Some of you have good mechanical and perhaps fabricating skills and will cut, weld and build what is essential a bike as good as any pro build. Others will choose to involve a friend and pull resources and skills to get the job done. That friend may take the shape of local expert who you have sourced to perform a specific task, such as welding, painting or fabricating the odd bracket to your design. While many will be happy fitting a selection of carefully selected bolt-on goodies, fitting and learning as they go. Myself, I started as the latter and over time found local experts to help with my project due to the lack of off the shelf parts.
In my opinion, there really isn’t much difference between many pro or home builds, some of which are the vision of one and put together by a team of experts and skilled professionals. Yes, there are plenty of builders who do everything in-house, but there are also plenty who don’t, just having their picture taken with the bike for the essential end of build photo shoot. Is that wrong, certainly not – no amount of mechanical, welding or fabricating skill is going to make someone into a ‘bike builder’. But a passion, vision and an eye for what look good, paired with the ability to see that vision turn into reality just might, so as a home builder…whats stopping you?
If you have been busy over the last few years or just the winter building your Triumph Twin into your dream machine, why not submit your bike using this link we would love to see it. Try to include as much detail of the parts used and submit 4 or more hi-res images. (no lower 1024x768px ay 72dpi)
So next in our ‘Blogger Bikes’ series and in his own words is by 37 tear old Marco Gobbi…..
‘My name is Marco Gobbi, I am 37 years old and I work in a bank. I don’t like office work but I like very much sport, cars and motorbike. From several years I have the dream to have a Triumph with my own style and to build it by myself has been a big satisfaction. 
I have finished my bonny just 3 weeks ago…and I usually ride on mountains or around lakes in the north west part of Italy. I live in Biella and next june I’d like to participate to Triumph Tridays.
I bought it from a guy who did several modification like suspension and exhaust (so I could save lots of money) and I decided to completely strip the bike in my house basement. After that I decided to give my Bonneville my own style. 
I did everything by myself, with the help of my friend Max. I have not so many tools but I have imagination, fantasy and not so bad manual skills. I built special part like windscreen and side covers starting with polyuretanhe foam and palster…going on with sandpaper and hundreds of manual work hours. 
I built sprocket cover starting from a photocopy of a LSL model that I decided to modify. I built by myself the side license plate mount kit and the electrical wiring for license plate bolt light. The old style Triumph logo is the result of my photoshop work. The tank and front mudguard paintjob is by my friend Max, a professional car painter.
I think my bike is a contamination, a bit cafè racer, a bit scrambler maybe a bit custom and I hope you like it.’ – We do Marco…we do!
2010 Bonneville EFI
Modifications:
· Minimal fibergalss windscreen hand made
· Fuel cap lockable
· Oberon streetfighter mirrors
· ARIZONA front turn signal
· LSL headlight bracket
· Front fibreglass handemade mudguard
· Matris front fork kit
· Newfren front brake disk
· Brembo front brake calliper (4 piston)
· LSL handlebar
· Fiberglass handmade side covers
· Fiberglass handemade sprocket cover (LSL style)
· Arrow 2 into 1 exhaust system
· Bitubo rear shocks absorbers
· Handemade side licese plate with bolt light
· LED tail lamp
· Minimal rear turn signals
· K&N airfilter
· ECU remapping
· Rear mudguard removal
· Tyre: Goldentyre GT 260 homologated
· Black paintjob for: original headlight, braket and wheels, windscreen, side covers….
· “Brown/bronze” paintjob for tank and front mudguard
