. The basement is revered among vintage racers, and is absolutely overflowing with rare pedigree racing machines and parts in various stages of restoration. That engine on the floor stuffed behind the factory Aermacchi 250? Just your average sandcast ex-Works Imola 750ss. Click below for the feature.

Shop: Giannini Racing

Grant Ray. October 28th, 2010 - Permalink - Comments (2)

Shop: 6th Street Specials

Located in Manhattan’s Alphabet City — traditionally a center of Puerto Rican culture, though increasingly full of NYU students, European upper-crusters and Japanese hipsters — 6th Street Specials is one of the great East Coast bastions of all things two-wheeled, motored, British and vintage. While the usual custom bobbers, choppers and ultra-rare cafe racers are packed in like sardines, the real love here is flat track racing, which is treated more like religion. Click below for the feature:

Shop: 6th Street Specials

Grant Ray. October 4th, 2010 - Permalink - Comments (5)

Shop: Rosko/Coast

There’s a tiny garage in the heart of Brooklyn’s Bushwick, the last building on a dead end street, that houses the builders Johnny Coast and Seth Rosko. While Coast focuses on creating perfect braze-welded steel bicycles by hand to order, Rosko is a touch more crazy. He wrenches on vintage race bikes ranging from standard beaters to ultra-rare Dunstall Nortons, builds parts for those race bikes like hand-rolled megaphones for ex-works Hondas and chambers to spec, is the 2009 and 2010 FIM 50cc N.A. Supervintage Champion, 2010 250 GP N.A. Champion, etc., etc. Since that’s obviously not enough for a day’s work, he also builds bicycles, plus he helps build some of the best skate parks in New York like Greenpoint’s Autumn Bowl and the C-squat ramp. Damned over-achievers.

Click below for the feature. Shop: Rosko/Coast

Grant Ray. September 23rd, 2010 - Permalink - Comments (5)

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