12 Gage Kustom—The Story So Far
DARRYL WAS a bike-riding, four-colour printer until an extremely rare genetic kidney disease finally caught up with him. He was first diagnosed with some form of kidney disease at 21 when he was admitted to hospital, although at the time they didn't know exactly what it was. Seven years later he was diagnosed with Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus. By then he already had three kids and one on the way. After progressing to haemo dialysis at home for eight-hours-a-day, three-days-a-week, a transplant was finally found for him thanks to an anonymous organ donor.
Having given up work because of his illness, and because of the risk of rejection of his transplant, finding work was not easy. They say necessity is the key to creation, so after running a small promotions company, they decided to start their own custom bike parts and accessories shop on the southside of Brisbane. It was a natural progression after growing up in the biker culture.
12 Gage Kustom launched itself at Gold Coast Bike Week 2004 and has since grown considerably. They added a freestyle motocross team at Bike Week 2005, and have now opened a Cairns store, the first of many 12 Gage branches around Australia.
It has been a hard road trying to juggle four kids, kidney clinics, two businesses, the social commitments of a large motorcycle club and an II-year marriage, but all the hard work and long hours are starting to pay off. Darryl and Erika have had incredible support from their friends and supporters of 12 Gage Kustoms, the regular customers who keep coming back, plus the big internet following which goes right around Australia and New Zealand.
Back in the '70s, there was only one custom bike shop (Fast Eddy's, Homebush) in Australia. It took a handful of diehard bikers a lot of hard work over many years to develop Ozbike into the great magazine it is today. Back then Ozbike was the watershed for our culture. It created an outlet for early custom bike builders to show their creativity; it supplied opportunities for the industry to grow. That's our proud heritage. But we're not happy to rest on our laurels; we're in there, boots and all, bikers to the bone, still publishing the greatest biker magazine in the Southern Hemisphere. We could do it a lot cheaper, make a bit more money, but we decided right from the start that, because it's our lifestyle too, we'd make it the absolute best magazine on the newsstands, something we could all be proud to call our own, and that means we only accept the very best stories, pictures, art, reproduction techniques, etc. If you'd like to receive your own copies, go to our Subscription Page to find out how easy it is.