Steeplechaser: Motorcyle Racer Skip Van Leeuwen Honored in British Customs' Legends Series
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) April 05, 2016 -- The face of motorcycling is changing. The culture of motorcycling is shifting around a community that embraces a heritage of unknown origins. But these origins are only unknown because the archives where they exist have never been digitized.
Until now.
British Customs, a lifestyle brand and designer of aftermarket motorcycle parts, has been bridging the past with the present by seeking out the people who made motorcycling what it is, and sharing it with today’s riders. British Customs has been interviewing these figures, digitizing their archives, and reaching out to their networks to follow every possible in the tapestry of the history of motorcycling.
British Customs has been uploading these pieces to their blog where they are establishing an authoritative database documenting the development of motorcycling, covering the racers, races, machines, tuners, events, personalities, designers, and more that collectively created motorcycling as it is now known and loved.
British Customs is calling this the Legends Series.
To help riders get their own piece of history, British Customs has released multiple custom tribute motorcycles built in collaboration with some of these legends, as well as numerous other parts designed in conjunction with them. These include the Triumphant built with Eddie Mulder, The Sonny Nutter Tribute built with Sonny Nutter, the BC X Mule Motorcycles Tracker Classic built with Richard Pollock, Drag Pipes, Slash Cut TT Exhaust, the Pro Builder Series Mule Motorcycles parts, the Stainless Steel Collection, and more.
British Customs has continued to develop their growing archive by adding a highly researched and connected piece on the greatest TT steeplechase rider in AMA history: Skip Van Leeuwen.
Van Leeuwen was a Triumph-sponsored racer of the 60s, and his career was fueled by his lifelong friendship with fellow racer and AMA Hall of Fame member Dick Hammer. Van Leeuwen was a local hero in Southern California, and competed in nearly all the races of the time, including the Catalina Grand Prix and the infamous Ascot TT. He held numerous AMA and West Coast titles, and went on to found one of the biggest motorcycle accessory companies in the industry after retiring.
The motorcycles used by racers such as Van Leeuwen were all common street motorcycles that had only been stripped down and modified for whatever purposes the rider wanted. In step with this, British Customs has published multiple style guides on how to customize any Triumph Modern Classic including the iconic Bonneville, Thruxton, and Scrambler in a number of retro styled motorcycles. These styles include trackers, cafe racers, dirt bikes, bobbers, desert sleds, resto-mods, and more.
Each week, British Customs will publish at least two more pieces on their blog to further add to their archives documenting the racers, events, machines, designers, personalities, and many others who created the heritage of motorcycling.
Anyone interested in using or viewing the archival images and documents British Customs is digitizing is encouraged to contact them.
About British Customs:
British Customs is a Southern California-based lifestyle brand and designer of aftermarket motorcycle parts. They are known for making the highest quality factory-spec bolt-on parts that only require common tools and minimal technical knowledge to install. With any of their parts upgrades, the average rider can completely customize his or her motorcycle in a weekend.
David Bumpus, Triton Communications, +1 3104368012, [email protected]
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