The idea for Bikes Built Better didn’t start in a showroom or a business plan. It started the way most good things in the motorcycle world do — between two people who rode, wrenched, and talked too much about what a shop should be.
By the early 2000s Joe Heffernan and I had been spending more and more time working on motorcycles for friends out of Joe’s garage. Joe ran a successful commercial real estate business at Babylon Campus in Horsham. I was running WebGraphicsRus and eMaxAds, doing web and IT work for small businesses. Motorcycles were the common ground. Riding led to wrenching, wrenching led to conversations, and conversations led to an idea.
On April 7, 2004 Joe put it on the table. He believed there was room for a motorcycle service shop built on quality work and honest customer service — not trends, not hype, not the chopper craze that was dominating the industry at the time. He had the business experience. I had the mechanical background. That same day I registered BikesBuiltBetter.com.
For the next year we worked out of the garage. Word spread fast. One of those early builds — the Winigma Project — became something of a calling card. By 2005 it was clear we needed a real location.
We found it at 133 Horsham Road.
On June 5, 2005, Bikes Built Better opened its doors.
The philosophy was simple and it hasn’t changed since. Motorcycle service done the right way. By riders, for riders. Fair treatment, good work, real service. No fashion. No nonsense.
The grand opening that summer brought out the community in a big way — and yes, the Hooters Girls were there. These are the photos from those early days at 133 Horsham Road, the shop that would go on to co-found Spring Motor Mania, host the Horsham Toys for Tots Toy Run, and become a home base for riders across the tri-state area for the next two decades.
It started in a garage in Doylestown. It grew into something none of us fully anticipated.
And the journey was far from over.