Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Back Street Heroes

When, a few years ago, I only had a bike licence and went everywhere, but everywhere, on two wheels, I was always slightly jealous of those who professed to be able to lose themselves in the ride – to forget all their normal cares and woes, and just revel in what they’re doing aboard their bike. I, you see, couldn’t – I spent so much time riding that it became second nature to me, and I could carry on with all my normal* thinking in the same way as I would when doing anything else. Riding, for me, wasn’t an escape from the everyday world as it was for some people - it was just what I did if I wanted to get anywhere, y’know? Over the last few weeks…

I don’t know whether you know, but in 2019 a 1936 SS100, partially built, that’d belonged to, granted, a famous racer back in the day, was sold for £424,500, and it’s quite rare to see one under £125,000. What’s nice to see, though, is that while most’re very much the preserve of the Commodity Biker, investors with only a vague interest in actual motorcycles, there’re still some folk out there using them as motorcycles. At the 2012 (I think, the 50th anyway) Dragon Rally, in North Wales, in February, I saw an SS80 and an SS100 leant, on their tanks, on a telegraph pole, halfway up the side of a mountain, in a muddy field. David Burdett, the owner of the motorised velocipede you see here, has long been a fan…

I, personally, haven’t been since about 2004 when, with me IQ18 Films hat on, I went to film the Star Boyz stunt team from America who were performing there, along with a host of stunting luminaries including the late, lamented Sonnie Ferguson. The time before that was back towards the end of the ‘90s when meself and Shifty (remember him?) took the BSH stand up there (and went to a very odd, but enjoyable, party where a particular Harley club sang ‘Born to be Wild’ on the karaoke following the words on the screen… I mean, come on, does anyone really not know the words to ‘Born to be Wild’?). Anyway, after the success of Gus, from Muddy Beach Customs, and Dusty, from Dusty’s Customs, organising a new custom show feature…

You expect Australia to be hot, don’t you, but this was held on the last weekend of March, which is well into our autumn and, 160 miles from the coast, it snows up here in winter. For two days I watched the rain come down, and the first cold winds give a taste of winter, and I’d almost given up the idea, but then the clouds cleared (mostly), and in fifteen minutes I was packed and on the road. (I did have to stop at a pub on the way and stand next to the fire, with a beer or two, I admit, ‘cos I couldn’t feel my hands.) The show’s billed as ‘a family-friendly weekend’, which means, in my eyes, no exuberant drunken behaviour on motorcycles, but that’s fair.…

The thought of going to ride in the Spanish sunshine in the hills above Girona was appealing enough, but I wasn’t sure if I’d feel the same way about doing it aboard Indian’s new Sport Chief performance cruiser. The fourth model in the Chief line-up, the 1890cc V-twin-engined Sport is, as its name suggests, the sportiest of the bunch. Featuring new USD forks, twin front discs, higher ‘bars, and longer (twin) FOX shocks, the bike’s claimed to ‘beg for more aggressive riding’. Trouble is, I’m not the biggest fan of cruisers, so the chances of me having a good time appeared to be slim. What did surprise me, though, was just how much I changed my mind during the course of the ride – by the end of the day…

Emrick was in his shed, sweat making his T-shirt stick to his back as he checked all his camping gear. He was preparing for the highlight of his year – the annual bike camp out at the Gog Magog Hills in the flatlands of Cambridgeshire. He’d spent the past few days fettling his bikes, but he was still to decide which one to take to the camp. One was a very used-looking Harley WLA he’d had for decades – it’d been abandoned in France during the Second World War, and left to rust in the fields of Normandy, and when he got his hands on it, it was barely recognisable as a bike with many parts missing; one side of the fatbob tanks was absent, the canvas panniers were alive…

This new book, The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride: Decade of Dapper, documents and celebrates ten years of raising funds and awareness for men’s health initiatives with engaging stories and gorgeous photography. Held every year in May, in hundreds of cities across the world (including dozens in the UK), the event has attracted the world’s attention, and created some truly amazing stories (and thousands of great images) along the way. The book’s filled with engaging stories about the riders and what motivates them; dapper fashion and stunning images from dozens of celebrated photographers in some of the world’s most iconic locations; personal contributions from the likes of Charley Boorman, and MotoGP world champion Freddy Spencer; and is a lasting record of the hundreds of stories of triumph and heartbreak from the DGR…

Nick Maybury’d decided to build a Sportster for his girlfriend, Lone (pronounced Lona – she’s Danish), and, being no stranger to these things, started by sourcing a reputable donor bike, a Y2K 883 Sporty, and ordered a (hardtail) frame from a well-known builder of such things. Sadly, it seems a lot of other people’d had the same idea around that time as he was told, because of the queue, the lead time for it’d be somewhere between nine months and a year. Undaunted (well, a bit…), while he was waiting for said frame, he stripped the Sporty into the two now-traditional piles (one of bits to keep, and one of bits to out) and, as it was only a wee 883 (always makes me smile when someone describes a nearly…

Five years (well, this year’s the fifth!) now we’ve been running the BSH Custom Championships, and it’s turned out to be the biggest custom show in the world, with over 4,000 entrants to date! For 2023 we’ve had a bit of a rethink, a bit of a shake-up, of how we do things, and we’ve made some significant changes. Don’t worry, the basics are still the same, and it’s still free to enter, but we’re making it a little more inclusive – a little better basically! This year there are seven rounds – three online, and four real-world. The real-world rounds are: THE SCOTTISH MOTORCYCLE SHOW (ALREADY BEEN) THE NCC LONDON DIAMOND DAY AT THE ACE CAFÉ, LONDON (1 JULY) THE ROCK & BLUES, DERBYSHIRE (27-30 JULY) NE MAG’S STORMIN’…

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PART SIX The last things to talk about are paint (which I hate), and the MoT. We’ll start with the paint. The thing about paint is that you can’t hide a sh*t paint job – if your welds aren’t great, you can tidy them up with a grinder or cover them in filler, and if your wiring’s naff you can hide it out of sight, but paint has to be just so or the bike looks rubbish. I, personally, don’t do paint (matt black and drab olive’re about the only colours I can make look half decent), but with this bike I had a cunning plan. Given the poor finish of the original frame, and this being a low budget, do it all yerself at home kind of a project…

The new series of The Motorbike Show returns for six new hour-long episodes on 12 June at 8pm, and Henry Cole’ll be attempting two land speed records, while engineering genius Allen Millyard’ll be restoring a Seventies superbike, and all eras and styles of motorcycling, from pre-war bikes at the famous Banbury Run to the latest, high-end £60,000 Bimotas which’ll be looked at, too. As well as that, a new series of Shed & Buried will’ve started (23 May) on Quest were Henry, Fuzz Townshend and top restorer Guy Willison are back on the road hunting for automotive treasure lying dead in the nation’s sheds, hoping to restore their finds and sell them on for a tidy profit, too.…

STAR LETTERS This month’s Star Letter wins a Weise Redwood Shirt, rrp £139.99. A classic check shirt, but with an abrasion-resistant aramid lining and CE armour at elbow, shoulder and back. Rated A for protection, it’s fastened with a zipper to keep it securely closed while you ride. Find out more at thekeycollection.co.uk DEAR BSH, Bit of a ‘70s reminiscing story inspired by Rick Hulse. The postman’s just rammed the June issue through my tiny letterbox – I can usually hear his van stop outside, but now he sneaks up in his shiny new electric one, and I can’t hear him coming which is annoying ‘cos, for a bit of fun, I sometimes hold the letterbox closed from the inside so he can’t get it through, then release it,…

Towards the end of last year’s biking season, meself and a couple o’ three mates decided to put on a one-nighter (on a Saturday) with a rat show, with trophies, the next day at the White Horse in Tattingstone, near Ipswich (a place well known to the rat lot as it was, for years, the home of the much bigger Rat & Survival). Rather than a proper ‘organised’ event with ‘entertainment’ an’ that, it was more of an old-school pub meet with a late bar, a bonfire, and a few awards, and although not that many made the long journey from wherever they live to the wilds(ish) of Suffolk, enough did that it was a good night – a damn good night in fact. Folk started to turn up around…

Personally, I think if you think your bike is a streetfighter then it probably is, no matter what any faceless internet troll may say – it’s such a catch-all term that almost anything can fall into the definition. I mean, back in my days as ed’ of the magazine of the same name, when it was about fun and hooliganism, and not who has the biggest turbo’, we featured a myriad of different bikes that all fell, in one way or another, under the genre heading: Harleys, 125s, supermotos, trikes, old Brits, Japanese bikes, Italian bikes, pro’ builds and home builds, you name it. In one issue we even ran a Super Dream… a Harris-styled trick-frame Super Dream with upside-down forks and a carbon fibre tail-piece, granted, but a Super…

US ’airy lot, who are, on the whole, a wee bit older than most of the folk in the vintage scene (odd in itself, as you’d expect a vintage scene to be full of vintage people*, wouldn’t you, but it’s us lot who are the crumblies…) can trace our inspiration, pretty much, back to the Sixties and the days of the US bikexploitation films, the primary of which was, of course, Easy Rider. The vintage lot, though, you often find came up through skateboarding and BMX, and the culture that surrounds them, and then into motocross, before getting involved with choppers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying one’s the right way to do things and the other’s wrong (whichever way round you look at it – it’s just interesting, y’know?).…

Lying in bed some days later, recovering from surgery, he realised this was the perfect opportunity to build the chop he’d always wanted out of what was left of the bike (just the engine, the carbs, and the Motogadget speedo really). He’d built XS Yams, including a little bare-bones hardtail, previously, but’d always dreamt of creating what was, in his eyes, a proper chopper so, in a morphine-addled haze, he set to with pencil and paper, and sketched something that was, looking back, not too far removed from the end result. Months later the insurance paid out and, having bought back the salvage, he went to see Russ Brown at Russ Brown Kustoms. They’d been mates for a while, and shared a strong affinity for both tattoos and choppers, and…

The problem with the CBR600 is that it’s sort of a sports-tourer, and not going to be at its happiest zooming along a beach with its Tarmac tyres and semi clip-on ‘bars while it fills its Tupperware up with sand. In the normal course of events this isn’t likely to be a problem, but May (whose Honda it is) decided to take it beach racing – clearly a sensible decision. With that in mind, and a free hand, I had a look at what could be done in the time available, starting by stripping all the plastic off (Fig.2). Unusually for a motorcycle of this type and age, that all went as easily as you could expect it to with no random bodges inflicted over the years to make it…

If you’ve ever wondered how your bike’d look with a different paint scheme, different forks, or a different back end, but you’ve no way of visualising it, then these people may be able to help. CKM Designs is the brainchild of Mark and Cheyenne Keogh (whose GS500 café racer we featured a year or two ago), who are a bit good with all things digital and visual, can offer a digital design service for bikes, and for flyers, logos, catalogues, brochures, websites and more, and their service is quick and reasonably priced. To give you an example of what they can do, here’re a couple of pics they did for me, Nik, of my 45’d look with a springer front end, in both black and in chrome, so as to…

AXXIS STORM SV HELMET The AXXIS Storm SV is an advanced modular flip-front helmet that combines sporty lines with multifunctionality, and has a drop-down sun-visor; quick-release micrometric buckle; chin curtain; multiple air outlets and intakes; an anti-allergenic interior fabric; and’s ready for integrated communication systems (headsets an’ earphones an’ that). Available in the usual sizes, and a huge range of colours, they cost from £139.99 from anywhere that stocks the AXXIS range or www.bickers-online.co.uk OXFORD CARGOS Oxford’s Original Approved Cargos stay true to their military workwear roots whilst receiving a significant fabric upgrade with a monolayer Armourlite twill construction. They feature large box pockets on the upper leg that expand as the pockets are filled, or stay flat when not in use; welt pockets on the rear with poppered flaps;…