The Mama Tried Show is one of the USA’s most prestigious and entertaining motorcycle shows, hosted each year in Harley-Davidson’s hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Mama Tried Motorcycle Show is an indoor invitational that connects motorcycles and builders to fans and riders alike. Keeping the fire stoked all winter long. The Show features over 100 motorcycles from builders of all calibers—flat-tracker, hill climber, chopper, and bar hopper.”
Founded by Warren Heir Jr., Scott Johnson, and Jeremy Prach, the show combines these incredible custom motorcycles of builders from all over the country with the wild and wonderful Flat Out Friday flat track races on the night before the show — an indoor race competed on a concrete track coated in Dr. Pepper syrup!
This year, our man on the ground was Chicago-based photographer Matt Gustafson, who set out to shoot as many bikes from the show as possible, as well as the action from Flat Out Friday. Below, you’ll find our highlights from the show — and stay tuned for our Flat Out Friday feature, coming later this week!
Mama Tried 2022: Custom Bike Highlights
Without further ado, here are our highlights from the show, in alphabetical order by builder! Builders: If you want to share any of these on IG, please credit photographer Matt Gustafson (@very.dumb) and us at @bikeboundblog.
Highly agree. People will say it’s all subjective and it’s art, but the problem with these tacky choppers is that they’re not that unique. However, the same could be said for some of the other bikes, too, like the RC51 or even the Aprilia RSV4, which looks great and has that awesome swingarm and nice colors but not much else.
I like the Greening Sportster and the Ballistic Legacy. The Ozee Softail was interesting, but the rears of the fenders ruin and cartoonize the look of the rest of the bike.
Regardless, thanks for this, I enjoyed looking at everything, even if I largely skipped over the choppers, yeah.
Honestly, we used to not pay much attention to this show, as it was so chopper-centric — it takes place in Milwaukee, after all — but they’ve really opened things up to a larger variety of builds in recent years — and Flat Out Friday brings a bunch of awesome flat trackers, too. Look for a piece coming soon on that Greening Sportster!
Some interesting bikes surrounded by a sea of tacky choppers .. somehow the choppers detract from the cool stuff. A strange and awkward mix imo.
Highly agree. People will say it’s all subjective and it’s art, but the problem with these tacky choppers is that they’re not that unique. However, the same could be said for some of the other bikes, too, like the RC51 or even the Aprilia RSV4, which looks great and has that awesome swingarm and nice colors but not much else.
I like the Greening Sportster and the Ballistic Legacy. The Ozee Softail was interesting, but the rears of the fenders ruin and cartoonize the look of the rest of the bike.
Regardless, thanks for this, I enjoyed looking at everything, even if I largely skipped over the choppers, yeah.
Honestly, we used to not pay much attention to this show, as it was so chopper-centric — it takes place in Milwaukee, after all — but they’ve really opened things up to a larger variety of builds in recent years — and Flat Out Friday brings a bunch of awesome flat trackers, too. Look for a piece coming soon on that Greening Sportster!
Wow, excellent photographs.
What a great builder show. Some real gems in that room.
Thanks for the great photo coverage!