Most dogs are perfectly happy sticking their heads out the car window.
These dogs wanted more.
Apparently, somewhere between chasing squirrels, sleeping on the sofa and supervising everything their humans do, a handful of dogs discovered motorcycles. More importantly, they decided the motorcycles already available weren’t quite right.
So they built their own.
Some went looking for vintage British engineering. Others discovered chrome, racing machines, sidecars and stretched choppers. One Border Collie appears to have raided an old farm equipment shed. And, like most lifelong obsessions, it all started with one very small motorcycle and a pair of training wheels.
None of these motorcycles actually exist.
But they probably should.
1. Where It All Began
Every great motorcycle builder has an origin story.
This one starts with a puppy, a tiny homemade motorcycle and two very necessary training wheels.
The machine isn’t particularly fast. Its little engine looks suspiciously like it came from a lawn mower, the handlebars are slightly too wide and somebody has painted a racing number on the side despite there being absolutely no racing involved.
Our young rider doesn’t care.
Wearing an oversized vintage helmet and the intensely serious expression of someone preparing for the Isle of Man TT, the puppy wobbles confidently down the road.
Every few metres, one training wheel touches the pavement.
There is still work to do.
But the obsession has begun.
2. The British Gentleman
Some dogs build motorcycles.
Others build motorcycles and then park them outside the pub.
The British Gentleman has created a beautiful café racer inspired by the great British motorcycles of decades past: polished metal, a long fuel tank, low handlebars and just enough imperfection to suggest that much of it was assembled by hand.
Naturally, its builder is an English Bulldog.
He sits proudly on the bike outside an old country pub as though he’s been riding this same route every Sunday for the past twenty years.
There are no unnecessary accessories.
No enormous stereo.
No flashing lights.
Just a beautifully proportioned motorcycle, a leather seat and an owner who considers excessive enthusiasm terribly inappropriate.
3. The American Cruiser
Subtlety has left the building.
The American Cruiser is enormous.
Long, low and covered in enough polished chrome to temporarily blind anyone driving toward it at sunset, this motorcycle was clearly designed for one purpose: crossing enormous distances while looking spectacular.
Its Boxer builder sits behind wide handlebars with his paws stretched forward and saddlebags packed for several days on the road.
The engine is huge.
The exhaust pipes are not quiet.
And somewhere during construction, the original plan appears to have been replaced with the engineering principle of simply making everything bigger.
There are motorcycles designed for commuting.
This isn’t one of them.
This is a motorcycle built for an empty highway, a distant horizon and absolutely nowhere that needs to be reached by Tuesday.
4. The Vintage Racer
The Whippet took a very different approach.
Weight is the enemy.
Everything unnecessary has disappeared.
The resulting motorcycle looks like something pulled from a 1930s racing paddock: narrow tires, exposed mechanical components, a tiny seat and a long fuel tank that allows the rider to tuck almost completely out of the wind.
Which is particularly useful when your rider is already shaped like a missile.
There is no luggage.
There are no cup holders.
There may not even be a functioning headlight.
But sitting on the starting line of an old racing circuit, surrounded by workshops, timing boards and mechanics, the Whippet doesn’t appear remotely concerned about practicality.
He didn’t build this motorcycle to go shopping.
5. The Sidecar Adventure
Motorcycling presents one obvious problem.
What happens when your best friend wants to come?
The answer is a sidecar.
Two dogs have restored an old touring motorcycle and attached a beautifully rounded vintage sidecar, creating what may be the finest road-trip vehicle ever constructed.
The driver takes his responsibilities seriously.
His passenger does not.
While one dog watches the road ahead, the other sits proudly in the sidecar wearing goggles, ears flying backward and looking delighted by every single kilometre.
Camping gear is strapped behind them. A folded blanket has been stuffed into the sidecar. Their route appears to involve country roads, small towns and stopping anywhere that smells interesting.
It’s probably not the fastest motorcycle in the collection.
It may be the happiest.
6. The Chopper
Eventually, somebody was going to take things too far.
Of course it was the chopper builder.
The front wheel seems to be located in a different postal code from the engine. The handlebars are enormous. The rear tire is absurdly wide, the exhaust system appears completely unnecessary and virtually every component has been customized.
Sitting in the middle of this mechanical excess is an Old English Sheepdog.
Which somehow makes perfect sense.
His long hair, relaxed expression and enormous custom motorcycle suggest that he spent several years building exactly the machine he wanted and wasn’t remotely interested in whether anyone else understood it.
Parked outside a neon-lit custom garage, the finished chopper isn’t subtle.
It isn’t practical.
And it absolutely wasn’t supposed to be.
7. The Italian Superbike
Then there is the Greyhound.
While everyone else was welding brackets and rummaging through boxes of old motorcycle parts, the Greyhound was apparently studying aerodynamics.
His superbike is low, sculpted and impossibly sleek.
Every surface appears shaped by the wind. The bodywork wraps tightly around the mechanical components, the riding position is aggressive and the entire motorcycle looks fast while sitting still.
Naturally, it is brilliant red.
On a twisting mountain road, dog and motorcycle seem almost perfectly matched: long, lean and designed for speed.
There is one small problem.
The Greyhound has now discovered that building a motorcycle capable of extraordinary performance does not make traffic disappear.
He finds this deeply disappointing.
8. The Farm-Built Motorcycle
Nobody is entirely sure what the Border Collie started with.
There are parts from an old tractor.
A bicycle donated at least one wheel.
Something near the engine may once have belonged to a rototiller.
The headlight looks suspiciously familiar to anyone who has owned an old farm truck.
Yet somehow, after enough welding, cutting, adjusting and staring thoughtfully at machinery, the Border Collie has created a motorcycle.
And it works.
Mostly.
The finished machine is wonderfully improvised, with mismatched metal, exposed mechanical pieces and ingenious solutions to problems that probably shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
It isn’t polished.
It isn’t precious.
But sitting outside an old barn with tools scattered around the workshop, its builder looks immensely proud.
As he should.
Half the motorcycle used to be agricultural equipment.
9. The Scrambler
The Australian Cattle Dog wasn’t interested in roads.
That simplified the design process considerably.
His motorcycle has knobby tires, high suspension, protective guards and almost nothing that can easily fall off.
It looks less like a carefully finished motorcycle and more like something designed to survive an argument with a mountain.
Which is fortunate.
Out on a rough backcountry trail, dirt flies from the rear wheel as the Cattle Dog powers through another corner.
Mud covers the lower half of the bike. There are scratches along the fuel tank. One side panel is slightly bent.
None of these things will ever be repaired.
They’re trophies.
Some builders polish their motorcycles after every ride.
This one occasionally knocks the mud off with a hose.
10. Still Riding
Many years have passed since that tiny motorcycle with the training wheels.
The puppy isn’t a puppy anymore.
His face has gone grey. He moves a little slower when he climbs aboard, and the collection of motorcycles in his workshop tells the story of a lifetime spent building, repairing and riding them.
But one motorcycle remains special.
A beautifully maintained vintage machine waits near the door.
The proportions are elegant. The metal carries the soft patina of age. A few parts have clearly been repaired more than once, and nothing about it looks new.
Neither does its rider.
As the sun drops toward the horizon, the old dog rides along an empty road with the landscape stretching out around him.
No training wheels this time.
Some dogs eventually grow out of things.
Fortunately, this wasn’t one of them.
Built for the Dog Who Built It
There probably isn’t a practical reason for a Border Collie to build a motorcycle from tractor parts.
A puppy doesn’t need a motorcycle with training wheels.
And absolutely nobody needs a chopper that long.
That’s precisely why we like them.
Motorcycles have always been about more than getting from one place to another. They’re mechanical objects people personalize, modify, restore, obsess over and occasionally turn into something wonderfully unreasonable.
Dogs would probably do exactly the same thing.
They’d just leave more paw prints on the fuel tank.
Prefer Two Wheels Without the Engine?
If motorcycles are a little too loud, our dogs have experimented with pedal power too.
From wonderfully strange bicycles and vintage cruisers to tandems and imaginative machines that probably shouldn’t work at all, take a look at What If Dogs Rode Bikes? 20 Metal Sculptures We Wish Existed — where the machines may be quieter, but the dogs are every bit as ambitious.
