Larry Pierce casts a long shadow on today's motorcycle landscape. Between running Garage Company Customs and holding down the fort in the heart of the Confederacy, this talented builder stays busy. In 2011 Larry launched a grassroots event packed with southern hospitality and pride. The Dixie Roundup expanded rapidly on some very positive word of mouth, and last month bikeriders from as far as New Jersey and California flocked to Larry's second annual moonshine-fueled hootenanny in the dirty south.

I've known Trent at Atomic Custom for a couple years now and the guy builds amazing bikes. Cool thing is, they all are significantly different. You may remember his other knuckle called Three or the Mexipan or even ED, and while they all looked completely different, they had one thing in common - they are built to ride. They may be show-quality machines, but if Trent owns a bike, you can guarantee it gets hammered on a regular. I stopped by the Compound on the way back east a couple weeks ago and shot some snappys of his latest and maybe greatest creation.

Any good shootout has to have a clear winner, right? Trying to flatly say one machine is better than another is not only a matter of opinion, but one of perspective. Both the Forty-Eight and the T100 are great choices for a new bike. While some might think the two motorcycles are like comparing apples and oranges, I would argue the contrary.

Welcome to ChopCult's first new bike shootout. For this battle, we selected the 2012 Harley-Davidson Sportster Forty-Eight and the Triumph Bonneville T100. Totally different looking bikes, but both on a similar mission; reliable two-wheeled fun for about ten grand. We'll do this feature in three parts: Triumph, Harley and the Conclusion. We only spent a couple weeks with the machines, but during that time we took them through the paces, from canyon carving to highway cruising and the daily commute, we lived with the bikes and swapped them amongst a diverse group of riders to assemble real-world opinions and feedback. Here's part one, the 2012 Triumph Bonneville T100.

It's always refreshing to see Lock's work because you know it will be well-made, interesting and totally unlike anything you expected. Enter his latest creation, a hand-fabbed, big-engined creation that is guaranteed to freak out more than just the squares.

Riding a motorcycle across the country you stumble into fascinating folks. Some are simply standouts from the crowd who tickle a fancy and make us smile, then fade into the dormant vaults of memory. But others are complete outliers; true anomalies. The ones who become embedded in our consciousness, emerging from time to time when mood or surroundings invoke them. They are the fascinating characters who enter our lives as a natural result of wandering.

Josh Sheehan was originally scheduled to meet me in downtown San Francisco to shoot this feature, but when we crossed paths at the Hippy Killer Hoedown we banged out this shoot to save Jaybird the trip. ChopCult readers are bananas for shovelheads, and Josh's bike has a lot to like.

The Cardone brothers Alex and Renato of Lake Elsinore, California, build motorcycles in their home garages with the kind of patience and precision normally practiced by Swiss clock makers or Italian cobblers. In addition to crafting his own custom bikes from scratch, Renato has contributed his significant metal fab and paint skills to chopper fiends like his brother, Duane Ballard, and this humble writer.

Sometimes getting enough time, money and motivation to build your project takes way longer than you want. The guy who owned this basket case knucklehead engine sat on it for the better part of two decades until Jake came along and breathed some life into it.