Back Street Heroes January 2025

Looking back, y’know, at 2024, I don’t think it was too bad a year. Over ‘ere in the east, the weather’s not been as warm as I might’ve liked, granted, but it’s been drier for a lot longer than it’s been wet, and we haven’t had anything even remotely close to the flooding that large parts of the country suffered, despite the fact that this part o’ the land’s largely reclaimed from the sea by the use, back in centuries past, of large Dutch dykes (stop it…) so we’re, allegedly, most at risk of flooding. Thankfully, though, not this year. A lot of bike events were struck by the rain, I know, but I still think I was dry way more often than I was wet, and that’s always a…

For this third year it started a day earlier, on Thursday, July 18, with a meet-up at The Old Town Barbers and then, on the Friday, everyone met again at The Albion Rooms at 9am for the pre-ride breakfast before blasting down the coast towards Dover, stopping at a beachside pub in St. Margaret’s Bay before returning to The Albion Rooms for the official preshow party. The main day, you see, is the Saturday at The Hall by the Sea at Dreamland Theme Park where there’re custom bikes, food/drink, vendors, tattooists, music, skateboarding and more. Finally, on the Sunday, for those in no rush to return to reality, there’s a chill day on the beach; a last supper at the best restaurant in town; and watching the sun go down…

Back in the early days of custom building, the only way to get your ’ands on a custom bike was to, for most folk, either build it yersel’ or get a really good mate to help you/build it for you. There were custom shops, of course, who’d do a lot of, or all if you really wanted, the work before you, but just going out and buying a chop, or a custom of any kind, wasn’t anywhere as easy as it is today. I s’pose you could argue that this ’ere magazine, Back Street Heroes, started to change all that back in the ’80s with the Smalls ads where people could advertise their bikes (and themselves, too) to an audience who were looking for something a little out of the…

Pam and I went to it a few years ago on our way somewhere else (and, ‘cos we were in the van on our way somewhere, ended up parking somewhere near Swindon), and it was a really good night – the little village of Cassington, just off the A40 west of Oxford, was completely taken over by bikes, as it has been every year on the last Monday in June since… well, quite a long time ago really. It was started by, apparently, the British Motorcycle Riders Club Oxford nearly 30 years ago, but they handed control to the village in 2012, and they’ve run it ever since. Attendance is now in excess of 10,000 (for a population recorded as 794 in 2021!) and, as you can imagine, that means…

Now, I’m not going to go into what a brachial plexus injury is again ’cos I’ve already talked about it a couple o’ three times but, suffice to say, it usually puts an end to someone’s riding career in no uncertain terms, and it’s all credit to him that not only has he worked out a way to keep doing what he loves best in the world, but has also continued to build custom bikes, one-handed, too. I’ll let him tell you about this bike, his long-term dream Shovelhead Harley, shall I? “For as long as I’ve been into bikes I’ve wanted a Shovelhead. I was lucky enough to go the States a few times when I was younger (my Dad was American), and remember seeing them there, and then,…

Rich, the owner, says: “Growing upincider drinking country, I had the luxury of having an orchard to ride about in. My father, adyed-in-thewool BSA man, plonked me on a motorcycle as soon as he could, a rigid Norman Villiers 2-stroke 125, and I literally rode it until the wheels collapsed. That was in the 1980s and I was aged about eight, and I’ve been riding British motorcycles (and drinking cider) ever since.” As soon as he was old enough he had a succession of British bikes, but that first, the Norman, with its rigid frame, made a lasting impression, and he always fancied something like it for the road. As with most people who mess around with old Brit bikes (and, yes, most of the rest of us, too), he’d…