Back Street Heroes November 2022

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little p*ssed off with the powers-that-be, and their blatant not-giving-a-sh*t-about-us, the ones who elected them. The gap between us, the average person on the street, and them, the increasingly out-of-touch elite in Westminster, seems to be widening with a speed that a Santa Pod Top Fueler’d be proud of, and I can’t see it getting any less any time soon. Their unwillingness to stop the major fuel and energy companies continuing to massively, and unnecessarily, increase their prices, to make even more obscene levels of profit for their shareholders, causing businesses and, therefore, people, to go to the wall, is just the latest in a long run of ‘I’m sorry, what?!?’ policies, and it just seems the country’s gone bloody mad.…

By now most of you’ll know about Triumph Motorcycles (although you might not know that the most traditional of English companies was originally set BY up by a German… no, I’m really not kidding, look it up), you might not be quite so au fait with the Lancaster. Did you know, for example, that the Lanc, as it was colloquially called, derived from the Manchester (so does that make it the Manc?), built by the same company, which flew for the first time in 1939, went into service in 1940, and was retired just two years later after a string of problems caused, in the main, by its Rolls-Royce Vulture engines which, in service, proved to be underpowered and extremely unreliable. Its replacement, the Lancaster, was reworked, and redesigned, and…

A last-minute change saw punk/rock band The Addiction step up to kick off the 2022 party as a replacement for Venomous Rose, but these things happen. They hit the ground running, so to speak, then Scopyons added more power to the proceedings before Hi-On Maiden who, giving their first performance at Rock & Blues, more than did justice to Maiden’s music so I hope we’ll see them again. Friday and Saturday from lunchtime through ‘til nine, the multiple guises of compere Mr Badaxe amused and entertained us with peas, and sometimes peaches (you have to see it to understand) between band sets on the outdoor stage. The sets are shorter than on the main stage, but the music’s more varied and there’s plenty to enjoy while you’re chilling on the grass…

I ’d been loosely looking for a Sportster for a while so when a good friend phoned to tell me he’d just picked one up, I couldn’t resist going over to take a look. The bike’d originally lived in New York, then been shipped to Sweden, and then found its globetrotting way to London where it’d stayed, parked up, for five years or so. It was in a fairly sorry state, showing signs of its age, and ripe for making into something far more beautiful. I’m a clichéd petrol-head routed firmly in the custom scene. For many years I owned a 1959 Ford Pop’ hot-rod, which I’d had for twenty years but’d been sold on to pastures new, and I needed something in my life again to truly make my…

Well, up to 2019 that is. 2020 didn’t happen (the rally that is, not the actual year) for Covid reasons, nor did the 2021 rally, but tickets were held over ‘til the rally could be held. When the Hook Up Chopper Show confirmed the 2022 gathering was a go, social media went into meltdown, with people trying to get tickets but, unfortunately, this is a 500 limit event and the tickets were all sold in 2019, so any that did come up for sale were literally snapped up in minutes. The show itself is a welcome return to the basic rallies of old – likeminded people with a passion for choppers (especially Shovels, Panheads, Knuckleheads, Flatheads, and a few makes other than H-D) gather for the weekend in the beautiful…

This particular version of the square cam-box ET came about when as, Kevin, the owner, says: “I’d always wanted a bobber/chopper but, back in the ’80s in my younger days, had to make do with standard Japanese bikes. I’d always planned one, but then day-to-day living, and family, happened and your priorities change, as they do, so bikes disappeared from my life for thirty-plus years. Then I guess what they call a midlife crisis kicked in, and the yearning for the bike I’d always wanted started rearing its head again. “I’d seen the HUC Wormburner frame a couple of times with Bandit engines in, and really liked the look. After several visits to see Ali at Cold Steel Customs, he suggested I try the older GSX engine instead (everyone’s got…