Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i Back Street Heroes

For those of you that didn’t buy that issue (and still haven’t subscribed to this wonderful publication, parting with just £47, which is often less than a round of beer with your mates/mate-ettes in this day and age), I wrote that MAG’d set the bar so high with Into The Valley that I doubted they’d better it all year. Well, the Farmyard pounded that idea into the ground, and The Yorkshire Pudding, simply known as ‘Pudding’, added a whole different flavour to the menu. As we all know, events have to cater for bikers of all shapes and sizes, from toddlers to pensioners, which, as an event organiser, is pretty much impossible to do in one event. The Pudding lot have a damn good try, though! For 2024 they served…

“It’s ten or so years since this bike was last in BSH – issue 366. It didn’t look much like the one you see here, though; it was black, long, and very low, turbocharged, and running on methanol. We were just getting ready to ship it over to the US to run it at Bonneville Speed Week, on the famous Salt Flats, sharing a container with a bunch of other teams. So what happened? How’d it go? It didn’t. We hauled our arses over there, got checked into the hotel on the Wednesday before it all started, and that night the heavens opened and dumped ankle-deep water on the salt flats. Oh well, we all thought, we’ll go back in 2015, and be better prepared, etc. Nope, same thing, only…

James, the owner and builder of the bike you see here in front of you, would beg to differ. He’s had lots of bikes over the years, the majority of which’ve had a nod towards performance (look back at issue 447, even his XS650, on the cover, has a purposeful look about it with its three-spokes, USD forks, and rear-sets), and he sees no reason why a custom bike shouldn’t both walk the walk AND talk the talk. He’s a talented welder/fabricator for a living, so is more than capable of, as Cap’n Picard’d say, making it so. Always on the lookout for something that’ll spark his creativeness, he managed to pick up a complete Bandit 1200 for the bargain price of £2,400, which may sound, to a lot of…

There’re plenty of video tutorials out there on the Tube that must be You’d on how to make one, but the thing is that there’re also a lot of Chinese-made chop-saw brackets for your grinder on the Internet for as little as £11, so you have to ask yourself is it worth making one? The answer to that’s a little complicated and, to digress slightly, bears a degree of relevance to the things these monthly ramblings concern. Consider the chop-saw bracket. If you pay £11 for one on eBay, or wherever, you have a chop-saw bracket, and you can bolt your grinder to it, and merrily chop-saw away. If you make one, though, in the first place you don’t have a chop-saw bracket so making square cuts’s likely to be…

MT BRAKER HELMET These new Braker SV Solid lids’re an entry-level full-face that feature quick-release visors, a housing for an intercom, a quick-actuating sun visor, front ventilation, and a funky-looking rear spoiler. They weigh just 1,600 grams, and’re both Fogoff and Pinlock compatible. Available in all the usual sizes, and in matt black and pearl white, they cost just £99.99 from anywhere that stocks the MT Helmets range or www.oxfordproducts.com CABBAGE CUTTER FENDER GRILLS Essential to the look of an old Harley or Harley-style custom, these original chrome ‘cabbage cutter’ fender (that’s ‘mudguard’ to you and me) grills’re intended for 1936-1940 Els, 1941-1957 FLs, and 1955-1957 FLs, but can be made to fit owt if you’re determined enough. Get yours from anywhere that stocks the Zodiac range or www.zodiac.nl SIERRA…

Steven ‘Steve’ Myatt, the guy whose idea this magazine was back in the early 1980s, passed away at the beginning of March, following a diagnosis of terminal heart disease. To say that he had a huge impact on not only British motorcycle publishing, but on the British motorcycle scene in general, is something of an understatement. Along with his business partner Alastair Macfarlane, he started not only Back Street Heroes, but also Streetfighters, Scootering, and a host of spin-off titles, but also published and looked after a host of other more mainstream and classic titles, truly having a foot in every genre of motorcycling. For us scruffy biker types, what he did really did define our lives – everyone back in the day read BSH, and it literally became the…

One of the most relaxed rallies I know rounds off the summer – the Reject Brotherhood’s Drink, Drop & Doss, in deepest Kent. The rally started on the Thursday, and many of the rally faithful’d been through weather of biblical proportions (okay, so probably no locusts or frogs, but hail and floods) but, luckily, the weather turned and, following a couple of good nights of partying, I found most folk soaking up the sun when I arrived on Saturday. Held in gloriously sloping farmland, which just adds to the peaceful nature, the site’s a bit of a suntrap, and has a good choice of food vans, and other traders included the popular axe-throwing, and the Viking stall. There was a small bike show, with several trophies, and while it was…

Alex from NCC Kernow’s grown up around motorcycles, both customs and classics, and around National Chopper Club members, too, and, naturally, he wanted to be a part of it. He was riding around on a (whisper it) mostly stock XS650 that he’d bought as a non-runner a few years previously and sorted out himself, and’d picked up an XS1100 chop as, basically, a rolling chassis with boxes and boxes of parts in September 2020, not long before we went into lockdown. This, he says, worked out in his favour as I got furloughed not long after and, essentially, ended up getting paid to stay in his garage and build his first chop. When he got the bike, the front end and wheels were already fitted to the Eurocustom (there’s a…

The main activity for three days seems to be drinking and looking at great bikes, so no real difference from the UK there then. Usually, though, this’s in brilliant sunshine and 80 degrees F, so that is different, isn’t it? The main, off-rally action, takes place along Beachwall Boulevard, cruising the Gulf coast of the island, and this continues day and night as the beachside road’s full of restaurants, bars and hotels. Many of the bikes, trikes and other tri-wheelers carry a huge number of LED lights, like mobile Christmas trees – very strange, and not much seen this side of the pond, but very striking after dusk. The beachside car parks host the various bike shows and competitions, along with some trade stands and RV (motorhome) camping, and the…

First produced by the original incarnation of Royal Enfield in Redditch in Worcestershire in 1931, it originally had an inclined engine with exposed valve gear, and four valves per cylinder, and came in 350cc and 500cc options (although in 1933, a 250cc option was also offered). It had centre-spring girder forks, a saddle-type fuel tank, a rigid rear end (it was 1931, remember), and a sprung seat, and this gave the Bullet an iconic look that’s still replicated today. The 350s, in particular, proved themselves in competition, and thousands were bought by the British Army for despatch riders with, apparently, 3,000 also supplied to the RAF during the Second World War. Production started over on the Indian sub-continent in 1955, and continued over there when the British parent company closed…

DEAR BSH, Had to put finger to keypad after reading ‘The Council Man Cometh’. Having worked in Social Care all my working life, and now the Council for the last six years, I found the story instantly relatable. I’ve never subscribed to dressing up for work, preferring my everyday look (jeans/combats, biker tee, sturdy boots, and either my biker jacket or unpatched cut-off. The suit only came out for meetings. I can also relate to the point that most people related to me better because I seemed to be just like them, especially when working in mental health services, carrying out assessments of people in really dire situations. Working with the elderly has been really advantageous as it’s the generation that grew up with motorcycles playing a big part in…

This’s a lovely, old-school rally with a chilled and friendly atmosphere. There’s a large camping field with lots of parking space for both campers and day visitors; a variety of stalls, including popular artist Tracey Dykes exhibiting her magnificent artworks (you can find her at #traceydykesartist); support stands selling the usual assortments; a handy camp shop and several clothes stalls; a good selection of food vendors offering a variety of options at reasonable prices; and, for those seeking to test their skill amid great entertainment, there was Wild Dakota Jack’s Famous Shooting Gallery (as detailed in the Warlocks article a few issues ago). The weekend’s music was supplied by a brilliant line-up of bands, plus very much-loved singer Jenny Joy, who absolutely owned the stage as she does every time…

The bike you see here is one he built for his mate Mick back in 2014 when, having bought a Bandit 1200 and a (then) Hard Up Choppers (now Gasoline Ally Speedshop) Wormburner frame and exhaust headers, he asked if he could build him “something mean-looking”. Roy agreed, and set to, stripping the Bandit of its engine and its associated ’lectrics, the front end pretty much complete, and the rear wheel n’ brakes n’ stuff, and giving back the rest to be sold to help finance the project. Mick wanted a Sportster tank, for the look, and a little bit of comfort in the seat, hence the short springs underneath, and he also wanted a headlight fairing of some sort as all proper hardtail streetfighters had a fairing, didn’t they?…

I’ve had a few conversations this year with folk who’ve been rallying for over 30 years, and they always seem to be along the lines of the above. It seems (some) people miss trad’ rallies where you just turned on your bike, put up your tent, and got drunk. Well, I’m pleased to tell you I think I may have found exactly that in the BMF’s Lucky Cup Rally – it’s literally the bare bones required, and nothing else. It’s set up in two parts: the camping field, and the main site which hosts a (the!) bar, a courtyard with tables, and an open-fronted barn for live music. As Cumbria’d had an unreasonable amount of rain in the previous week (and more was forecast), the camping field was full of…

HE has, you see, always loved the shape of the CFL (Choppers For Life) frame, first produced in 1997 by Jesse James, with its distinctive shape, and HE the Frisco-style high filler neck tanks and simple chopper lines, but as anyone who knows their stuff’ll be aware, WCC kit’s rare, dear, and no longer available – you used to be able to buy a CFL frame kit, but no longer. Because o’ this, he’s built many replicas, but never the real thing so getting one, a real one, was, as you’d imagine, a big deal. Then, one day, someone who knew of his… I don’t know if ‘obsession’ is quite the right word but it’ll have to do, sent him a link for one, for sale, at a very good…

We’ll start with TFB first, shall we? I’m writing this midway through March and it, as far as I know, is still in a million (well, nearly) bits across Paradise Garage Motorcycles’ workshop. The barrels’d had to be sent away for boreing, and the head needed rebuilding as it was about as gas-tight as my sphincter, and I’d also complicated things by asking Shaun to put the correct carbs on it as well. I know, I know, I don’t want much, do I? The correct carbs for an engine? Some people just want everything don’t they? It has, y’see, been running the wrong ones for years; it’s an 1100N motor (I think), and so should have 40mm carbs, but for the first few years it was running the set of…

“THE WORLD IS A DANGEROUS PLACE TO LIVE; NOT BECAUSE OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE EVIL, BUT BECAUSE OF THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.”ALBERT EINSTEIN Put Saturday, July 5 in your diary – if you’re not in touch with your nearest MAG local group, start getting yourself along to their meetings (and join MAG) without delay. July 5 is Riders’ Resistance Day. We’re taking on the Government head-on over its plan to ban the registration of new private internal combustion engine-powered vehicles (ICEVs) from 2030, and we need to put tens of thousands of us on the streets. This isn’t going to be one big demo in London, like the Trafalgar Square Riders’ Rights Days of the 1990s – no, instead, Riders’ Resistance Day’ll take the form…