Back Street Heroes March 2025

AS you can see from the cover, this issue’s another celebrating the biggest custom bike building club in the UK – the National Chopper Club, with six bikes from around the land, and six of their events, too. Over the years BSH’s run many, many bikes built by the Club, and lots of coverage of their events, too, going right back to issue 1 of the magazine way back in 1983, and there’s a very good reason for this – they’re about custom bikes primarily, and so are we. It’s not a favouritism thing or a political thing – it’s a custom bike thing, simple as that. We try not to do ‘politics’ here or be more in favour of one group of people over another cos that’s not really…

AS always, this much-anticipated event drew chopper folk from across the south-west of the country, showcasing a spectacular array of custom motorcycles, live music, and a vibrant community spirit. That said, the weather, which’s normally scorching hot at this event, was forecast to be torrential rain, and this affected the numbers, putting a lot of people off. Forecasting isn’t an exact science though, and the reality was that, by 11am, the rain’d gone, and the sun made its appearance and stayed ‘til the end of the day. Thankfully, as soon as it did, the numbers of bikes turning up increased dramatically, too. Held at Cheddar Valley Rugby Club just outside the town, the heart of the show lies in its display of meticulously crafted custom choppers. This year the showground…

You may remember his Hickley Triumph triple chop that was featured in issue 477 (back issues’re available from www.backstreetheroes.com), or you may’ve seen any of his 1,000-plus videos on YouTube? The Triumph is his distance-doing Club bike, and this one you see ’ere is his life-long love affair – a 1980 80-cube Shovelhead chop he built back in the ’90s, and which was featured in issue 145 back in 1998. At the time he was one half of Boss Hog Customs in Leicester, one of the most respected shops in the land, and’d been involved in a large number of award-winning bikes. He’d had various bikes of his own over the years, but then’d finally got his hands on the one he really wanted – said Shovel. Well, I say…

Y’see, last August Transport for London, TfL, extended the ULEZ (Ultra-Low Emission Zone) from just central London, as it’d been since its inception, right out to encompass almost everywhere inside the M25 and that, obviously, included the Ace. At 2023’s event, meself and Mark Wilsmore, le grande fromage of the world’s most famous biker cafe, had a quick walk around the car park and agreed that, out of however many custom bikes were there, perhaps four of them would be ULEZ-compliantwhenthe dreaded pollution tax was brought in, and we both opined (great word that… not entirely sure what it means, but it sounds right, doesn’t it?) that, because of this, it’d be quite a surprise if the Club held it here the following year. They, though, decided they’d give it…

IN this country the likes of the legendary Chris Ireland, of the sadly long-defunct Desperate Dan’s, is probably best known for his V8 trikes; the late Ian Kilner, of Revolution Motorcycles, for his monoshock FJ Yams; Steve Taylor of Taylormade Wheels for his monster V-Maxes; and Simon Harris of Attitude Cycles for this fat-wheel Harley – yes, they’ve built other styles of bike, too, but it’s these they’re best known for. Dan Payne, of Dan Death’s Custom Cycles, isn’t perhaps as well known, outside of Chopper Club circles anyway, as some of the aforementioned, but he has a style all of his own when it comes to building choppers. His bikes are, in the main, powered by the latest and fastest four-cylinder Japanese engines, and they stick to the ideals of…

And it couldn’t’ve been any different from the previous day ‘cos, well, basically, it wasn’t persisting it down with rain mainly. I don’t know which one o’ the weather gods it was who London’d upset (I blame that Philip Avery – he looks the vengeful sort), but Beds’d obviously sacrificed at least one packet of chocolate Hobnobs ‘cos it was a luvverly day all day. The field at the back of the White Horse is where the show’s held, and it’s a laid-back affair with a few tables, very passable background music by the Club, and, of course, a goodly smattering of custom bikes. Okay, so a few o’ them’d been at the Ace the day before, but most hadn’t (probably due to their owners not having gills), and it…