| An Italian competitor has won AMD's Official European Championship of Custom Bike Building; the first time an Italian competitor has done so in a year that saw three Italian builders in the top ten. Gigi Esposito and Luca Pizzano of Big Twin Motors from near Naples in Southern Italy repeated their January win of the AMD Championship Affiliate event, the Verona International Custom Show at Motor Bike Expo, Verona, Italy with "Panster". Second place was taken by former World and European Champion Stellan Egeland (SE Service, Sweden) with his radical departure, radical BMW, radical technology demonstrator "Harrier". Third place went to Finland's Andy Niemi/Flying Choppers whose much-admired and thoroughly convincing homage to early seventies choppers "Cloud 9" has been winning or placing at most of the events he's shown it at since it made its winning debut at Twin Club MC's Custom Bike Show in Sweden last year. As ever, the competitor-judged 'Freestyle Class' based AMD Official European Championship was generously staged on behalf of the market by Custom Chrome Europe at their popular annual Dealer Show, with Custom Chrome vendors putting up a whole slew of parts and parts credit prizes and Custom Chrome themselves underwriting the DHL bike freight vouchers worth some 5.000,00 euro each that the first three win for competing at this summer's 6th annual Official World Championship of Custom Bike Building at Champions Park on Lazelle Street, Sturgis in August. Our thanks to Custom Chrome, their hard working staff, to their vendors (which included a record number of new vendors for the firm at the show this year) and to our advertisers and Official Partners for helping make this event the annual institution it is. The recession-defying second largest ever field of 116 outstanding custom bikes (from an all-time record 16 different countries) showed that the market is proving "robust" in the face of the negativity and concern that had worried it as the year started, and with Custom Chrome sources unofficially intimating that dealer parts and accessory sales for the weekend "may well turn out to be even better than last year" the central message from all the season's trade shows so far, that "there is still good business to be done out there" has been yet again reinforced. As has the general perception that in custom market terms at least, Europe is "The" market to be active in at this time. Always a stunning showcase and hot-bed of cutting edge, best practice and radical new-thinking custom bike design and engineering, the common reaction to this year's entry from competitors, vendors and dealers alike was that the standard in competition represented yet another new high. Whether or not that was the case, the most significant and apparent impressions that the thousands who witnessed the weekend will take away with them is of a market that is changing, and changing for the better, right in front of our eyes. A market that is embracing performance engineering as central to the meaning of customizing as the 21st Century's first decade draws to a close, and of a market that is going to be characterized by a massive diversity of styling as we enter the second decade. A market where all possible trends will work side-by-side to attract more customers than ever into the lifestyle, rather than one where any one trend is dominant at the cost of all others, or where only one style of riding is considered "cool". 2009 European Championship Results, Freestyle Class
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