You might be surprised to find a specialist in Italian racing machines in Texas. But Austin is next to Portland, one of the younger, hipper cities in the USA - and in addition to organic coffee shops, microbreweries and galleries, there is the now-obligatory custom bike shop, somewhere to hang out on Saturday afternoons in your oilcloth jacket and Red Wing boots. But Revival Cycles is a bit special - restorer Alan Stulberg has even been given credit for his work by Moto Guzzi in Italy.

Passion meets pragmatism

The recipe is simple: passion and pragmatism in equal measure. For Stulberg, motorcycles are an aesthetic expression, a demonstration of beauty in a practical guise. It sometimes takes quite an effort to reveal that beauty, however: as illustrated by the 1978 Moto Guzzi Le Mans I, which arrived at Revival Cycles in a miserable condition in 2012. Stulberg stripped and rebuilt it, first as a slimmed-down custom bike, and then as a vintage racer. The dull grey colour, incidentally, was inspired by a Porsche 356 - a sensational choice in our opinion!