Back Street Heroes February 2024

Welcome to this new issue of BSH which, although it says ‘February’ on the cover, is actually the first of the 41st year of the magazine’s history. (If you were wondering why magazines seem to be published a month earlier than their cover dates it is, according to those wot know stuff, to allow them to continue appearing ‘current’ even after they’ve been on sale for some time, since not all o’ them’ll be sold immediately, and, also, to inform the places that sell them when an unsold magazine can be removed and returned to the publisher/wholesaler – the cover date becomes the ‘pull’ date. It’s really only a thing in the US, Canada, and ‘ere – the rest o’ the world, it seems, just puts the proper date on……

For three unforgettable days, Show Bike Aquitaine transforms the town of Vendays-Montalivet into Montalifornia – a name clearly alluding to a French Daytona Beach. The event grows every year thanks to the hard work of the organisers, the Outcasts MC Gironde, and the impeccable behaviour of the participating bikers – initially some sceptical inhabitants, who were still unaware of what bikers’re really like, were against the idea of a massive bike festival. Thankfully, they changed their minds and now support the event, held on Ocean Avenue, which leads to the 13 kilometres of beach, and which’s known for one weekend a year as Main Street, Montalifornia. The ripple effect of this massive event’s not limited to Vendays-Montalivet, where there’re countless commercial premises that proudly display their Support Show Bike Aquitaine…

I say ‘oddly important’ as, at the time of writing, only two states out of America’s 50 allow it – California and, recently, Utah. Yes, there’re plans for it to be legalised in Arizona, Connecticut, Oregon, Washington and Virginia but, for most of the 100 years plus they’ve had mo’cycles in the US of A, the thing we completely take for granted as being a gawd-given right to move between slower-moving traffic’s been something that’ll get you the business end of a Glock 22 pointed at you over there. The other thing about ‘lane-splitter ‘bars’, as such handlebars’re called, that makes life confusing for those of us Brits who don’t want desperately to be Americans, is the fact that we don’t call ’em that – over ’ere, they’re ‘rabbit-ears’ or ‘bunny-ears’,…

The DGR was established to raise funds for men’s mental health and prostate cancer research and support and, on May 21st, 2023, 107 countries participated, ranging from Andorra with just a couple of riders registered, to the United States where 612 riders turned out in New York alone. Bhutan and Curaçao turned out 123 and 136 riders respectively and one, lone rider took to the streets of Ulaanbaatar to show Mongolia’s support for this global phenomenon. The idea is that you register online, or nip to your local Triumph shop, and then badger your friends to give you money for taking part. The route and the destination’re kept under wraps until the day of the ride to prevent non-fundraising interlopers from sneaking in for free butties, and then, on the…

Goldtop Motorcycle Outfitters provided a suitably retro starting point, with the car park surrounded by old farm buildings, and the stall selling raffle tickets to add to the fundraising pot was busy. The organisers delivered their safety briefing, outlining the route and the rules for the ride, and bang on half ten the first engines burst into life, and the assembled throng prepared to set off on the well-thought-out route. The bikes, and sidecar outfits, present were mainly of the cruiser, custom and retro variety, and all the British bike brands were well represented, with Triumph making the strongest showing. A couple of race-reps were present, but the looks of agony, and the shaking of wrists of their pilots at the end of the day, suggested that these were not…

A self-confessed Americana fanatic with a string of custom car builds under his belt, he decided to try his hand at motorcycles, having gained inspiration from the TV series ‘Harley and the Davidsons’. The headstock and forward downtube were borrowed (on a long-term basis) from, get this, a mega-rare 1928 Raleigh 350, with the remaining ironwork handcrafted in his home workshop (cunningly disguised as a garden shed). He’s spent the past forty years working for British Steel, and so knows his onions when it comes to messing about with iron and tin, but that doesn’t mean the build was completely straightforward, oh no. After what seemed like a generation of calculations, whilst constructing the rest of the frame it quickly transpired that something was amiss – not only the engine…