Adventure bikes are getting bigger by the day. And although we question the wisdom of taking a machine weighing more than 500 pounds off road, we do see the appeal.
Big dual-sports are comfortable over distance, with tons of packing space and a strangely appealing aesthetic. But we like them even more when they?re oddball custom jobs.

This 1979 Gold Wing started out as an asphalt-loving mile-muncher. It’s now doing double duty as a gravel express, thanks to the ingenuity of Dutch builder Roy Holtman.
Based roughly fifty miles from Amsterdam in Apeldoorn, Roy operates as RH Motorcycles. (He writes and styles it as ‘Are Age’?a self-deprecating reference to his accent.)
He started riding bikes well before the legal age, thrashing mopeds in the woods near his house. Since they kept breaking down, he kept fixing them?so he quickly became the ‘go-to’ guy for repairs in his neighborhood.
All that experience came in handy when turning wrenches on the Honda GL1000. It was in such a state, Roy had to start with a complete nuts-and-bolts rebuild.
?I picked it up at a farm, where it was under a big pile of dust in a forgotten corner,? he tells us. ?It?d been used for years as a daily driver on rainy Dutch days.?

?There was rust everywhere. The centerstand mount had actually ‘sagged’ through a rusted out part of the frame, so the front and rear wheels touched the ground even when it was on the stand.?
Roy repaired the frame, trimming i...