Joseph Roy is a strong advocate for the trades.
Having spent most of his life building and restoring motorcycles, the owner of Vintage Custom Cycles in Penacook believes that solving complex problems requires stepping outside the box. With that in mind, Roy thought about creating a competition among local trade schools that would help students gain the same hands-on experience he received when he was younger.
Roy, alongside John Turner, the owner of the High Octane Saloon in Laconia — a hot spot at motorcycle week — worked together to get the first New Hampshire Bike Build Off competition off the ground.
Roy reached out to the governor’s office and the Department of Education and then joined forces with the nonprofit organization Bring Back The Trades.
The inaugural Bike Build Off featured students from the Wilbur H. Palmer Career & Technical Education Center at Alvirne High School in Hudson against a group from the Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The goal was for the students to take a motorcycle, usually in poor condition, and rebuild it from the ground up.
“No matter what it looked like before, you got to strip it down to the frame and start all over,” Roy said.
Alvirne High School junior Corey Dionne explained that his entrance to the competition began with their shop teacher, Ernest Brown.
“I’m always in Mr. Brown’s shop. And one day, he was just like ‘Hey, you want to build a motorcycle?'”
When the motorcycle arrived last September 2025, they knew they had a lot of work on their hands. The team, including Dionne, sophomore Ethan Buja, senior Anna Murphy and two others, spent over five months disassembling and rebuilding the bike. Dionne said the last week was the most time-consuming.
“Wake up at seven, do school and whatever, right? Get out around two o’clock, and then that’s where the fun starts.”
When asked why these students wanted to work on such a project, Dionne said that “it’s for the love of the game. I love working in the garage, I gotta be moving.”
Garrison Goich, a junior at Whittier Regional, said few students were on the team when work began on their motorcycle. However, other students were eager to lend a hand after word spread through the school, especially when the bike developed an electrical issue.
“There were a bunch of kids around the school who had nothing to do that day, so they came in and helped with the electrical work,” he said.
The finished products were on display at the High Octane Saloon during Bike Week.
Members of the public cast their votes all week long for their favorite design. In keeping with the trades theme, the trophies were built by students at Portsmouth High School.
“Now that we’ve all put in so much work to the bike, I feel like it’s no longer about winning. It’s more about the product that comes out,” Dionne said.
With more than 1,000 votes cast, Alvirne edged out Whitter. Roy said no one came out a loser.
“So many kids are going to get involved in the future,” Roy said. “It’s about letting them know that there’s other things you can do out there.”
