American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 227 June 2018 | Page 18

Custom Bike Show
Twin Club MC, Norrtälje, Sweden, June 2, 2018
One of, if not THE oldest custom
bike show in the world, and the
oldest (14th year) AMD World
Championship of Custom Bike
Building affiliate event, the
annual Twin Club MC ‘Custom
Bike Show’ took place in Sweden
on the first weekend of June –
Sweden’s national holiday
weekend.
First staged in 1971 and a bellwether
of custom design trends ever since
(check out the awesome time capsule
of photography from the show’s early
years on the event website!), it is
staged at the coastal former port town
of Norrtälje about two hours north
east of Stockholm, the Swedish
capital.
Riding to Norrtälje on the first
Saturday of June is a long and well-
established tradition for custom bike
riders from all over northern Europe
(and further afield). For many it is the
first big trip of the year.
The show is a one-day ride-in, staged
in a remarkable and enduring
collaboration between Twin Club and
Norrtälje’s community and city council
that speaks to the respect in which
Twin Club is held (as organizers and
ambassadors for motorcycling) and a
healthy attitude towards two wheels
as a leisure lifestyle and transport
solution.
This year saw over 10,000 visitors to
the downtown societetspark (city
park) where the show is staged, with
some 5,500 motorcycles turning the
dockside venue in to a hard-miles,
trailer-queen-free zone - some 240 of
the bikes ridden there enter the
custom show itself, of which nearly 70
entered the legendary H-D Chopper
class, with over 50 in the mild-to-wild
Custom class that has often yielded
some of the most radical ground-up
builds seen anywhere.
To improve competitiveness, some
classes were merged this year, so
additional classes included Chopper
(for non-Harley platform choppers),
Racer, Classic, Modified Standard (a
new class that expanded the
traditional Modified Harley class to
include multiple modified factory
platforms, in keeping with an
increasing trend being seen at shows
in Europe), plus Best Paint and Custom
Chrome Europe sponsored People’s
Choice awards.
Claes Wärefors from Strängnäs,
Sweden, won the H-D Chopper Class
– a ‘Norrtälje’ regular and prior winner
– who also won one of the jury prizes
to compete to be this year’s AVON
18
Petri Ruusunen with ‘Velacimoteur’
Tyres World Champion at the AMD
World Championship at INTERMOT
‘Customized’ in Germany in October.
The second and third places in the H-
D Chopper class went to Finland’s
Janne Antttila from Pythänskoski and
Rezi from Oulu.
Anders Lundgren and Lasse Sundberg
(Roth Engineering) won the Custom
class with a customized Indian Super
Scout, and also scooped one of the jury
prizes to compete at ‘The AMD’ in
October, with the jury’s number one
choice for the AVON Tyres sponsored
Freestyle class at the AMD World
WINNERS OF THE JURY PRIZES TO COMPETE IN THE AMD WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIP OF CUSTOM BIKE BUILDING AT INTERMOT
‘CUSTOMIZED’ ARE:
1. Petri Ruusunen with ‘Velacimoteur’
2. Anders Lundgren and Lasse Sundberg (Roth Engineering)
3. Claes Wärefors from Strängnäs
>>
Anders Lundgren and Lasse Sundberg (Roth Engineering)
AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - JUNE 2018
www.AMDchampionship.com