Innehållsförteckning för March 2025 från Back Street Heroes

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…

Shortly after, as I was standing on the road outside taking the pics for the article in issue 459 (back issues’re available from www.backstreetheroes.com), a very, very long Harley chop with the widest ’bars I’d seen in a while pulled out and set off towards Leighton Buzzard like a scalded cat. That, I thought with a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s, must be Mo ’cos, as they said, you really can’t miss it! I did later briefly speak to him about photographing it for the magazine but, as Cornwall’s a long, long way from the BSH Editorial Hovel in deepest East Anglia, it didn’t really happen. Then, in June last year, I was in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall to do a bit of a southwest photo tour, and…

WORLD OF HILLY There can’t be many out there who haven’t come across the work of Steve ‘Hilly’ Hill, the artist behind World of Hilly – an excellent art and design service concentrating on bikes of all shapes and sizes, offering bike and helmet paintwork and design concepts, bike portraits, cartoons and murals in workshops and showrooms, merchandise, and branding. His work encompasses all styles of bike, from stockers to café racers, streetfighters (a particular favourite), trikes and choppers, and we’ve been very lucky to, as you might’ve seen if you’ve looked at this issue’s centrespread, secure his services to do a portrait of the centrespread bikes from this point on. If you’d like him to do something similar of your pride n’ joy, then give him a call on…

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…

Kernow, as a County, has, over the years, developed a reputation for building, and riding obviously, radical-looking long-fork chops, including Mo’s S&S (see pages 28-32), Jack’s low-headstock Evo, and this bike – Steve’s long, long, long Evo. He’s been a full-patch member for nine-and-a-half years, and Rep for nine of those, and this bike came about cos he wanted to maintain the County’s status, and also push the limits of what could be done while still being capable of doing the miles that Club bikes do. This, I think, he’s achieved – it is, I surmise, the longest long-fork bike in the country*; the forks themselves’re six feet one inch long, and the whole bike a whopping 11 feet 10 inches. The secret to having a bike this long, or…

HE picked up the frame (Jimy, not Jon Bon Jovi), a Blue Frog-manufactured item, from fellow Club member Steve from NCC Kent several years ago, and bought a really badly built Bandit 600 streetfighter from a chap on eBay; “I can’t really explain how bad it looked… I can only tell you that the seller received several messages, which he showed me, saying he should never be allowed to build ever again, which was a bit harsh, I thought – at least he had a go. On the positive side, it’d only done 4,000 miles so was like new.” He built the bike into the chop, using the wheels from a Bandit 12, and the forks and yokes, too, and a Lowbrow Mustang tank, and painted it silver with some…

Japanese switchgear was a massive improvement over the stuff that Lucas and Wipac were churning out before the late ‘60s (Fig.1), but the British stuff did have the advantage of being somewhat less bulky, until you get to the late cast-bodied switches. Then again, it wasn’t all that reliable. Weatherproofing a switch’s always going to make it bulkier, and there’s weatherproofing and there’s weatherproofing. You can tell how weatherproof a switch is from its IP rating: IP ratings range from IP50 (not at all waterproof, might keep dust out… might), through IP64 (dust-tight, will put up with being splashed with water), to IP68 (basically works under water). If what you’re after is all-weather reliability, then it’s probably better to stick to factory switchgear; if you want something a little cleaner…

CIRO TAC-10 LIGHT CANNONS These TAC-10 Light Cannons, with Vision X Lighting technology, feature 10-watt high-intensity LEDs that easily connect to your high beam circuit, or wire directly to key-on power, and’re 4-inchx4-inchx4-inch (10x10x10cm) driving lights that throw impressive light for over 140 metres. They also feature Halo rings that you can use as daytime running lights, all built into the strong and black powder-coated aluminium housings. They’re sold in sets of two, including hardware and Plug-n-Play wiring harness, and you can get them from anywhere that stocks the Zodiac range or www.zodiac.nl HEATRUB MOVE BASE LAYERS These Heatrub Move base layers work by generating heat as you move, but keep it close to you when you’re stationary and, very cleverly, wick it away if you start to get sweaty,…

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…

Back in 2018 Dave from Derbyshire NCC was just beginning his Chopper Club journey, starting prospecting. He’d had, he says, his fair share of custom bikes over the years, and was running at the time a mildly customised Twin Cam, and a Bandit 12 (both bought new), and planned to chop the Bandit to make a Club bike, and keep the Harley as was (he’s since finished the Bandit, but that’s another story). Then, unexpectedly, he came into some money and bought a (“very scary”) VTR1000 chop called ‘Bring Out Your Dead’ which, not long after, he decided was going to be a stopgap until he could find something more suitable. He’d had occasion to borrow a GS1100 (BMW, not Suzuki) from a friend, and’d loved the quirkiness of the…

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 £3.91 instead of £5.40? That’s a saving of (works out on fingers) 28% – nothing to be sniffed at! CHOOSE WHICH BSH SUBSCRIPTION SUITS YOU BEST 1: 12-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION BEST VALUE 12 print issues for £47 Direct Debit 12 print issues for £52 credit/debit card SAVE £18.80 2: SIX-MONTH SUBSCRIPTION 6 print issues for £25 Direct Debit 6…

*<shakes fist> Damn you, Greta Thunberg! Damn you to hell! The original Himi, as the Enfield cognoscenti call it, was a real bare-bones bike with a very simple, very robust little 411cc motor in a duplex cradle frame with serious ground clearance, and long-travel suspension, and able to tackle almost anything (like exploring the Himalayas for example). It had no frills, no bits to break if it fell over, no shiny bits to get tarnished if you didn’t wash it, and it was incredibly cheap at under £4k, and people absolutely loved it. Time and tide wait for no man, though (to quote Geoffrey Chaucer… and King Canute, wringing out his socks), and all these years later Royal Enfield’ve given the old Himi an upgrade, partly to bring it into…

“ARMAMENTS, UNIVERSAL DEBT, AND PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE - THOSE ARE THE THREE PILLARS OF WESTERN PROSPERITY. IF WAR, WASTE, AND MONEYLENDERS WERE ABOLISHED, YOU’D COLLAPSE. AND WHILE YOU PEOPLE ARE OVER-CONSUMING, THE REST OF THE WORLD SINKS MORE AND MORE DEEPLY INTO CHRONIC DISASTER.”ALDOUS HUXLEY When I was 16, I bought E John De Waard’s book ‘Fins and Chrome: American Automobiles of the 1950s’ from a remaindered book seller down by the Vicar Lane entrance to Leeds market. The first thing I did was use it to work out that ‘Greased Lightning’, the automatic, systematic, hydromatic car driven by John Travolta’s character Dany Zuko in Grease, was actually a 100 horsepower 1948 Ford V8 Convertible Deluxe. Next, I looked up the 1955 Ford Thunderbird as driven by Suzanne Somers’ blonde character…