“I’ll never sell it, not only because of the blood, sweat, and tears I put into it, but also because it’s a beautiful bike,” Mike Butler says of his shed-built 1976 BMW R100S. In winter 2015, Butler bought a cherry R100S and started first-ever custom motorcycle build. He stripped the bike bare and sold its stock parts, then sourced aftermarket bolt-on parts from every corner of the Internet. He relied on YouTube tutorials and an oil-stained Clymer manual to get through basic maintenance, and he asked a friend for help when it was time to make a tidy rear subframe. Butler says, “If you’re going to start building, start with one of these … because someone who is a total novice, like myself, can achieve something like this.”

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