The Recidivist – World’s first tattooed motorcycle goes up for sale

Published on September 5, 2019 under Front Page

Game Over Cycles, a Polish custom bike manufacturer, has put up for sale its most famous motorcycle – The Recidivist. It is a unique custom bike awarded with many international trophies, which brought fame to the Polish company all over the world.

The Recidivist is a machine inspired by the art of permanent body adornment. Motorbikes are commonly adorned with tattoo motifs using an airbrush, however the uniqueness of The Recidivist lies in the fact that the bike’s entire construction is covered in tattooed skin branded directly onto the bike’s tires, tanks, seat, rear fender, lamp and many other smaller elements. Light colored leather – similar to the color of human skin – is engineered onto the bike. Artists from Polish tattoo studios applied traditional works of tattoo art onto the bike using. All of that makes The Recidivist world’s first tattooed motorcycle.

“Since Recidivist’s creation, winning its first awards and all the media buzz which started happening around the vehicle, we’ve been asked if the machine was for sale, but we didn’t have such plans back then. This is a unique motorcycle, the only one of such kind in the world, so we wanted to show it at the international rallies, put it into construction competitions. When the sidecar was created, we travelled around the world again, presenting it at major events, but now we give the interested customer the opportunity to purchase this extraordinary machine” – explains Stanisław Myszkowski, boss and founder of Game Over Cycles.

The Recidivist is based on the Harley-Davidson Heritage model. From the original machine only the engine – a Twin Cam 96” – and part of frame are left. All other construction elements and mechanisms are original solutions created by constructors of Game Over Cycles.

Bike’s unveiling took place in September 2014 at the London International Tattoo Convention 2014 – the most prestigious body adornment convention in the world.

The Recidivist’s sidecar was created in 2017 and had its world premiere at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the biggest bike rally in the world. The sidecar is fully tattooed, both outside and inside and also on the tires.

Construction of the motorcycle and sidecar took 3000 hours. Tattooing of the bike and sidecar took over 2500 hours. The price of the motorcycle is 1,000,000 USD.

When asked about the price Myszkowski explains: “When in 2017 we presented The Recidivist at the Rat’s Hole Custom Bike Show, the oldest and most prestigious custom competition in the world organized at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the largest motorcycle rally in the world, the most often reaction during the event was admiration of how many innovative ideas are contained in the design of this machine and how the whole construction is diligently thought out and made in detail. Of course, it is a mechanical vehicle, so we are able to estimate how much did the man-hours or used materials cost, but the biggest value of this motorcycle is its concept and the ideas included in the construction, so one might also ask how do you estimate the value of thoughts or imagination?

In the case of paintings or other works of art, where often there is much less materials and work used than in the case of a vehicle, there are rarely questions about the justification of the price, because these objects are perceived as artistic artifacts, so governed by their own laws regarding the value of an item. When building GOC motorcycles we also try to create them as works of art and after their completion, we only show them to the world and leave them to be assessed whether they really are an art objects. The Recidivist aroused admiration wherever we presented it, from the largest rally in Europe, through the biggest event in the world, to the competition organized in Millwaukee, the heart of the Harley-Davidson brand, where the prize was handed to us by Willie G. Davidson, grandson of one of the company’s founders and the legendary H-D motorcycle designer. So far the machine has won 11 international awards, including those at the biggest events in the world, so it can be a confirmation that it’s not just us who perceive this motorcycle as a work of art”.

The motorcycle sale offer can be found on ebay under the following link:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/401870076694

The video presenting bike’s history, concept and all features is available here:

The Recidivist – Current awards:

• “Best paint/airbrush” at Custombike-Show – world’s biggest trade fair for modified bikes (12.2014, Bad Salzuflen, Germany)

• 1st place in the “Best Painting” category at Custom Bikes Championships (03.2015, Wrocław, Poland )

• Bike of The Year 2015 – Chopper Magazine award (03.2015, Wrocław, Poland )

• Three awards at Custom Festival – Polish Custom Bikes Championship 2015 (04.2015, Poznań, Poland):
– 1st place in “Best Paint’ category
– 3rd place in “Free Style”
– Special Award for best bike of the show from Custom Chrome Europe

• Two awards at European Bike Week 2015, Europe’s biggest bike rally (09.2015, Faaker-See, Austria):
– 1st place in the “Custom” category
– Audience award — “People’s Choice Award”

• 1st place in the „Most Unusual” class in the Rat’s Hole Custom Bike Show, the oldest and most prestigious custom bike show in the world organized at the Sturgis® Motorcycle Rally™, the biggest motorcycle rally in the world (08.2017, USA)

• 1st place in the “PRO Class” in the Harley-Davidson Museum Custom Bike Show, one of the largest custom bike shows in the USA (09.2019, Milwaukee, USA). Award was presented to the company by Bill Davidson, Vice-President of the Harley-Davidson Museum and his father – legendary H-D motorcycle designer Willie G. Davidson, the grandson of one of the founders of Harley-Davidson company.

• Special Award in the Custom Gallery bike show organized at the Harley-Davidson 115th Anniversary in Prague. Custom Gallery 2018 is a bike show as well as the most prestigious global exhibition of motorcycle customization whose heart is the American V-Twin and its derivatives. It is the first exhibition of such enormity and global extent in the history of motorcycle building and customization (07.2018, Czech Republic)

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Game Over Cycles (GOC) is a Polish custom motorcycles manufacturer formed in 2012. The company is known for its original creations, such as The Recidivst – world’s first tattooed motorcycle and Behemoth Bike – a custom motorcycle created in collaboration with global Polish metal music legends Behemoth. Machines created by Game Over Cycles have won awards at some of the world’s biggest custom bike competitions. In just four years, the company received eight awards at European Bike Week, having won the prestigious “People’s Choice Award” no less than four times. European Bike Week is Europe’s largest open and free bike festival and one of the biggest in the world. The event has been organized annually in the Austrian village of Faaker-See and according to organizers’ data in 2018 the event saw an attendance of more than 120,000 visitors and 70,000 bikes from around the world. In June 2016 GOC became the official dealer of legendary motorcycle brand Harley-Davidson. In march 2017 the company officially opened GOC Harley-Davidson Rzeszów, the biggest Harley-Davidson dealership in Poland and Central-Eastern Europe as well as GOC showroom.