Honda’s trying to build custom bike hype through the Wheels and Waves show again, this time with the SCL500! (or as they call it in non-Euro markets, the CL500). A

As they do each summer, Big Red’s marketeers fielded entries from motorcycle shops around Europe (this year, they had nine shops enter 16 bikes). The bikes went on display at the June 12-16 Wheels and Waves show in Biarritz, France—it’s a sort of combined motorcycle and surf event. If you missed the show, don’t worry; we’ve got photos of the bikes below, and you can still vote on your favorite machine if you want to participate in the competition.

Head to HondaCustoms.com and you can see the bikes there, with more info on each machine—and you can vote on your favourite. Does it matter who wins? No. Is it silly? Yes. But it’s still fun to see what these builders can come up with.

It seems unlikely that anyone would actually ride these bikes as scramblers; it’s all a styling exercise. Some are certainly more functional than others, though.

Remember that the CL/SCL500 has basically the same engine as the CBR500/CB500X/etc, so it’s reliable and has been around forever. These ain’t your granddad’s poorly-running Ironhead custom.

Neil Graham (ADVrider’s podcast purveyor and writer of The Lowdown column) rode an SCL500 last year. You can see his thoughts here.

Find a summary of MO’s review here.

Honda also has a 300 version of this bike on the market, although we haven’t seen it offered in the US yet.

If the 300 version follows the same formula as the Rebel 500/300, it’s easy to see why Honda wouldn’t be keen to sell it here—putting the undersized motor in a chassis built for a bigger bike means a low power-to-weight ratio. If you look closely, you’ll see one of these bikes is actually powered by the single-cylinder engine…

As it is, the SCL500 is certainly down on power compared to the fancy-pants scramblers from the Euro competition, but it compensates for that with a much more sensible price.

Although these custom bikes have some touches that leave us with the heebie-jeebies (Who ordered those pod-style air filters! Yikes!), the SCL500 is probably also one of the most reliable retros you can get, as this platform has already had a decade of refinement.

These engines have even been roadraced in events like the FIM’s European development program, so Honda has had time to sort out any niggles.

The 500-series Hondas are particularly popular in Europe because they can be ridden with an A2 learner license.

Presumably, some of these bikes will go up for sale after the voting is over this summer, although perhaps some of them will stick around to adorn the shops that built them. Or maybe Honda has other plans?

As you can see, most of the bikes follow the scrambler/tracker retro layout, but not all.

There’s also a mix of DIY, hand-built parts as well as some stuff that’s been ordered from catalogs and made to fit.

Last year, the Wheels and Waves focused on minibikes—see here.