2016 AMD World Championships Freestyle Class Winner – Suicide Customs
(Photos by Onno Wieringa/Frank Sander- Courtesy of AMD World Championships)
They came from 23 different countries for a crack at the title, for the prestige that comes along with winning the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building, and for the 18 carat, diamond encrusted ring bestowed to the winner. The 12th annual competition saw 42 motorcycles battling for top honors in this year’s Freestyle class, the winner chosen by a jury of peers, the other builders in the show.
2016 AMD World Championships Freestyle Class 2nd Place – Simple Iron by Michael Naumann
When the votes were tallied, Suicide Customs out of Japan won top honors for its “Rumble Racer.” Builder Koh Niwa kept the design nice and clean, balancing its symmetry with ribbed covers, outfitting the 1973XLH Ironhead with a kicker, and mounting everything in a custom, plated frame. Another Ironhead-based custom called “Simple Iron,” built by Michael Naumann from Germany, won second place while Fred “Krugger” Bertrand, a former two-time world champion, earned third place honors.
2016 AMD World Championships Freestyle Class 3rd Place – Fred “Krugger” Bertrand of Krugger Motorcycles
Larry Moore of Moore’s Customs out of Wichita, Kansas, was the highest-placed American competitor in fourth. From the downward bend of the bars to the stretch of the tank and backbone to the visible absence of brakes, Moore’s build draws inspiration from boardtrackers of yesteryear. The 74 cubic-inch Shovelhead has split rocker boxes, Electron carbs on one-off manifolds, and dual Morris Magnetos. In addition to having dual magnetos supplying its spark, there’s plenty more to admire about this bike, like the split tank housing both oil and gas, the unique vertically mounted leaf spring handling suspension duties on the back, and a trans-brake scrubbing speed of a bike that looks like it has no brakes at all.
2016 AMD World Championships – Freestyle Class 4th Place – Moore’s Customs
Here’s more info on the show courtesy of the AMD World Championship team.
Japanese customizer Suicide Customs scored a convincing first place in the 12th AMD World Championship at ‘INTERMOT Customized’ at Cologne, Germany, October 10th to take the coveted title of AMD World Champion of Custom Bike Building.
Voted for by the competitors themselves, this is the third time that a customizer from Japan has taken the Championship ring home, and in a close field of Freestyle class entrants, Suicide Customs was the clear choice of his fellow competitors as their Champion for the next two years.
Suicide Customs’ 1000cc V-twin “Rumble Racer” has quite a back story. Crated for dry shipping to Europe several weeks before the show, Koh Niwa had tense days and late evenings at the World Championship before managing to get the bike fired up and completing the necessary run to be able to qualify for prizing – his determination in the face of tough odds won the admiration of the “Class of 2016.”
In a very broad international spread of top honors, second place, and first reserve champion, went to Michael Naumann of Germany for his Ironhead Sportster-engined “Simple Iron;” with third place, and second reserve champion going to 2014 World Champion Fred “Krugger” Bertrand of Krugger Motorcycles in Belgium for his S&S Cycle 103” “LADD.”
Altogether 42 bikes competed in the Freestyle class, with no fewer than 14 different countries featured in the Top 20, with the equally back story rich TEAM USA’s Larry Moore of Witchita, Kansas, taking fourth overall for his “Kontrolled Kaos,” with North Coast Custom taking fifth for “Alcatraz 521.”
The ever-popular Modified Harley-Davidson World Championship was won by German-Motorcycle-Authority (Christoph Madaus) with his 1340cc (S&S heads) “Milwaukee Mile.” In an extremely high quality field, this year’s Retro Modified class was taken by PDF Motociclette of Italy with “Big Kahuna,” a 1000cc engined 1927 JD 8-valve.
Flying the flag for Eastern Europe, the Cafe Racer class was won by Kharkov, Ukraine-based Iron Custom Motorcycles (ICM) with “Beckman” featuring a hand-made 56bhp, 555сс 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine.
In another success for the small but fast-growing and innovative Irish custom scene, 2013 World Champions Mick O’Shea and Don Cronin (Medaza Cycles) took the demanding Street Performance class with “Road Fever” a 1978 Ducati 750.
Staged as the lead feature at the first ever ‘INTERMOT Customized’ the show-within-a-show concept created to showcase custom industry excellence, was widely praised by exhibitors and visitors alike as delivering an inspirational and aspirational show environment that is set to champion the professionalism of the international custom market for years to come.
In addition to the AMD World Championship bikes, the 200,000 plus high-mileage riders that visit INTERMOT (some 80 percent plus of whom visited Hall 10) saw presentations of custom excellence from a wide range of exhibitors that included several of the leading OEMs such as Harley-Davidson, BMW, Triumph, Yamaha and Kawasaki; Ural from Russia and German V-8 specialist Boss Hoss.
Additional Hall 10 features included displays from the OEM/aftermarket-backed Essenza and Sprint race series, a Garage Area featuring customizing, technical and workshop displays, photography by legendary motorcycle industry photographer Michael Lichter and history and memorabilia from the Ace Café, London.
The 13th AMD World Championship will be staged at INTERMOT Customized at the Cologne Exhibition Center (Koelnmesse) in October 2018.