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Contents

Issue Twenty Six 42: PUMPING GAS

S&S’ VFI Fuel Injection system is a complete replacement solution more than a piggy-back fueller: more complicated in its installetion, but massively more flexible in its operation.

48: ROARING FORTIES BOBBER

Big Steve’s demobbed Model-U is still stomping round East Anglia sixty-six years after it arrived ... and a lot further afield too as a trophy from Oswestry 2007 testifies.

You remember those “shoot your ol’ lady” competitions in the quality bike press when you were a lad? Well, this is nothing like that. We’re going to be running this for the next six issues, with prizes for the top three photos each issue, and a bigger prize, independently judged, at the end. Get creative with your digital camera.

58: KRAZY HORSE’S 11+

After the runaway success of the tenth anniversary party, the Krazy Horse Krew took over Bury St Edmunds, storming Angel Hill for a second year with a collection of hot rods and Harleys.

62: 2008 VRSCAW V-ROD

What, again? Yeah, but no ... but yeah, and anyway it’s different, see: it’s got a bigger motor an’ everything? Don’t you know nuffink?

74: GRIFF’S SHOVEL

Fifteen years worth of evolution for a classy Shovelhead which demonstrates that customs don’t need to start with a rigid frame and end with a Softail.

4: NEWS & NEW PRODUCTS 11: REVIEWS

Draggin’ Jeans Combat Trousers, Vemar Jiano system helmet, “McQueens Machines”, Oxford Maximiser 360T, Venhill Vacuum Pump, Choppahead Vol 2 DVD and a couple of calendars ... blimey!

16: 2007 VICTORY VEGAS 8-BALL

Blacker than a black cat in a coal mine during a blackout: 100 cubic inches, five gears, and all the power and presence of a proper American motorcycle ... and all for less than £8,500

24: ALL AMERICAN CAFÉ RACER

We’ve been chopping and bobbing Brit bikes in the American tradition for generations, it’s about time we really got our teeth into creating café racers from American iron ... sorry, aluminium.

31: BIKETOBERFEST

The perfect antidote to the winter blues, and a sure-fire way to enjoy Daytona without falling foul of post Christmas poverty.

Cooler, quieter but no less of an experience.

36: BEACHFIGHTER

Nothing to do with Churchill (no, not the insurance dog: the other one), but a stretched out and lightened Sportster in the classic British roadster style ... with beach bars.

Editor: andy.hornsby@american-v.co.uk Features Editor: rich.king@american-v.co.uk

Trade Sales: Natalie Cole: 01778 392404 nataliec@warnersgroup.co.uk

Subscriptions: 01778 392484 Contributors this issue: Ian Mutch, Bosun, Nitro, Swedish Bob, Annual Subscriptions UK: £24.75 Chris Gillyard EU: £36.75 RoW Zone 1: £38.55 Proofing: RoW Zone 2: £42.75 Amanda Wright (all include postage) (At last! Someone to blame!)

Design: design@american-v.co.uk All editorial enquiries to: editorial@american-v.co.uk Advertising Manager: Emma Howl EmmaHowl@warnersgroup.co.uk 01778 392443 Advertising Sales: Andy Fraser 01778 392054 Advertising Production: Joanne Osborn: 01778 391164 joanneo@warnersgroup.co.uk

American-V, PO Box 336, Crewe, Cheshire, CW2 7WY. Tel: 0207 993 8002 Printed in the UK by Warners (Midlands) PLC, Bourne.

Distribution by: Warners Group Publications Plc West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire, PE10 9PH Tel: 01778 391135 Now in its second year in the newsagents, its fourth year on paper, and its sixth year of continuous publication since launching on the Internet, American-V sets out to be the magazine that its founders actually want to work on ... and mostly succeeds. The full archive will remain on-line at www. american-v.co.uk and might even be brought up to date one day. Don’t hold your breath though.

E&OE

Copyright 2007 American-V.

78: BRIGHTONA

A great day out on the South Coast, and all in a good cause.

82: THE GREAT BRITISH BUDGET BOBBER BUILD-OFF Thundercity Motorcycles and Boneshaker Choppers go head to head to build a sub £5k Bobber: in other words a proper custom bike for less than the price of a new XL883.

86: BIGTWIN BIKESHOW AND EXPO

Or Rosmalen to you and me. Going Dutch with Zodiac and catching a glimpse of the size of the European custom bike market.

92: GUILTY AS CHARGED

Errant behaviour from the Florida shop with their hardtail, soft-ass chop.

94: INTERNATIONAL BIKE SHOW AT THE NEC First UK outing for the Rocker Tails and the 1125R Buell, as well as the rest of Harley’s 2008 range- like the Fat Bob, Nightster and XR1200 ... meanwhile, over in another corner of the halls, Victory are really making an impression, especially the Vision.

98: RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS

The Brothers face a winter of discontent, but at least their ‘ogs are tucked up nice and safe ...

www.american-v.co.uk

54: PHOTO COMPETITION

American-V American-V # ONE

News & Products GET LICENSED NOW

AVON TYRES

There’s a brand new tyre from Avon that’s set to make a big impression on the world of custom bikes, and for a change it’s not just something fatter … although they do come in a good range of sizes up to 300 wide and including their new 280/40x20.

It’s not so much a new tyre as a replacement for the Venom R, which has been around for a while now, and had a broad range of role within Avon’s product line. Whatever replaced it had to match the handling, durability and aesthetics of the Venom and bring something else to the party, in order to remain competitive in an aggressive market. They have done, by effectively marrying the Venom with the technology and manufacturing techniques of the sportier Viper.

There’s a shedload of acronyms that means something to a marketing department somewhere but cutting to the chase, they’ve created a sportier profile for a more nimble handling characteristic without compromising stability and called it a WCTA or Wide Custom Tread Arc, and they’ve used the variable belt technology introduced on the Azaro whereby the tyre is soft and grippy at the edge, but harder and longer lasting when upright – which preserves the shape of the profile’s and makes the tyre last longer. They call that one A-VBD. The tread pattern has changed to reinforce the update, but also to accommodate another advance that they call Force Following Grooves, or FFG, which changes the way that forces are transferred through the tyre, and are said to significantly reduce irregular and advanced wear on heavyweights.

You’ll spot them easily enough: they still have the family feel of the Venom about them but have a textured side that they refer to as Snakeskin.

They don’t cover the Harley/Victory market especially well on the front tyres: there isn’t an MH90

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style front yet, the nearest being the 120/70x21 that needs a wider rim, but they do cater for the V-Rod. Likewise the rear, where two rear fitments cover the old and new VR rear wheel options, and the recently changed 200/55x18 Softail, but there’s nothing yet for the new generation Dyna models’ seventeen inch rears, all current and previous 19-inch fronts or traditional 16-inch front or rear will have to stick with the Venoms until the Cobra range fills out … assuming it does.

The range?

AV71 Cobra Front 150/80R16 VN2000 and closest thing to a 16” Harley front, but 20mm wider 150/80R17 Valkyrie 130/70R18 GL1800 Wing 120/70ZR1 V-Rod 120/70-21 custom size 130/60R23 custom size AV72 Cobra 180/60R16 180/70R16 200/60R16 240/50VR16 200/55R17

Rear Goldwing Valkyrie VN2000 Rocket III 2006-on Harley FX Softail and Fat Boy 180/55ZR18 pre-2007 V-Rod 200/55R18 Custom size 240/40VR18 2007-on VRCSCAW, VRSCDX and VRSCX V-Rod 250/40VR18 Custom size 300/35VR18 Custom size 220/50R20 Custom size 280/40VR20 Custom size www.avonmotorcycle.com

Stop putting it off, and make sure anyone you know who is likely to be looking at getting a motorcycle is aware of the changes to the motorcycle test coming in next September.

It’s not that we want to get people through an easier test, but it will certainly be less expensive to take a test before the Second European Driving Licence Directive come into force next year, and there is likely to be a last minute blind panic as that deadline looms.

And a word of warning for those who are thinking of taking a late test in full expectation of passing it: don’t! If you fail for whatever reason, you will struggle to get a retest through in time, and suggestions from the DSA are that you will not be able to get a retest under the old regime if the new one has kicked it.

It is anticipated that there will also be something of a backlog when the new test comes in as the number of test centres will be reducing down from 260 to about 60 purpose-built facilities, and there are suggestions that only twenty will come on-line at the point of the switchover, using the seasonal slowdown as a buffer to give them time to bring the other two thirds on by spring/summer 2009.

Even if there isn’t a backlog, the smaller number of test centres will be spread further afield, and you could end up having to travel further than you’d expect.

The current CBT and Direct Access courses will be affected so talk to your local training people NOW, or contact Harley-Davidson’s Rider’s Edge in mid-Wales and get it sorted.

Rider’s Edge, Welsh National Showground, Builth Wells.

0870 411 3541

EDITORIAL

PAN SHOVEL …

WITH A DIFFERENCE

If you read last months release news about the new P-Series Pan-style motor, you’ll possibly recall we mentioned you could swap the top end of your SH-Series Shovel-style motor without too much drama, and Lo! Thing is, this retro conversion kit isn’t specifically designed for the SH- motor, but any original 1966-84 stock and 3 5/8” motors.

Promising increased performance, and a reduction in valve train noise, the kit includes S&S hydraulic tappets complete with their polished billet tappet guides, Quickee pushrods and forged roller rockers designed specifically for the new P-Series heads. About the only thing it doesn’t include are Panhead rocker covers, but they’re available: they’ve left it to your discretion as to which covers you might want to use, to match the rest of your motor.

You can take it further if you want more performance, and S&S have a range of cams to suit, which gives me the opportunity to pass on the news that the revised rocker arms have a revised gearing ratio so a .640 lift cam will actually work as a .590.

S&S Cycle Inc, www.sscycle.com

WATER OFF A DUCK’S BACK There’s something surreal about water b eading on a kitchen towel, but that’s precisely what happens when it has been sprayed with S100’s Textile Proofer, otherwise known as Sdoc100. It would be enough to drive Brenda and Audrey from the Bounty adverts mad … okay, madder.

S100’s German scientists formulated it specifically to give motorcycle clothing and equipment an extra layer of protection with a fully waterproof coating, and if you’re an all-year rider you’ll know just how useful that will be – regardless of what you’re wearing. Applications include jackets, trousers, boots, gloves – where it retains the breathability of any waterproof membranes – as well as rucksacks and panniers.

All that for £10.80 including VAT from Motohaus Motohaus: 01256 704909

Purely in the interests of putting together a balanced report, I was obliged to attend the Zodiac dealer party at Rosmalen, as featured elsewhere this issue, which gave me the opportunity make a complete fool of myself in a way that I haven’t done since … oh, probably April at Custom Chrome’s bash in Bad Kreuznach. It was a deliberate policy: it allowed me to give the local brew a thorough taste test, and to prevent me from being able to remember anything incriminating about anyone’s actions … including my own. It’s good to let your hair down once in a while, but the valuable lesson I learned is not to do so when you’re in a hotel a mile from the centre of an unfamiliar foreign town, long after the last bus has gone, and where the cost of taxis is on a par with the flight from England.

I reckon, judging by the time stamp on my home answer-phone’s drunken ramblings, that I left those who’d returned to hotels in Den Bosch at about 1:30am, and managed to complete the quoted twenty-five minute walk to the hotel to the south east of the centre by 4:30 which wasn’t especially clever, and which only tells part of the story: at quarter past four I realised I’d made a terrible mistake, finding a map on the side of a bus-stop, and had turned right instead of left at the town’s ring road about two hours earlier, and was now due west of the town that I should have been south east of. Thankfully, I managed to flag down a passing car whose occupants were more than happy to drop me at my hotel in exchange for my last Euros – which was still probably less than the Taxi from town would have cost anyway, but the lateness of the hour and irregular Sunday public transport did scupper my chance of returning to the show on the Sunday for a last wander round.

In reality, I couldn’t hold my camera steady, my legs were walked-out, and the alcohol was still coursing through my blood.

That might sound like I have a drink problem – it’s an acknowledged curse of journalists generally, and results in the job getting a poor ranking for motor insurance – but actually the only problem I have with drink is that I don’t drink regularly enough any more to have any significant capacity for it, and consequently when I push the boat out these days, I tend to lose my footing and fall in after it. This is my safety mechanism, and it is very unlikely that I’ll get into such a mess again for at least another six months (maybe four, if I make it to Bad Kreuznach again), and I even felt a little iffy wandering round the duty-free at Schiphol, leaving empty-handed and thick headed.

So you might think I’d have been quite sympathetic the following day when the chairman of the Nuffield Council of Bioethics was wheeled out to call for a way to re-educate the British about alcohol but I was incensed. Having just returned from one of the most liberal countries in Europe, where attitudes are much more relaxed and alcohol is both more readily available and cheaper, the suggestion that raising taxes and reducing availability would prevent a rise in alcohol related illnesses is laughable, so I thought I’d better check the facts … and having done so, I thought I’d share them with you.

Source?

The Eurostat Yearbook 2006, which is held up as authoritative by governments across Europe.

To save time I’ll just use the figures from a few countries: if you need more, the full report (which covers many aspects of life and aspiration) is readily available on-line (and makes fascinating/terrifying reading). This is perhaps the most stupid table you’ll find in a motorcycle magazine, but it’s the easiest way to express it.

GB

D

F**

Causes of death: Chronic Liver Disease: 11.0 4.4 (per 100,000) Alcohol Abuse: 1.4 1.0 Drug dependency:*** 1.7 0.1

15.5 4.9 0.8

12.6 12.9 4.9 2.8 0.2 0.8

14.3 2.8 0.7

Comparitive price index of alcohol (%)+

88

87

100

150

NL

98

EU15* EU25*

n/a

*EU15 and EU25 are the averages of the original fifteen nations before and the twenty-five after expansion, and are figures dated 2001, **Figures from France are from 2003. *** just thrown in as a matter of interest + Figures from 2003, relative to the average cost in the EU25, which is used as a benchmark

And the point? That we haven’t got a problem that will be solved by increasing prices or reducing availability, but by changing attitudes. And recognising that it’s not quite the massive problem that we’re being told it is. All chronic liver disease isn’t alcoholrelated, and I only include it here because the media trotted someone out on the telly who’d had an alcohol-related liver transplant, but much as I feel for him and his family, even if every case of chronic liver disease was associated with alcohol, that would still only make 12.4 in every 100,000 people. I don’t think the figures are cumulative, so that 1.4 could even be the total amount – what price statistics – but either way it’s still a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Every time the authorities demonise something, it becomes that little bit more risky, exciting and even glamorous – which is often given as one of the appeals of motorcycling – although quite how talking to God down the big white telephone three times every weekend can be regarded as glamorous escapes me these days: I must be getting old.

Smokers who read the ‘Eating, drinking, smoking’ report should be forgiven for hurtling – lemming-like – to the Baltic states and south eastern Europe where they can indulge their habits for as little as 28% of the EU average, and probably indoors, which compares to the UK’s 206% but then tobacco’s a whole different ballgame.

Me? I think I’ll move to The Netherlands.

Andy

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S&S Cycle Inc, www.sscycle.com

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VICTORY VEGAS

8-BALL 16

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Roadtest: Victory Vegas 8-Ball

Long, lean, black and low, the menacing form of the 8-Ball was all but invisible through the lens by the time I put the camera away, but then more fool me for getting all creative: what possessed me to shoot it on a railway station platform in the descending darkness anyway?

In truth, because I’d completely forgotten that it would have been far easier to shoot it in daylight outside a run-down inner city snooker hall – and in fact I know exactly which one I’d use – but every time I see an 8-Ball I don’t see green baize, but that other American motorcycle that originally made the absence of colour a feature rather than an economy and which, frankly, looks like a tart’s handbag by comparison.

Yes folks, Victory have created a bike to compete with the lifestyle biker’s favourite stock Softail, but they’ve done it with a twist because they’ve also targeted the bike that replaced that model in the affections of a generation of riders, the Street Bob. You’re right, of course, it doesn’t have mini apes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The Street Bob’s popularity is born of its astonishing low price and plain finish, and it’s not that long ago that the news of a sub-£9k big twin grabbed headlines, probably more than the denim black paint.

The Street Bob was introduced not long after the first 92-inch 8-Ball and stole it’s thunder to some extent. Originally priced to be price competitive with Harley’s then base model, the Super Glide in the sub-£10k bracket, it started to look expensive when Harley repositioned the Dyna range, but two can play at that game and a couple of months ago, Victory adjusted their

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ALL AMERICAN

CAFÉ R It’s all very strange, you know, how we have come to adopt the style and shape of the American version of a cut-down motorcycle, because we have actually got a very distinctive style all of our own.

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Custom: All American CafĂŠ Racer

RACER American-V.co.uk

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BEACH

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Custom: BeachFighter

FIGHTER There’s only one thing that is more surprising than the diversity of custom Harley-Davidsons, and that’s the diversity of their builders, and perhaps the way they come to put them together.

I say that because the man behind this extraordinary Sportster is the kind of bloke whose dream bike wasn’t made in Milwaukee. I know this, because he told me. He is the right age to have been an impressionable youth when the Japanese were making giant strides in their race to develop the perfect motorcycle, and the bike that captured his imagination was a Suzuki Katana. He probably told me which particular model, but I was mentally fl icking through the evolution of my own aspirations, but I’ll take a wild stab at suggesting it was the super-trick one with the fl ip-up headlamp, because those are the sorts of things that are important when your imagination is captured (I checked, and it wasn’t: it was the 1980 original bike which is now seen as a design classic. Andy reckons the pop-up headlamp being a later affl iction in an attempt to keep the Kat at the forefront of design, “but missing badly”) I’m sure most of us can conjure up an image of the original big Kat, and those who can’t, imagine a fusion of an early Jap superbike and the hard-edged lines of a stealth bomber – incredibly radical in its day, but undermined a little when the style was adapted to almost every road bike that Suzuki made, even down to their GS125 learner bike.

If anyone returning from that mental picture can see any similarity whatsoever between that and this, I’d recommend taking more water with it, but there actually is one: this is Andy Battersby’s ideal bike.

It isn’t that he didn’t realised his earlier ambitions, because he did find one and indeed used it as his primary transport while the BeachFighter was taking shape, but when the Sportster was finished the Katana went, and I didn’t sense any lasting regret at that decision.

So how the hell does a stylised GSX1100SZ turn into this: almost its very antithesis?

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A

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Classic: Steve’s U

STEVE’S ALTERNATIVE

MBULANCE

Think of a side-valve Harley, and like-as-not you’ll conjure up an image of a WL45 in your mind’s eye.

Assign a manufacturing date of 1941 on it, and you’ll daub it in a khaki drab and rest happy in your knowledge of Harley’s heritage. Thing is though, all side-valves weren’t created equal, and what you’re looking at here is the 45’s big brother: the U.

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The dawn broke clear over Angel Hill, the market square-cum-public car park outside one of the most powerful Abbeys in Mediaeval Europe.

KRAZY HORSE

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E 11+

Event: Krazy Horse 11+

But it wasn’t going to be a market day in the conventional sense, nor a day for abandoning the SUV and wandering through the Norman street-plan of the ancient borough of St Edmundsbury.

Today was going to be the day when the town was going to be given over to the celebration of the custom motorcycle and hot rod, for today was the day for Krazy Horse’s 11+ party.

I’m not sure which was worse: missing the tenth anniversary party held by Krazy Horse in September 2006 or spending the next twelve months being told what a cracking party I’d missed, but sadly publishing deadlines are no respecters of an editor’s social calendar: you can put that violin away now, I’m done.

I wasn’t going to miss it a second time though, and while it’s very difficult to have a second tenth anniversary, it was such a roaring success last year that everyone from Bury St Edmunds city council down, beat a path to Krazy Horse’s front door and all but demanded a repeat performance for the eleventh.

The barricades around the square proper were manned by the previous night’s revellers, nursing the odd hangover, eyes betraying a lack of sleep from the previous night’s ‘friends and family’ party; their sensitivity to loud bangs directly proportional to how

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2008 VRSCAW

V-ROD What’s all this then? Didn’t we have a V-Rod just three issues ago? The short answer is yes, but it was a long way from being a V-Rod like this one because six short months ago I finished by regretting that the VR wasn’t the 1250cc motor that it could so easily have been.

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Roadtest: 2008 VRSCAW V-Rod

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ARTFUL » 72

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Custom: Griff’s Shovel

BOBBER It was dark by the time we’d put the tent up at Oswestry, and after an epic four hour cross-country run on a pair of XLs we were ready for a party, but come first light – which is easily identifiable in a tent – it was up and at ’em: time to chase around the site before the late night revellers started to decamp, load up the bikes and head for home.

It was a cool but fresh morning, and armed with a cup of hot and fresh coffee we went in search of interesting motorcycles that we hadn’t necessarily seen before.

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BRIGHTONA The second Sunday of October is the now accepted date for Brightona: a purposeful pun on the American Daytona. Now in its third year, this charity event is held in aid of the Sussex Heart Foundation and has so far raised over ÂŁ19,000 in total.

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Event: Brightona 2007

Perfectly marshalled by members of the local HOG group, volunteers from other local bike clubs and a minimal police presence, it is very well organised. With live bands, stalls, a well-supported, impressive ride-in bike show and a display of hot rods this year, the event just grows and grows, and calls bikers from far and wide to England’s south coast.

Usually Brighton is only a forty mile trip for me, but agreeing to pick up a friend en-route it turned out to be a healthy 300 mile round trip – but the company and the experience of Brightona were both well worth the extra miles I clocked up that day.

But road miles are only the beginning if you’re planning on taking in the whole event, and the need for a good pair of

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Technical/Project: The Great British Budget Bobber Build-Off American-V # ONE

Tech/Project

THE GREAT BRITISH BUDGET BOBBER BUILD-OFF There are many widely held beliefs that don’t stand up to scrutiny: in the world of mainstream culture these are called urban myths and they are many, varied and oft-times amusing. In the world of American motorcycles, it is that a Harley-Davidson is expensive.

Like all good myths, there’s some truth to that, but there’s an important caveat which is something I’ve long held sacred: a HarleyDavidson is expensive to buy but is cheap to own. That is to say it is cheap to run – it’s economical for its size, has cheap service parts and has traditionally retained a high proportion of its original cost compared to almost anything else on the road.

The other widely-held perception is that custom Harleys are even more expensive, which also has a ring of truth, not least because while Harley fall over themselves to supply you with inexpensive parts to keep your bike on the road, they have a totally different pricing policy when it comes to dress-up parts, and, of course, if you buy a bespoke motorcycle, you’ll be in a different league entirely. Of course, there is always the independent sector too; but good parts cost money, and you get what you pay for. Don’t forget, also, that a lot of the time you’ll be paying for someone’s labour to put it on for you – and you shouldn’t begrudge them their time if you’re not able or prepared to do it for yourself.

BUT – and that’s very deliberately a big but – it doesn’t need to be that way. The people who are looking for a cheap custom but reckon they can’t afford a Harley are precisely the sort of people who aren’t scared by the sight of forged steel combination spanners. These are the sort of people who would think their only route is to go and buy

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an Intruder, Shadow, Virago or Vulcan because they’re cheap, and then scuff their knuckles beating them into the shape they want, usually losing interest once they’ve tried to pick a modern wiring harness apart, or having blown another hole through the minimal metal of Japanese frame while trying to lower the seat or hardtail it.

I’m not having a go at anyone who does take on a Jap cruiser custom project because they have a harder by far job to fi nish it than someone taking on a Harley because there are fewer available parts for it, fewer known tricks and a more difficult shape to work with; there are also those poorer quality, lighter materials to contend with and more complicated electronics and fuelling … well, at least before active exhaust valves and spinnakers. The initial enthusiasm born of being a cheap initial purchase is actually a double-edged sword too, and actually makes things worse: the original bike isn’t worth a lot before you start, throughout its progress it’s worth practically nothing, and unless it is absolutely perfect when its fi nished, it won’t repay your investment in time and materials, because it’ll be worth less than the sum of its parts which could be substantial. In all, a show-winning metric cruiser will typically be harder to create than a show-winning Harley and can be a thankless task, except in terms of rising to the challenge and demonstrating your prowess.

The killer blow is that it will actually take as long to chop a cheap bike as an expensive one, or probably actually longer.

So, there is more than just the slightest chance that a Harley is the only bike that you can customise economically and that’s lucky because that’s the premise of the Great British Budget Bobber BuildOff, or the GBBBBO for short.

We’re going to pitch two builders against each other – which’ll teach them for both coming up with the same basic idea at the same time – and we’ll put the fi nished results to a public vote at our Fifth Birthday Party at The Thundersprint in Northwich on 10/11th May.

The idea?

Simple: to build a fi nished, high quality bobber for less than the cost of a new XL883 Sportster … well, £5k. If you think £5k is a lot of money, you haven’t tried to build a bike worth putting your name to – we’re not talking about post-holocaust rat bikes resplendent in brush painted hues of Hammerite, but rideable potential showwinners: bikes that you could take back to show your folks; that you mum would saw ‘d’awwww, bless’ and your dad would ask you for the keys. You get the picture?

The two approaches will be very different, with Boneshaker Choppers from the West Midlands on the one hand buying a motor and working with a rolling chassis kit, while Thundercity Motorcycles will be taking a taxed and tested complete bike that came along as a part-ex for the right money and modifying that.

Fabrication will be kept to a minimum and will be restricted to the sort of simple stuff that is within the gift of most amateur mechanics or their friends – and you can’t build a bike without mates unless you’re extremely talented.

It wasn’t a pre-requisite, but both of these bikes will be based around the most traditional motor that Harley has built for fi fty years, largely because Harley has been building it for fi fty years, give or take an incarnation or two: the XL Sportster. In both cases, it’s in its carburetted solid-mount Evolution form, which means 19852005. If you can fi nd a big twin powertrain for a bargain – not too much of a bargain, because unless you are lucky that means it’ll be either red hot or stone dead – you can do much the same but it’ll be more complicated, would still work out more expensive and would make a better second build.

In fact, we’re pleased that both builders will be using the Evo XL because there’s enormous potential within its cases – and even if it’s built to a budget in the fi rst instance, it can be revisited almost infi nitely to make it bigger and/or better, right up to a brandnew big-inch SB-Series S&S motor – and now that the Ironhead Sportster is reaching classic status early or tatty Evo Sporties represents the bottom of the food chain, which means they come in at the right price, whether complete or in big bits.

Boneshaker’s Smokin’ Gun. This is where we started with the whole project: sitting on the Flyrite Choppers’ “Reach for the Sky” big twin hardtail – that we’ll be putting through its paces as soon as it’s been through SVA – and looking across at a rolling chassis kit for an XL. It wasn’t just cheap, it was silly cheap. For a frame, springer forks, American-V.co.uk

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Xl1200C Vs Dyna Low Rider

ERRANT CHOPPER

If you’ve been a long-time reader of American-V you’ll probably recall the newspiece on the reborn flathead Indian Chief put together by Guilty Customs and Kiwi Indian: a stunning-looking tribute to the Springfield firm, based on a technology that will be known to, and loved by Indian aficionados the world over.

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You could be forgiven for thinking, on sight of that extraordinary tribute to the classic flathead Indian side-valve, that Guilty Customs would be a restoration shop, or maybe specialists in the bobber field, but not a bit of it. Florida-based Guilty Customs are innovators and riders of a variety of chopper-styled motorcycles that have a distinctly different line to the current West Coast style. In the case of their Errant chopper, it offers a simplicity that could be the next stage of evolution once the retro bobber style has run its course.

Combining the apparent economy of line that is typified by the classic bobber with the more radical geometry of the choppers that

Custom: Errant Chopper

followed them historically, there is just a chance that history will repeat itself again. But this time, with an improved standard of engineering – and a better idea of what works – the new generation of choppers will be infi nitely safer, and I daresay a lot more practical than their forebears.

Perhaps I’m being too simplistic; maybe I’ve been affected disproportionately by the sight of a pair of stretched girder forks on a classic high-neck hardtail frame with its simple laced wheels.

Maybe it’s the Frisco-mounted tank and jockey shift, combined with the modern bobber-esque oil tank thrust forwards into the massive

empty space between the front wheel and the cradle of the frame which leaves an alien gap beneath the solo sprung seat. Whether it’s the overall lack of clutter, the lack of chrome or the steadfast refusal to blindly slot a pair of billet wheels in to make it stand out, it does stand out as different – different enough to take 2nd place at the Rat’s Hole show in Florida, albeit in the Bobber section.

Based around a 92-inch S&S round barrel motor – originally built for Indian, hence the italicised ‘I’ on the heads – it was partly built to show off some of the parts and technologies that owner Carl (CJ) Hanlon is championing, notably the forks and the seat, but it has American-V.co.uk

91

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Event: International 2007 Xl1200C Vs Dyna Bike LowShow Rider

It’s showtime at the NEC, and the International Motorcycle and Scooter Show, in a different set of halls, has become a tortuous, labyrinthine maze for the UK’s broadest range of bikers.

INTERNATIONAL BIKE SHOW2007

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Whether looking for a bargain in the end of season bargain buckets, checking out the latest in wet weather gear of motorcycling fashion or poring over next year’s model ranges, the halls fi ll up with the full cross-section of the motorcycling public, but there’s only a few destinations that really hold any major interest these days for me and I still managed to kill a day there without too big a problem.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but not without pointing out the really new stuff: the first UK sighting of the Victory Vision, which is perhaps the world’s first true luxury motorcycle; the cutaway Buell 1125R motor which gives lie to any suggestion that it isn’t a groundup build, and not even close to being an appropriated Aprilia as even one official dealer reckons; the Rocker Tails which are already on the endangered species list so hurry up if you want one for the summer of 2008; and then play spot the detail changes to the production XR1200s.

Before I do shut up, I’ll just mention to Rocker Tail C’s fl ip out seat, now we’ve seen it in action, because it takes a little more than

hinging the rider’s seat forwards and folding the trick pillion seat away. It requires the pillion squab to be removed from its frame – held on a captive, spring-loaded pin – and the front hinge wriggled out of its asymmetrical receiver before it’s inserted into a slot within the body of the riders seat, the seat subframe than pulls up and back to release it from a basic ratchet, before holding forwards underneath the seat proper. It’s still a very clever system and a great emergency pillion if you need a spare seat in a hurry, but it’s not going to be a job for fumbling around with in an unlit car park, but then if you’ve got an unlit car park to fumble around in, you might not need a fold-out pillion … if you see what I’m saying?

And with that, I’ll leave you to the pictures before I launch into another six page epic.

Words & pics: Andy Hornsby American-V.co.uk

95

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