Innehållsförteckning för November 2023 från Back Street Heroes

SO THAT’S IT – THE 2023 BSH CUSTOM CHAMPIONSHIPS, PROBABLY THE BIGGEST CUSTOM SHOW IN THE WORLD, IS DONE! For 2023, there were seven rounds (three online, and four real-world), and the real-world ones were; THE SCOTTISH MOTORCYCLE SHOW THE NCC LONDON DIAMOND DAY AT THE ACE CAFÉ, LONDON THE ROCK & BLUES, DERBYSHIRE NE MAG’S STORMIN’ THE CASTLE, WITTON-LE-WEAR, COUNTY DURHAM The online rounds were: JUNE/JULY/AUGUST The winners of each round received a rather cool trophy, and all went on to be judged by an expert panel of people who really know what they’re looking at, and those five winners overall will be on display at our new Back Street Heroes Custom World display at the vaunted Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show, organised by our parent company Mortons Media, at…

“IT was a spindly lightweight with girder forks and a side-valve JAP engine,” recalls Luc. “The petrol tank was painted dark blue, with Le Sepey in a rather ornate script on each side. I used to thrash that bike up the passes, and to win the Swiss Hillclimb Championship… in my dreams!” With a dodgy magneto and worn-out engine, he never managed to get his barn find to run, but it didn’t matter – he’d been bitten by the motorcycle bug and, by the time he was 21, had amassed a collection of eight British bikes, including a Bonneville. A year later he bought a 250cc Desmo Ducati, strapped a rucksack to the back, and rode to the French port of Le Havre. “I hadn’t made my mind up where I…

AXXIS HUNTER SV This dual-sport modular helmet can be used with its removable chin-piece, or visor, fitted or removed. There’s an easy-to-use internal sun shield; a quick-release micrometric buckle on the strap; a chin curtain to keep out draughts; large top and lower vents to help keep the rider cool in hot riding conditions; a moisture-wicking/anti-bacterial/anti-allergenic fabric liner; and is prepared for the integration of communication systems. Available in a range of colours, and all the usual sizes, it costs £109.99 from anywhere that stocks the Axxis range or www.bickers-online.co.uk BIKERS PARADISE DOUGLAS WAX JACKET This new waxed cotton jacket from Bikers Paradise is fully lined in 100% genuine DuPont Kevlar, and has a smart 100% soft cotton lining; takes optional fully adjustable CE armour; has a YKK main zip…

DEAR BSH, I’m in my mid 60s, and I’ve been riding bikes since I was 16. I’ve loved all versions of the mag, so thanks. I’ve never been interested in MAG membership, and the article by Neil F. Liversidge in last month’s issue was exactly the reason why. What a pile of old tosh! I hope he felt better getting all that pent-up ‘infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy’ emotion out, although I doubt if anyone reading it’ll’ve felt better. Bikers’re always viewed as right-wing, borderline extremists, and there’s good old Neil, riding his bike, naked, waving his MAG flag like a UK Proud Boy, screaming at the tide to stop coming to shore. In six years’ time every motorbike’ll be forced off the road. Every police force in…

This XS650 may look familiar to long-term readers of the magazine because it was given away in issues 31 and 32, back in 1988. It may also be familiar to those who watch Henry Cole’s ‘Shed & Buried’ television series on Quest as it appeared in an episode of the series earlier this year when it was found in the care of a gentleman by the name of Taff, bought by Henry, got going again by the famous Allen Millyard, and then, apparently, sold to the guy who’d won it originally all those years ago back in 1988. The programme was aired back in June, and a couple of months later we were approached by the current owner, Roy, who wanted to know if we wanted to, or knew anyone…

Platinum, the bike you see here, was built to celebrate Destiny’s twenty years of being in business, and should really’ve debuted in 2021, but Covid and the lockdown put paid to that. It did, however, prove to be an advantage in the long run as, due to being unable to progress with customer work due to a lack of availability of parts and services, it gave Vic more time to further develop and hone his engineering skills. Having seen Destiny bikes in the past, you may be wondering how much more honing/developing they needed but, as the old maxim says, you’re never too old to stop learning. He also, having spent a good while deciding whether or not to buy a new lathe and a new milling machine to replace…

Both Mikey and Jamie-Lee, husband and wife, are both resident artists at the respected Rising Phoenix Tattoo studio in Leighton Buzzard in Beds, and they’ve been part of the chopper scene for a while now. Both’ve had other chops previous to these, and Mikey’s working on an Iron head at the moment too, but these are the bikes they had, and still have, when the late, lamented Garry Stuart, sadly missed ace lensman of this parish, met them at The Trip Out a couple o’ years back. We’ll look at Mikey’s bike first for no other reason than his was the first set of spec’ sheets I transcribed. Originally it came from his good friend @fxrsole (they do have funny names these Instagram types, don’t they, what’s wrong with Kevin…

This is a book Barry Hines, author of ‘Kes’, might’ve written if he’d been a biker, and hadn’t been to grammar achool. I first met Daz Jackson at Squire’s coffee bar in 1985 when he was President of the York Wildcats Rock ‘n’ Roll Motorcycle Club, a retro-rocker riding a Yam 2-stroke. Some of the guys with Daz’d been his friends since early childhood and, once I got to know him, I understood why – this is the unedited, unvarnished truth about what it was like to grow up a poor kid in Yorkshire in the 1960s and 1970s, getting hidings from a brutal father, canings from teachers, kickings from the local bullies, and laughing about all of it. Amongst his many escapades, in-between dodging the local mods and skinheads,…

Need to agree, or even disagree, with something you’ve seen in the mag? Heard a bloody awful joke you think we should groan at? Email nik@backstreetheroes.com or send it snailmail to the address somewhere in the mag! DEAR BSH, I was on my chop the other day, approaching the entrance to our estate, going home. There were three cars coming the other way, all tailgating each other, and all decided to overtake a parked car on the other side of the road. The first one could clearly see me coming, but did the overtake anyway, leaving me barely enough room to get through, and the second did the same, but the third came at me head on, way too far over to my side of the road. It would’ve been…

AT 14 I was reading the magazine New Motorcycling Monthly… well, I say reading, but it was more looking at the pictures of choppers (I still have them in my garage library). In those pre-BSH days I’d buy NMM or Bike or Superbike or anything else that had choppers in – my Gran even cut out and gave me an article from TV Times featuring the Sixties’ pop star Lulu on a Triumph chop. At 16 I graduated to Easyriders which, with its talk of Pans, Knuckles and Shovels, was like deciphering a foreign language. At 18 in 1981 I bought a Suzuki GS250T and, after reading an article I Superbike by Steve Myatt, went to see Gary Sylvester at Custom Engineering Ltd. in Leeds. It was a ride that…

Eee, hasn’t the world changed, eh? When I first started drinking (semi) legally, a beer (Younger’s Tartan bitter if you remember it) cost 79p in the local biker pub, and BSH was, I think, 95p. These days both a beer (well, round my way anyway) and a BSH cost a fiver each, but what would you say if we could do you a special deal, and do you a BSH at just £3.83 instead of £5? That’s a saving of (works out on fingers) 23% – nothing to be sniffed at! CHOOSE WHICH BSH SUBSCRIPTION SUITS YOU BEST 1: 12-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION BEST VALUE 12 print issues for £46 Direct Debit 12 print issues for £50 credit/debit card SAVE £14.00 2: SIX-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION 6 print issues for £24 Direct Debit 6…

VOL. VI, EPISODE X I’ve said in the past that 99% of building custom motorcycles is making brackets for things, and this has been no exception. Mounting the coils in the space under the seat wasn’t impossible, but it would’ve been tricky, and not a little fiddly, so I decided to mount them under the tank (Fig.1), with the idea of making some sort of box to house them in. The problem with boxes is you really need to be able to cut sheet metal with a reasonable degree of accuracy, as well as bend it accurately. On top of which, coils can generate a fair amount of heat so it’d really need a box with some provision for airflow beyond a badly-fitting lid. Shiny’d be a bonus, too, and…

Artemis MCC are a group of women bikers who really enjoy the structure, organisation, and sisterhood offered by the MCC world. Although still relatively early in their club life, they have a traditional approach that’s led to respect from many of the other clubs already out there, and membership’s rapidly growing as there’s a keen interest in clubs that follow this traditional sanctioned model. Love, honour and respect are key to membership, and every member of the club knows they’ve worked hard to be a part of the club. Club members come from all walks of life – from education, nursing, engineering, hospitality, security, and many more fantastic careers, and they’re all professional and well-educated lady riders who enjoy good conversation, a good beer, and a good laugh, as well…

This year’s Stafford Show, formally known as the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show, at the Staffordshire County Showground, will differ from previous years due to the presence of… well, us lot really. The bikes that’ve won the top awards in this year’s BSH Custom Championship, along with a few choice others, will be on display in a BSH hall, and we’ll have new merchandise, including new limited-edition 40th year tees and hoodies, new magazines and stuff. There’ll be a presentation of the awards on the Sunday, and you’ll get to see the winning bikes in all their glory. Elsewhere, there’ll be the usual massive autojumble; masses of stands selling everything from bike parts to bike gear; stunt shows; great food stands; coffee sellers and bars; personal appearances by famous racers and…

Gibby’s Lives GIBBY SENDS IN SO MANY COOL PICS WE’RE STRUGGLING TO GET THROUGH ‘EM, SO HERE’S FIVE AT ONCE) READER’S Tatts…