Driss Boucif of Boucif Custom Bikes talks bikepacking, wheelies and bendy top tubes
Words Paddy Maddison Photography Patrik Lundin
Driss Boucif is a man who lives and breathes bikes. When he’s not riding them he’s scouring scrap heaps for his next frame to upcycle. And when he’s not busy tinkering away in his workshop-cum-skatepark, you can probably find him pulling wheelies through the streets of Leuven, Belgium, with his band of merry youths.
‘Ah yes, Wheelie Wednesday! It’s great – we’ve been doing it for about three or four years. Everybody meets up at the workshop, then we eat something and go riding around the city on our back wheels. If any of the youngsters don’t have a bike to ride, they can take one from me.
‘Usually the first stop is the skate shop to say hi to the guys there, then we’ll head to get some drinks for everyone. It’s a real nice thing. A lot of great young kids come along from all different backgrounds – it’s cool to see.’
Boucif occasionally puts his front wheel on the ground too. In fact, when we catch up over the phone, he’s currently part way through a transcontinental bikepacking trip from his native Belgium to Bilbao, Spain.
‘It’s heavy, but we’re enjoying it,’ he laughs. ‘We just reached France, which was our goal for the day. But yeah, it was bad rain and we were all a bit sick too. Still, we made it in the end.’
Boucif’s bike of choice for the trip is naturally one of his own creations. He has been building frames since his teenage years after initially studying to fix mopeds. Now he runs a workshop out of Leuven’s first indoor skatepark – a vision he helped his friends bring to life using his practical skills. Here Boucif makes all manner of bicycles, but it’s his recycled step-through frames for which he is best known.
‘I found a technique to rework a classic women’s frame,’ Boucif explains. ‘It involves cutting out the top tube, flipping it and welding it back in.
‘I started working this way rather than building frames from scratch because I really didn’t have another option. Framebuilding isn’t accessible for a young chap with no money, and this way it doesn’t have to be that expensive. Most of the frames I get either from scrap yards or as donations from my clients. Some of them are a good 40 years
