KINGSTON — When you know it, you know it— the right job, the right house and the right hobby, such as spending your life striving to create the perfect motorcycle for yourself and others.

After sitting on top of his first Harley Davidson more than 30 years ago, Mark Gorman knew how he was going to be spending his spare time. That experience is still first and foremost in his life as he opened Custom Cycles Northwest in Kingston on March 15, a motorcycle shop where he customizes new and used bikes and provides bike parts.

After closing down his first Custom Cycle shop in Tennessee and moving to Washington in 2001, Gorman decided he needed a better option for motorcycle resources in the area.

“I got sick of looking around for parts everywhere else,” he said.

Gorman believes his location at the Kingston Thriftway shopping complex is accessible to bikers who come from the Kingston-Edmonds ferry, North Kitsap and the Olympic Peninsula.

Gorman primarily customizes motorcycles, especially Harley Davidsons, as well as metric bikes, which are foreign-built cycles.

He also contracts out paint jobs and does “ground build ups,” where a customer can pick and choose what they want for a customized cycle which Gorman can create on-site in the workshop in the back of the store.

“(It’s) tailored to the customer,” Gorman explained.

The shop has an extensive library of resources for the customer to browse through, including books, films, magazines and catalogs to find the kind of parts they want, Gorman said.

“With Mark’s expertise … he’ll know exactly what goes together,” said friend and co-worker Gary “Brit” Brittain.

When people purchase a bike, new owners tend to immediately figure how to customize it to their liking, both men explained. Usually the first things to go are the handle bars, seats and light covers, Gorman commented.

“You won’t find a Harley that hasn’t been changed,” Brit added with a laugh.

The community has taken a liking to the shop, as the men have already been asked to drive their bikes in this year’s Kingston 4th of July Parade. However, based on experience, the men have found riding Harleys in parades can be damaging to the bike’s air-cooled engine, unlike foreign bikes, which are water-cooled.

Both men said they also hear about people who are disappointed with area dealerships and are happy to have a bike shop that is conveniently close.

Gorman and Brittain both clearly remember the moment they fell in love with motorcycles.

For Brittain, it was when he first sat on a Harley Davidson at a shop under the Aurora Bridge in Seattle when he was 11 years old.

“The guy let me sit on it and I got stuck,” he said.

For Gorman, it was when he was a kid in 1976, when he was allowed to sit on a friend’s new purple and chrome Harley as it was being unloaded from a trailer.

“That bike is the bike that got me hooked,” he said.

“That’s what gets you stuck, when you remember when you first got on a Harley,” Brittain added.