Back Street Heroes December 2024

We’ve had a couple o’ kind o’ angry table-thumping editorials of late, haven’t we, and while I do have an idea for another one, shouty, red-faced Nik really isn’t me, y’know, so let’s have a slightly lighter one this time, shall we? I saw this on a post on social media somewhere and, normally, just ignore these things, but something about it made me actually read it properly and, do you know what, it really spoke to me as a scrote… sorry, sorry, a kid who started riding in the early 1980s, so I thought I’d let you lot see it, too – apologies if you’ve already seen it elsewhere! Remember when Avon Roadrunners were good enough? Remember when it didn’t matter what you rode as long as you rode?…

Fortunately we got news through the network that the party was on for ’24, and registered in January. This gave us plenty of time to prepare the bikes, and sort the spares and tools to take. It’s a risky business riding ‘70s chops abroad sans back-up vehicles, though experience, breakdown recovery, and blind faith can help. Tickets were €85, which included food for the weekend, a token for the first drink, a tee-shirt, a sticker, a boat trip(!), and a guaranteed good time. This pre-Evo party (nothing later than ‘83/84), motto ‘Old Stuff Never Die’, celebrates the passionate French love affair with classic American and British culture, strongly evident in both dress and abundance of Yank vee-twins, but there was a fair sprinkling of customised Brit iron supporting the Anglo-American…

ON the following pages you’ll see the five bikes that won the 2024 BSH custom Champs – the overall winners of the Best Chopper, Best Custom, Best Engineering, Best New Skool, and Best Paint classes. They were picked from something like 1,500 entries throughout the year to both our online and real world rounds, and judged by a panel of expert judges made up of Vic and Lin Jefford of Destiny Cycles, ex-editor Odgie, NCC President Houdi, and Larry Houghton of Lamb Engineering and are, we think, absolutely representative of the British custom bike scene – probably the most diverse custom bike scene in the world. If you went to the Stafford Show last month, you’ll’ve seen them all together on the BSH stand there, and now here they all are,…

Y’see, of the ten winners of the rounds, Jonny Edds of NCC Gloucs’ Hayabusa was the one that caught my eye because, well, you know me, I like scruffy stuff, but it was up against the Destiny Cycles-built H-D that won the Rock & Blues in 2004 (I think), and again twenty years later in 2024, and Foo Oliver’s glorious orange Z750T (which won the July online round), and judges normally pick pretty bikes over scruffy ’uns, no matter how trick, and so when the judges of this year’s competition (Vic n’ Lin Jefford, Odgie, Larry from Lamb Engineering, and NCC Pres’Houdi)almost unanimously plumped for the ’Busa I was pleasantly surprised. Jonny’s bike, known as ‘Eddie’ in memory of his brother Garry Edmonds, who sparked his love of chops, is…

“As part of our restoration business, me and my Dad Allen fancied building a 1970s period custom show bike with no limits. Heading up to the Stafford Show a few years back, we drilled the word ‘potential’ into our heads as we began our search and, not long after arriving, found the perfect bike. There it was at the back of a stall – a ’50s Triumph that’d originally been modified in the ’70s, in ‘as found’ condition, that’d been left out in the elements for the best part of 20 years; just what we were looking for as an authentic base. The plan was to restore and rebuild the bike, loosely based on a 1957 Speed Twin 500, using original period Triumph parts and period accessories where possible, replacing…

Sam’s bike, you see, is just so out there – a real throwback to the days of great British engineering; of double and triple-engined drag bikes; of quiet men working long hours in sheds the length and breadth of the land to turn out quite, quite, crazy motorcycles. It’s a bike that makes you nostalgic for a bygone era; of the heady days of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s when the biking world was a simpler place, years before electronic ignitions, fuel-injection systems, ABS brakes, and the like… “The whole thing started back at race camp during Race the Waves 2023 when, after a few beers in the evening, we were talking about what I was going to do with the three left-over J.A.P 600cc engines I had from building…