Written by Martin Hodgson
They say the devil is in the detail, and it is this aspect that separates the best from the rest amongst the thousands of custom bikes built every year. The ability to incorporate form and function into every aspect of a bike and yet still stay true to a cohesive design is rare. It’s here that Tom Gilroy shines and combined with his customer friendly approach has lifted him to the upper echelons of Australian bike building. Now the Purpose Built Moto head honcho is leaving 2019 the way he started, with a flurry of exceptional builds rolling out of his workshop, and his latest is this stunning Yamaha XV750.

The bike’s owner James had begun to modify the XV himself when along the way he decided to seek out Tom’s help to really do it justice. ?He came into the garage with a tonne of ideas on how this bike could take shape. I simplified the ideas down to a very, very basic direction. I figured out from his description the bike needed to be sharp, lean and edgy. That?s about all I ever take to work with; the rest I leave up to the process,? Tom explains. The ultimate goal being a bike that performed brilliantly in the mountains and looked just as good parked up in the man cave.
Now with the Yamaha in his shop, the philosophy behind the build started to take shape in Tom’s mind. Raw, a visceral, sensory overload. Slim, the Japanese v-twin lines maintained front to back. Manga style, bold, aggressive and a little cartoonish, ju...