Anatomy of a Custom Bike: Jameson Connects x India Bike Week 2025

The Myth of the Lone Wolf

Us motorcyclists like to imagine ourselves as solitary creatures. We speak reverently of the open road, of the long ride as therapy, of the helmet as a sealed chamber in which thought becomes clearer because the world outside is deafeningly loud – noisier than a MotoGP circuit encircling Woodstock. For me, that has always been the real seduction of riding: not speed, not spectacle, not even escape, but the strange inwardness of being alone with an engine note and your own unfinished thoughts.

Yet, as the old adage goes, no man is an island. Every once in a while, the need for a sense of community and belonging pulls us out of our protective shells and toward the flock, proving that even the most dedicated lone wolf occasionally needs to find their birds of a feather. We’re butchering metaphors here, but you get the idea… late last year, the paths of all the birds and the wolves led to one destination: Panchgani, Maharashtra, the backdrop for the 2025 iteration of India Bike Week, unarguably the country’s largest and most storied brand-agnostic biking event.

The Hills Have It

After years of being associated with Goa, IBW moved to Panchgani for its 2025 edition after election scheduling in the beach town forced a venue shift, and the event was held on 19 and 20 December in the hills of the Sahyadri instead. Goa has always lent the festival a kind of sunburnt looseness, but Panchgani brought contour, cool air, sharper horizons and a different emotional register altogether.

Among the many highlights that the 2025 edition had to offer, none drew more attention than the Bike Build-off, where the Jameson Connects-supported custom contest became one of the most interesting focal points of the festival. Three builders, Sayed Omer Siddiqui, Shrehan Shakur and Thushar Thomas, were each given a Harley-Davidson X-440 platform, fifty days, and support to reinterpret it, with the finished bikes to be judged by Harsh Man Rai, Shail Seth and Ravi Avalur, three veterans in the Indian motorcycling space.

The Build-Off: Three Builders, One Platform, Fifty Days

I had the chance to inspect all three motorcycles up close. Custom motorcycles, when they are honest, carry the fingerprints of their makers; they reveal not just technical skill but temperament, and that was true here too.

Thushar Thomas, an engineer and entrepreneur, embodied a raw, “build-it-yourself” spirit that I found incredibly compelling. Deliberately eschewing a commercial workshop for that personal handmade touch, he built his XR-750-inspired flat tracker entirely at his home. The result was a lean, mean machine that looked like it belonged on a dirt oval in the 1970s but felt undeniably modern.

Steel, Chrome, and Carbon

Then there was Sayed Omer Siddiqui’s take, which brought a different kind of visual and conceptual energy to the X-440 platform. Finished in a blaze of chrome with a dash of Jameson Connects’ signature green – replete with an arresting “J” on the number panel – Sayed’s creation, named “Haider,” is a scrambler that can play ball with any factory machine you put it up against. Just take a look at that painstakingly crafted exhaust pipe that snakes its way around the frame sinuously, a detail that took its creator umpteen iterations to get just right.

The crown, however, went to Shrehan Shakur with his stunning creation, dubbed the “X1R.” A no-cost-too-big endeavour, the X1R had liberal lashings of exotic materials like carbon, titanium and kevlar, all in an effort to, in its creator’s words, create “a love letter to the enthusiast.” Yet, despite the boutique finish, Shrehan maintained a staunch philosophy that the bike was supposed to be ridden hard, refusing to relegate it to mere show-bike status. Taking it a step further, he introduced a matching line of clothing and merchandise, beautifully reflecting his broader vision for a complete lifestyle riding culture in India. Clinching the crown, presented by Jameson Connects, was a bittersweet moment for Shrehan, who lost his father just weeks before the event, before he could see his son’s first two-wheeled creation come to fruition.

Hands Off, Stand Out

To their credit, the organisers and partners seemed to understand that the builders needed room rather than directives. Jameson Connects and Harley-Davidson were largely hands-off during the build process, allowing the participants the freedom to bring their own imagination to Harley-Davidson’s X-440 platform. That freedom matters because originality cannot be commissioned into existence through excessive supervision. If the ethos of Jameson Connects is about standing out without becoming artificial, then these motorcycles made the case better than any slogan could.

Ten Years, A World of Difference

I reached the festival after wrapping up duties as a jury member for the Indian Motorcycle of the Year awards in Delhi, taking a late flight, sleeping too little, and then heading out early on a TVS Apache RTX, an adventure tourer so fresh, you could still smell the sweat of the paint booth if you leant in close enough. Rolling into the festival grounds, I took a moment to absorb the sheer scale of the gathering.

The last time I attended IBW was nearly a decade ago, back in Goa, and the contrast was impossible to miss: riders now arrive better equipped, more safety-conscious, more intentional about helmets and riding gear, and generally more willing to invest in the full ecology of riding rather than just the motorcycle itself. There is more money in the scene now, yes, but also more literacy.

Engine capacities have grown, choices have multiplied, and the average rider seems to understand not only what they want to own, but what kind of motorcycling life they are trying to build around that ownership. Over the years, the festival has transitioned from a mere grease-and-chrome meetup into a massive cultural hub for lifestyle motorcycling, seamlessly incorporating street fashion, independent art, and curated music into the mechanical mix.

After Dark

As the sun dipped behind the Panchgani hills and the temperature dropped into that perfect mountain chill, the main stage came alive. The music was a curated journey through India’s independent scene, with acts like Suggahunny and Karan Kanchan setting the tone across the two days before Antariksh and King delivered sets that provided the perfect sonic backdrop to the mechanical symphony of the festival. It was in these moments, surrounded by thousands of people who shared the same niche passion, that the “no man is an island” sentiment really hit home.

I left Panchgani wanting more of it, which is usually the surest sign that an event has done its job. I wished I had walked more slowly, lingered longer around the builds and the conversations and the strange temporary city that riders build whenever they gather in sufficient numbers. But perhaps incompletion also sharpened the impression. And as the crisp mountain air rushed past my visor, I settled back into the comforting solitude of my helmet, knowing that while we ride alone, we are all part of the same incredible journey.

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About the author

Saeed Akhtar

A technology and automotive journalist, Saeed has spent 15 years covering motorcycling, culture, and popular science for some of India’s leading publications. He served as a juror for the Indian Motorcycle of the Year Awards and has recently taken up an interest in cooking, which may explain why his friends no longer visit.