Back Street Heroes October 2023

Last year we were sweltering in the heat of a long, hot, baking summer – this year… mmm, not so much. Yeah, there have been some good days, I know, but July, traditionally one of the busiest months on the biker calendar, was one of the wettest on record, and a large part of August’s been a bit meh, too, hasn’t it? All these scientists talking about global warming… I feel slightly cheated. Let’s hope September makes up for it! I was over at a mate’s bike shop a few weeks ago (okay, so actually it was a few months, but I keep forgetting to write this bit), and while chatting, drinking tea, and generally stopping him from doing any paid work (yeah, sorry about that), I watched a succession…

Mine and my mate Stu’s journey to the South-West Chopper Fest was one such epic. Seeing as we both run elderly and uncomfortable motorcycles, we planned to take them both in the van down to a place about an hour north of the site, unload them, and ride down – the South-West, y’see, is some six-plus hours each way from me, and a good three-an’-a-bit from him, and the thought, for me, of a twelve-plus hour round trip on an 80-year-old motorcycle that only does 50 just doesn’t bear thinking about. All went swimmingly until, just after unloading and packing up the bikes, we set off from the village of Priddy down Cheddar Gorge. I’d not long picked up the 45 from Alex and Nat, and Nick, from Dragon Soul…

Sorry, what on earth, you may be wondering, has this to do with the two rather fine HUC Wormburner framed Suzukis you see here? Well, as those of you familiar with the Rat’s escapades’ll know, the books were written by a gentleman by the name of Harry Harrison, while these two bikes, in a somewhat unlikely turn of events, were built in the workshops of Cruach Customs in Kildare in Ireland, owned and run by a gentleman called, yes, you guessed it, Harry Harrison. Coincidence, huh? Both of these bikes’re based around Hard-Up Choppers (now owned and run by Gasoline Ally Speed Shop) Wormburner frames, designed specifically for the oil-cooled Suzuki engines, Slabside and Slingshot GSX-Rs, and Bandits, and both run MK1 Bandit motors – the black ’un belongs…

The Bike Shed Show is probably Britain’s biggest custom bike event these days with in excess of 200 custom bikes (no stockers allowed!), and the best part of 20,000 visitors over the two-an’-a-half days it’s held over. It’s a huge, sprawling, diverse affair held over two floors, and it’s an absolute spectacle, it really is. Us BSH lot’ve been going now for… let’s see, this is our fifth year, and it’s one of our favourite events. We have a stand with two bikes, BSH merchandise, and boxes and boxes of magazines. This year, as with last, we scored the new bike from Destiny Cycles to grace the stand (and Vic and Lin, too, of course), and also Mutley’s dead ‘ard old-school Gixer streetfighter, and herein lies a tale; at…

Richard Clift, the owner, is a landscape gardener by trade, and says: “My engineering skills’re limited, having only a large hammer and a bent stick in my toolbox.” I think he’s kidding us, but I’m not entirely sure… The bike, a 650cc 1965 TR6 single-carb Triumph, was purchased back in 2019 from Recycle, the Staffordshire British bike importer, as a ‘spares or repair’ bike, but he instantly fell in love with the lived-a-hard-life, sorry state it was in (at some point it’d been on fire, and still to this day retains its melted clutch cable). He got it fired up (he’s an old hand at dealing with British bikes, and has several others in the garage alongside this… well, I say ‘alongside’, but what I actually mean is ‘a suitable…

Y’see, when Simon from Mint originally built it, for himself, he had a very definite idea that it was going to be purple. No ifs, no buts, purple. He spoke to his painter of choice, Bully (or Michael, as his mum calls him), and told him: “Purple… but, apart from that, do what you like.” Bully nodded, took the tank away, and immediately painted it black with blue ghost flames. And do you know what? Si was delighted – “He’s done a killer flame job,” he says. Originally started, as I said, as a project for himself, the bike, based around a 1200 Sporty motor, was intended to be as low as possible (it was originally nicknamed Limbo) as he wanted a low bike with a punchy motor and decent…