If you are a regular reader of Bike EXIF, Winston Yeh’s name requires absolutely no introduction. As Taipei's premier custom builder operating under his world-renowned Rough Crafts banner, Winston has achieved the near-impossible: maintaining a remarkably high annual build volume without ever diluting his uncompromising signature style. His dark, muscular, and heavily textured masterpieces regularly dominate our seasonal favorites and top-ten roundups.
His latest creation, a stunning, ground-up reimagining of a 2024 Harley-Davidson Street Bob, is no exception. Named the ‘Aeternum Blade,’ it pushes the boundaries of modern-day chopper geometry while delivering an absolute masterclass in high-end, high-contrast fabrication.
Before Winston could apply his signature wizardry, he needed a solid foundation. In stock form, the 2024 Harley-Davidson Street Bob is highly regarded as a stripped-down bobber that hits straight to the core of simple cruiser performance. Right off the dealership floor, the machine boasts a formidable presence centered around the Milwaukee-Eight engine, which delivers a highly respectable 94 horsepower and 119 ft-lbs of torque at just 3,000 rpm.
While the factory package, complete with a 2-into-2 offset shotgun exhaust, primary chain drive, and dual-piston rear brakes, is more than enough to satisfy most highway riders, Winston saw it as a blank canvas begging for a radical architectural shift. "The goal was clear: to recreate the essence of an old-school chopper, without sacrificing the precision and ride quality of today’s engineering," says Yeh.
Winston began by addressing the frame's stance, slicing the neck to stretch the chassis 2.5 inches upward and 0.5 inches forward. Crucially, the team retained the factory 30-degree rake, resulting in a compact, highly purposeful stance that captures the 'climbing' posture of an old-school chopper without turning the bike into an unsteerable, long-wheelbase barge.
This structural realignment set the stage for the absolute pièce de résistance of the Aeternum Blade: a fully custom girder front end. Seamlessly integrating billet CNC machining, 3D printing, and meticulous hand fabrication, the skeletal girder fork works in perfect harmony with a high-performance Öhlins HD207 shock nestled within the linkages.
To keep the rear chassis planted and perform as sharply as the radical front end, the factory swingarm was retained but heavily upgraded with a fully adjustable Öhlins HD503 rear shock, completely modernizing the ride compliance of the Softail frame.
The stock Milwaukee-Eight is no slouch, but Winston’s builds always demand an extra hit of mechanical drama. The motor was treated to a massive displacement bump with a 128-cubic-inch big-bore kit. In a fascinating, delightfully purist departure from modern, highly complicated electronic fuel injection, Winston opted to feed the giant cylinders via a classic S&S Cycle Super E carburetor.
This analog conversion was made possible by an Altmann Carb Conversion system, breathing beautifully through a proprietary Rough Crafts Air Cleaner mated to an Altmann manifold. The exhaust system is an in-house Rough Crafts custom one-off piece. In a custom scene currently saturated with raw, colorful stainless-steel pie-cut exhausts, Winston chose to smooth all of the welds and polish the stainless steel, giving it an organic design which appears to flow out of the heads like liquid mercury.
Modern stopping power is guaranteed by a top-tier braking setup from Beringer Brakes. The front wheel features a Beringer 6-piston caliper clamped to a custom-machined disc carrier, while a Beringer 4-piston caliper does duty on a matching carrier out back. The anchors are bolted to gorgeous Fatboy Design Kustom Snowflake wheels, measuring a tall 21 inches up front and 18 inches at the rear, which are wrapped in high-performance Metzeler Cruistec tires.
To finish off the build, Winston took a rare and calculated departure from his signature all-black aesthetic. He turned to Taiwan’s premier paint specialists, Rover Works Custom Paint, to coat the dished, Frisco-mounted fuel tank and matching rear fender in a sleek, glossy Nardo Grey. The grey bodywork was then intricately detailed with hand-applied, engine-turned silver leaf and framed with flawless, expert pinstriping to visually tie the custom panels together.
This subtle grey color palette weaves across the stretched frame and girder fork, creating a stunning visual contrast with the high-polished accents on the engine blocks. Polished metal details abound, highlighted by a gorgeous suite of Rough Crafts x Arlen Ness collaborative rocker boxes, a matching cam cover, and a highly polished transmission cover.
The cockpit keeps the design beautifully skeletal, sporting a set of minimalist, custom riserless mini-ape-hanger handlebars with minimal pullback. These bars float cleanly above the exposed links of the girder fork. The rider rests on a gorgeous, low-slung solo saddle, hand-crafted as a custom collaboration between Rough Crafts and leather seat specialist Rich Phillips of Rich Phillips Seat Co.
Ultimately, the Aeternum Blade is a love letter to vintage chopper culture, meticulously refined through decades of build obsession, and executed with absolute modern precision. It is exactly the kind of show-stopping engineering we have come to expect from Winston Yeh, and we are certain it will be ruling our year-end favorite lists for a long time to come.
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Comments
What can I say? I'm in love with a stripper!
This is the best Street Bob I've ever seen. The long neck, the fork, the light and the intake, the rings and the badges, the bit of blue in the gray, it's a perfect work of art! And you can ride it, like, really ride the hell out of it!
One of the best looking Frisco style choppers I’ve ever seen!
Good looking BUT, tank is too far from the neck, those bars look like they could snap off with a hard bump, I like risers. Never a fan of open cases.
That said, great pipes, paint and graphics are stunning !
The most beautifully finished Street Bob custom I have seen in a very long while. Special mention must go to the exhaust system, carb, clean bars, all finished surfaces and the S&S big bore kit.
Still very usable in the real world, quite a thing😎