Written by Marlon Slack
BarnBuiltBikes are a working man?s motorcycle shop. They repair and service every kind of marque imaginable. From scooters to classic motorcycles, the three-man team of Derek, Bart and Sven keep all sorts of oddities on the road in their native Belgium. But every few months they turn out a tidy little custom ride. Bikes like this, a Honda VT600 Shadow boardtracker.

?The bike was owned by a customer who?d already had it a few years without really riding it,? explains Sven Decoux, founder and head honcho of BarnBuilt. ?He wanted us to make it into something special?. But the team at BarnBuilt didn?t want to take the easy way out, even with a ride as rarely tackled as a middleweight Japanese cruiser.

?First there was an idea of a bobber,? Sven says, ?but to me it wasn?t special enough. We told the customer that if we could fit a fuel tank under the seat the shape of the bike would be straighter and the whole engine would be visible and not covered by a fuel tank?. See where they?re going" A 20?s era boardtracker.
And to help them along Sven and the gang then turned to The Art of The Motorcycle – a book chronicling a Guggenheim exhibition on the development of the motorcycle. Flicking through the book Sven became enamoured with 20?s Indians and Flying Merkels and wanted to build the Shadow into something similar. ?We needed to build it slim and light,? he says.

But before BarnBuilt bought out the grinders they made a subtle, but important...