Written by Tim Huber.
Artists and builders tend to be extremely critical of their own work. With the benefit of hindsight, it can be hard not to go back and ponder all the things you would have done differently were you given a chance to turn back the clock and take a second crack at an earlier completed work. But after Italy?s Ludwig Motorcycles had one of its 2017 builds suffer a crash, the shop was given the opportunity to turn all those would-haves and should-haves into reality.

Founded and headed up by Riccardo Casarini, Ludwig is a full-service motorcycle shop in Northern Italy. On top of maintenance and a wide array of customization services, the outfit also offers classes teaching riders to wrench. Having only existed for a few years, Ludwig doesn?t have that many builds to its name, however, what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. 
Riccardo hails from Voghera, a small town in Northern Italy in the Oltrepò Pavese region, in Pavia, where he grew up restoring race machinery in his family?s shop. He later graduated from the University of Pavia with a degree in philosophy, writing his thesis entitled the ?Estetica della velocità? (or ?The Aesthetics Of Speed?). Following college, he moved to Barcelona and got involved in the local custom bike scene, cutting his teeth in the city?s Poblenou district before eventually returning home and setting up his own operation in Voghera.

This cafe?d triple began life as a tired 2004 Triumph Speed Trip...