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ISSUE 450 OCTOBER 2021

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(YES, AN MZ CHOPPER!)

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10: ACE CAFE TRIUMPH DAY – OLD DRIPPERS AND MODERN CLASSICS IN THE SUNSHINE… AND THAT’S JUST NIK AND THE STREET TRIPLE! 12: MUDDY BEACH HARLEYS – THREE EXAMPLES OF MILWAUKEE’S FINEST IRON PAINTED NORTH O’ THE BORDER 28: DIRT DIGGERS – THE 2021 BASH, SIDE-WAYS AND SILLY! 34: INTRUDER TRIKE – CHUNKSTER BY NAME, CHUNKSTER BY NATURE 39: CONFEDERATE COMBAT – YES, WE KNOW IT’S A STOCKER, BUT WHAT A BEAST! 44: MZ COVER BIKE – DINK, DINK, DINK, DINK, DINK (COUGH, COUGH)… BLUMMIN’ TWOSTROKES! 54: BMW CAFÉ RACER – POLICE BIKES NE’ER LOOKED LIKE THIS WHEN I WERE A LAD! 62: BBRF SUMMER SOLSTICE RALLY – THE FIRST REAL RALLY OF 202!

ET TO GGITAL Y I D MPL E TH APP, SI ACK E S B ‘ N R IO APPL EDIT ARCH FO’ IN THE D SE EROES OR iPA PLAY ET H RE F STRE PP STO OOGLE D A I G E N RO PAG OR O OR AND ACEBOO)K F F ES O SH HE B EET HER GROUP UT T R K S– CK O ACK ST BOO CHE ACE HEROE (B F H BS REET ROUP E H T ST IAL G D K N C A T BA A HE OFFIC T

4: EDITORIAL – NIK WAFFLES ON ABOUT SOME SHI… NO, ACTUALLY, THAT’S RIGHT 6: INSPIRATIONS – A NEW SERIES LOOKING BACK AT SOME OF THE ICONIC BIKES OF YESTERYEAR 21: THE 2021 BSH CUSTOM CHAMPS – THE WINNERS OF ROUNDS 3 AND 4!

32: FICTION – FEE-FI-FO-FUM… OH NO, ‘ANG, THAT’S GIANTS… 50: CENTRE SPREAD – AN ARTISTIC POSTER FOR YOU TO PUT ON YER WALL

52: SUBSCRIBE TO BSH – SEE HERE FOR THE BEST SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS 58: REAL WORLD ROADTEST – WE PIT OUR REBEL AGAINST TRIUMPH’S BOBBER 65: MR BRIDGES – THE GURU IMPARTS MORE OF HIS KNOWLEDGE OF MECHANICS 70: FOGGIE FICTION – A NICE STORY… NO, HONESTLY, IT IS! 74: NEWS – ALL THAT’S NEW AND HAPPENING IN THE CUSTOM BIKE WORLD 76: PRODUCTS – LOADS OF GOOD STUFF FOR YOU TO SPEND YOUR HARDEARNED ON 78: LETTERS – SOUND OFF, ONE, TWO, SOUND OFF, THREE, FOUR! 80: MAG NEWS – OUR REGULAR COLUMN

BY THE MAG CHAIRNONGENDERSPECIFIC PERSON 81: EVENTS – YAY, THE SUMMER’S LOOKING PROMISING! 86: READERS’ LIVES – YOUR PICS, OUR CAPTIONS… YEAH, SORRY ABOUT THAT 89: SMALLS – SELL YOUR BIKE HERE FOR FREE! 96: REMINISCING – MEMORIES OF THE DISREPUTABLE YEARS OF BIKING 97: NEXT MONTH – JUST TO WHET YOUR APPETITE… 98: RICK HULSE – THE MUSINGS OF ONE OF THE MOST ELOQUENT THINKERS IN BIKERDOM

It always makes me smile when I re-read the editorial I wrote for the issue before the one you’re currently reading, and see how feckin’ awful I am at predicting the weather. I’m not in Michael ‘don’t worry, there’s no hurricane coming’ Fish’s league of course, but… I blame it on climate change and the way it’s absolutely bolloxed up the weather – everything’s changed over the last ten-plus years, and months that you could, previously, take it as read’d be warm and sunny’re often now cold and damp (I’m writing this mid-August and I’ve seriously contemplated putting me heating on a couple of times so far) and, conversely, months that’ve traditionally been wetter than an otter’s pocket’re often scorchio. These days, it seems, the words ‘Indian Summer’ are the norm rather than the exception, and don’t mean, as I previously thought, eating curry in the garden in July…

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On me travels over the last few months, one thing that’s really struck me (figuratively, thankfully, not literally) is how badly ‘road furniture’* on our highways and byways’s situated.

It’s no wonder us lot on two wheels have so many near misses with car drivers pulling out, really, because so many signs, bollards and road dividers’re positioned in such a manner so as to obstruct a driver’s view of what’s coming down the road. It doesn’t matter quite so much when it’s a vehicle with four wheels or more as they’re generally wide enough to be spotted around a badly situated bollard, but us lot on just two ‘oops’re skinny enough to get temporarily hidden behind them and so, unless the driver’s been looking in our direction all along, they’ll pull out as there was nothing there when they looked…

Combine this with the fact that, here in the east definitely, local councils’ve been slow to get hedges and verges cut back this year, and the fact that the roads’re in such poor condition that we spend a lot of our journeys weaving in and out of the many and sundry

EDITOR:

NIK SAMSON

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pot-holes/piss-poor road repairs, and so may duck in and out of a waiting car’s field of vision because of it, means that, these days, maintaining a constant speed along a main road’s not the easiest thing to do, as I’m sure you know.

The problem is, as I see it, that the people who locate these items don’t ride motorcycles and, because we’re THE minority road vehicle (there’re 1.1 million bikes registered in the UK, which sounds a lot, but not when you consider our population is over 68 million, and there’re 32.5 million cars), they don’t think of us when siting them either.

What can we do about this? Well, in the real world, not much really. Some reading this’ll be saying ‘Get MAG on to it, they’ll sort it out!’, and I’m sure that they would but … MAG do an entirely laudable job in dealing with folk in the higher echelons of government who, when told, would completely agree with us – the problem is that these signs, etc., aren’t put there by folk in the higher echelons of government; they’re put there by contractors, blokes (in the main) like you and me, who just do what they’re told and go home at the end of the day. They just follow instructions given to them by road planners, who also don’t ride motorbikes or think of them, and to change this’d require a complete top-down rethink of policy, and you and me both know that i’n’t going to happen.

So, at the risk of repeating meself yet again, be bloody careful out there, yeah? The standard of driving’s slipped over the years (it must’ve done, they gave me a licence, didn’t they?), and they’ve cut the numbers of Old Bill so much that getting a tug’s such a rarity that it’s no deterrent to piss-poor driving. Sorry to be a bit depressing, but this’s the world we live in now, and putting our fingers in our ears and going ‘la la la’ doesn’t, sadly, work any more.

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Anyway, on a lighter note, September looks like it’s going to be a great month for bike events: Stormin’ the Castle, the relaunched Kent Custom Bike Show, the Ace Cafe Reunion, The Trip Out, and many more. Me, I’m looking forward most to the Trip Out… as long as I don’t get feckin’ poisoned by black stuff in a bottle this time!

See you next month!

FREELANCE CONTRIBUTORS:

BSH ARCHIVE, MURRAY ROBERTS, GARRY STUART, RHINO TRIKES, MARCEL ORTMANS, FAZERDAZE, MR BRIDGES, THE LATE JIM FOGG RIP, LOUISE LIMB, SELINA LAVENDER, RICK HULSE

NIK

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*bloody odd phrase that, isn’t it? I mean, we’re talking road signs an’ bollards an’ shit, you can’t really sit at or on them, can you?

HELLO, AND WELCOME TO THIS ISSUE OF BSH, NUMBER 450 IN THE LONG, LONG HISTORY OF THE MAG!

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THE ACE CAFE, THE LONDON BIKING MECCA, AS YOU PROBABLY KNOW, RUNS BIKE EVENTS EVERY WEEKEND DAY OF THE YEAR, AND BACK IN JUNE THEY HELD THEIR ANNUAL TRIUMPH DAY. AT THE TIME I WAS IN (TEMPORARY) POSSESSION OF A NEW STREET TRIPLE PRESS BIKE, THE DAY WAS SUNNY AND WARM, AND THE ROADS WERE DRY, SO IT’D’VE BEEN RUDE NOT TO GO REALLY…

t’d been a while since I’d been to the Ace, due to the bastard bat lurgi, but riding down there felt like going to see an old friend.

Even the dodging of the dozy drivers on the North Circular (something a little unnerving for a yokel like me… and, yes, the bit o’ straw sticking out o’ me mouth does get bent by me crash helmet) wasn’t too much of a chore, and the Park Royal turn-off came up quickly enough. Sitting at the lights, waiting to turn across the bridge, I could just see the Ace out of the corner of me eye, and I felt a smile starting.

With the relaunch of the brand by John Bloor and crew back in 1990 (was it really 30 years ago?), a Triumph Day these days is a mix of both original Meriden machines and Hinckley offerings, with the latter bikes in the majority of course, but there’re still plenty for lovers of oily old iron to see and appreciate. My

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personal favourite was a wonderfully scruffy Hinckley Bonnie done up like an old despatch bike (complete with pig-snout fairing)… well, actually my personal favourite was a plunger-framed, girder-forked BSA chop (and the postapocalyptic ‘Onda too), but this was a Triumph event, wasn’t it, and it’d be churlish to pick a Beezer as best.

One of the things I do like about the Ace is the fact that it remains true to its roots. Other London biker eateries, like the Bike Shed for example, were set up as restaurants, but the Ace started life, back in 1938, as a transport caff (not café), and it’s still a transport caff. These days proper oldstyle transport caffs are few and far between, but many of us still feel more at home in them than in the modern plastic roadside diners. The Ace feels like a transport caff, the décor is pure transport caff, and it serves transport caff food (their breakfasts are excellent), and it just feels right. And having a day to celebrate the original transport caff bike, the Triumph, is very fitting, don’t you think?

FOR MORE INFO’ ON ACE CAFE EVENTS, CHECK OUT OUR EVENTS PAGES OR GO TO THEIR WEBSITE AT LONDON.ACECAFE.COM OCTOBER 2021

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WHEN ME AN’ HER WERE NORTH O’ THE BORDER LAST YEAR, I DID A FEW BIKES AT MUDDY BEACH CUSTOMS NEAR EDINBURGH, AND THESE ARE THE LAST THREE…

lex Shannon, the owner of the first bike here, the bagger, was inspired to build it after a friend’d casually opined that there was nothing much that could be done to customise an Electra-Glide.

As a veteran V-Rod customiser, he took it as a personal challenge, and purchased a 2013 ’Glide Classic and, deciding that a Mexican/ US-style bagger was the way to go with it, set about looking for the parts he’d need to create the look he was after.

One of his first purchases, and the one to really give the bike its stance, was a 26” SMT Penthouse wheel, and an American Suspension neck kit to get it to fit the Electra-Glide’s frame. Next was a full set of bodywork from Lithuanian bagger specialists Killer Custom (www.killercustom.com) including, of course, a suitably-sized front mudguard, one of their

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over-sized batwing fairings, one of their sculpted tanks (and sculpted side-panels too), a massive swoopy tail-dragger of a rear mudguard, and matching rear boxes too. In order to get the required ‘slammed’ stance, a Dirty Air (www. dirtyworks-kc.com) air-suspension kit that, via an onboard compressor, allows the back of the bike to be dropped down to the ground when parked, and lifted up to ENGINE: ride height when 2013 H-D Electra-Glide it’s time to go, was Classic FLHTC engine (edgebought too, and cut heads, K&N air-filter, 2-1 Remus exhaust, Hella then he started stainless oil cooler/lines)/ putting it all frame (American Suspension neck kit)/calipers/forks/ together. clocks/master-cylinders/grips With the bike (leather-covered)/swingarm/ assembled and rear wheel/rear disc/belt & pulleys/loom (modified), checked, it was Blazin’ Saddles leather shipped over to foot-board covers/seat, Vee the paint maestro Rubber 26” whitewall tyre, 26” SMT Penthouse front wheel, who is Gus at chrome front disc, Hella Muddy Beach brake lines, H-D accessory Customs (you’re beach ‘bars (leather-covered)/ switchgear/extra gauges/ going to get really surround/belly-pan/headlight, sick of reading Killer Customs mudguards/ his name…) for tank/side-panels/boxes, Dirty Air air-shocks, Dunlop the very bagger whitewall tyre, ‘prison grill’ cream n’ brown tail-light/indicators paint scheme, FINISH: Paint & finishes by Gus at with its leaves and Muddy Beach Customs graphics. Scottish (07854 764649 or www. seat specialist muddybeachcustoms.com), powder-coating by Blazin’ Saddles Williams Powder-Coating (07800 650145 or (01324 630050) Facebook) made

the matching seat and bag tops, and wrapped a few other bits in leather too, and that, bar a few nifty dress-up parts, was that.

Since it was built, he’s really racked up the miles on it, and reports that it rides beautifully. It’s won a stack of awards, including Best Touring at an event in Slovenia (there’s a video on YouTube – look up 25th European HOG Rally, Slovenia – Custom Bike Show), and I doubt it’ll be the last it picks up too!

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raig’s bike came about as a promise he made to his late brotherin-law Martin. He (Craig)’d been blatting about for years on a very trick 1100 Katana built by the late Colin Rutherford RIP, but when the electrics started to play up he got himself a ZRX 1100. He had that for a few years, but always had a hankering for something a little different. Martin’d always said he should get a Harley so, a couple of months after the bastard big C took him, he placed an order for a brand new Softail Standard, with Vance & Hines ’pipes and a set of drag ’bars, and that was fine for a while until he got the itch…

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ENGINE: H-D 1450 Softail Standard engine (Stage 1 Screamin’ Eagle, Vance & Hines Short Shot exhausts)/frame/ brakes/forks (shaved)/yokes/ master-cylinders/controls/ front mudguard/tank (flushfiller cap)/side-panels/rear ‘guard/shocks/swingarm/ loom (modified)/headlight/ tail-light, eBay forwards, Avon Cobra tyres, Ultima Fat Spoke wheels (21” front, 16” rear), Goodridge brake lines, 1.5” eBay ‘bars (dechromed/ airbrushed/internally wired), Kuryakyn chrome switchgear,

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Dakota Digital speedo/tacho, black metal spike grips, H-D Night Train seat, aftermarket axle covers, smoked indicator lenses FINISH: ZZ Top theme by Gus at Muddy Beach Customs THANKS TO: “My long-suffering wife Mags; Gus at Muddy Beach Customs (07854 764649 or www. muddybeachcustoms.com); & Alan at Customized Choppers (01620 82037 or www. customizedchoppers.com) for sourcing the wheels…”

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He spotted a nice black tank on fleaBay that had nice airbrushed Harley logos on it, and bought it, then found it had a couple of issues with the lacquer. His good mate Gus (yup, that Gus) is, as you probably know by now, quite handy with an airbrush, and offered to fix it for him. After a week he got the call to pick up his tank, but there was just one thing – Gus said he’d taken a bit of artistic licence with it. Craig admits he was quite worried for a while, but as soon as he went into the paint booth he was blown away... staring back at him was Billy Gibbons on one side, and Dusty Hill on the other. The portraits were photo-quality, and the detail incredible. He laughs: “Gus knows me well – what a job!”

Of course, the rest of the bike now looked a little shabby so he sourced the other parts needed to bring it up to scratch, and Gus put Frank Beard on the rear mudguard, and tied the whole bike together with grey smoke.

To say Craig’s happy with the way it looks is an understatement, and he loves the fact that the unenlightened see a Softail with a fantastic paint job, but those who know can see it’s so much more...

laine is Alex with the bagger’s other half, and this is her 2016 48 Sportster.

As is often the way with serial custom freaks, he wasn’t too happy with the thought of his good lady riding a bike that was exactly the same as everyone else’s, and so set to it with her bike, customising it, and lowering it, to suit his better half.

The majority of it is as it left the MoCo factory five years ago (the wheels, forks, swingarm, and most of the bodywork too), with just a choice few dress-up parts including a new shortie rear ’guard to lose the gert big butt-ugly stocker, new mini apes to give a more comfortable riding position, whitewall tyres, a bling headlight divider that looks really good, Vance & Hines Grenade ’pipes (bloody loud even after Alex put baffles in ’em – he refuses point-blank to ride behind

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her ’cos it makes his ears bleed!), a single leather saddlebag containing a fuel bottle for topping up the tank (something Elaine says is very necessary on a 48!), and a new corset-style seat made, like Alex’s, by Blazin’ Saddles that uses colours that really suit the paint scheme laid down by, you guessed it, Gus at Muddy Beach.

Actually there’s a bit of a story behind the paint. Elaine wanted Gus to use a pink with gold striping scheme for it inspired by the colours of a perfume bottle she liked, so he looked it up on t’Net, and painted what he saw, but he didn’t realise that the tartan pattern on/in it was actually the wallpaper behind the clear bottle. He says that it took him ages to do something that ENGINE: 2016 H-D 48 Sportster wasn’t actually there on her bottle engine (Stage 1 tune, Vance but, thankfully, she loves it anyway! & Hines Grenades exhausts, Nightrider fuel control module)/frame (modified)/ wheels/brakes/forks/yokes/ controls/tank/side-panels/ swingarm/loom (modified), Avon Cobra whitewall tyres, mini apes ‘bars, Hella extended brake/clutch cables, H-D Accessories grips, one-off seat by Blazin’ Saddles, shortie rear ‘guard, aftermarket headlight/tail-light/ indicators, single leather side-bag with spare fuel bottle FINISH: Custom paint by Gus Spence at Muddy Beach Customs (07854 764649 or www. muddybeachcustoms.com)

NIK

SO THAT’S IT THEN – ALL SIX ROUNDS OF THE 2021 BSH CUSTOM BIKE CHAMPIONSHIP (MAY, JUNE, DIAMOND DAY, THE ROCK & BLUES, JULY AND AUGUST) ARE OVER! We’ll show you the winners of the fifth and sixth rounds (the Rock & Blues and August) next issue, but if you go to any of the following Facebook pages BSH, Back Street Heroes – The Official Group or Butchered Classics - you’ll be able to see the winners, and all the entries too, before they go in the mag.

By the time you read this, our expert panel of judges - Paul Timpson from Zodiac UK, Odgie (yep, the legendary Odgie himself), Murrells

from the National Chopper Club Committee, Vic and Lin from Destiny Cycles, and Dave Solomon from Butchered Classics - will be deep in their deliberations to pick the six overall winners. Those six will then go on to be the stars of the BSH Custom Heroes stand at Motorcycle Live at the NEC in Birmingham (Sat 4th–Sun 12th December) where there’ll be a presentation on the morning of the first Saturday, usually around 11am,

with awards, prize money (assuming the event goes head, of course), and Zodiac vouchers worth £250 too!

As I said, next issue (out October) we’ll show you the winners of rounds five and six, and then in the following one (out November) all the winners from all the rounds. Then, in the issue that comes out in December (cover January for some inexplicable reason), you’ll be able to see the six overall winners in all their glory!

BELOW: BEST CHOPPER – SHAMMY’S DAN DEATH CYCLES BANDIT

ABOVE: BEST CUSTOM – KEV BLYTHE’S XS650

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LEFT: BEST NEW SKOOL – STRING’S INSANE FAZER 600 CHOP

ABOVE: BEST BUTCHERED CLASSIC – FREDDY’S KWAK

LEFT: BEST ENGINEERING – DUTCH’S FJ1200 BELOW: BEST PAINT – TONY’S LORD OF THE RINGS HARLEY

LEFT: BEST CUSTOM – SPIKE JUDD’S KNUCKLEHEAD

BELOW: BEST NEW SKOOL – BEN MOOIMAN’S CX500

LEFT: BEST CHOPPER – CHRIS DENT’S GSX OCTOBER 2021

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LEFT & BELOW: BEST PAINT – CONRAD EVANS’ V-MAX

BELOW: BEST ENGINEERING – TERRY BOSWELL’S SPORTSTER DRABIKE

ABOVE: BEST BUTCHERED CLASSIC – PAUL MORRIS’ GS/GSX-R TURBO 22

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FOR MANY OF US, OWNING JUST ONE MOTORCYCLE’S NEITHER AN OPTION NOR REALITY. WE’RE ALL AWARE THAT THE PERFECT NUMBER OF MOTORCYCLES TO OWN IS N+1, WHERE N IS THE CURRENT NUMBER OF BIKES THAT YOU OWN… or Doug McCarthy, while his Triumph Scrambler was a great bike, he also wanted something that was a bit more of a ‘tourer’ and, as he really liked the Scrambler, it was an easy decision to make to treat himself to a Speedmaster as well. At that point, though, he’d got into the habit of reading BSH, and decided he wanted a chopper too.

Rather than head out and buy himself a third bike (that was to come later!) he came to the justified decision of chopping the Speedmaster, initially by hardtailing it. After a call to String at Raw Steel Choppers, he was booked in for a hardtail conversion, and the ball was set in motion. It actually wasn’t quite as straightforward a job as Doug (and String!) had initially hoped, for the simple reason that Triumph has fitted the engine in an offset position, so as to retain chain alignment with a fatter rear wheel than on other bikes in the Bonneville range. This caused some frustration with trying to get the rear frame rails symmetrical, and also in having exhaust pipes that run parallel with the lower frame rails, but String and Tony managed to get it nailed, incorporating a fake oil tank/battery box in there too.

The wheels and brakes’re as stock, as are the forks and yokes (there’s a new set of ’bars and a pair of fork gaiters), the rider/pillion ’pegs, the forwards, the fuel tank, and the little bellypan/chin spoiler, while the

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front mudguard and the seat, rear mudguard (which fits perfectly over the Avon Cobra tyre) and sissy-bar were all sorted out by Down & Out Motorcycles in nearby Rotherham.

Once the bike was complete and ready for finishing, the issue of colour raised its head. Like many BSH readers, Doug watches a lot of American hot-rod TV shows, and liked the idea of a patinated rusty finish, and set about trying to find out how best to get that. He discovered rustypaint.com and its range of interesting paint effects and, after playing around

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ENGINE: 2016 Triumph Speedmaster engine ( K&N filters, ignition remapped by Triumph Twin Power)/frame (Raw Steel Choppers hardtail)/forwards/ wheels/brakes/master-cylinders/ forks/controls/switchgear/clocks/tank/ bellypan/loom (modified)/headlight, Avon Cobra tyres, braided brake lines, one-off T-bars by Maverick Customs, Biltwell grips, Raw Steel Choppers exhaust/fake oil tank/battery box/ torque arm, Down & Out Motorcycles front mudguard/seat/numberplate holder/mudguard struts/sissy-bar, DID Gold chain, Series 1 Land Rover tail-

with a few test panels, he got a result he was happy with, and set to doing the entire bike. The frame, bodywork, bars, lights, everything got rusted with the exception of the engine, running gear, switches and fasteners, and gives the bike the look of an old bike that’s been fitted with a new engine, and with further reference to those TV programmes, it’s a bit like the classic American cars that’ve been fitted with uprated wheels, suspension and brakes, and a new fuel-injected General Motors LS powerplant instead of an original sidevalve V8. It’s brilliantly executed too – take a look at the way that he’s achieved a pitted look to parts that were originally chromed (or stainless or aluminium), and how they now look as though they’ve been rescued from a couple of decades at the bottom of the canal (the tank dash and petrol cap in particular). He’s also done the tank and rear ’guard to look as though it’s a worn

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light, Motone indicators FINISH: Rust with flames by owner using Rusty Paint (www.rustypaint.com) THANKS TO: “String & Tony at Raw Steel Choppers (01371 870907 or www.rawsteelchoppers.co.uk); Carl at Down & Out Motorcycles (01709 821600 or www. bespokemotorcycles.co.uk); Triumph Twin Power (01202 901584 or www. triumphtwinpower.com); & Mike at Maverick Customs (0161 425 1820 or www.maverickcustoms.co.uk)...”

and rusted flame-job, and all with no risk of any actual oxidisation/weakening of components.

Doug’s got no more plans for the Speedmaster, other than to allow the rust paint to ‘mature’ a little more (and maybe have the seat remade so that it’s a little more comfortable for his pillion) but, returning to my first paragraph, he’s bought himself another bike – he’s now the owner of String’s rat-rod chopper, ‘Moonshine’, and has further plans to add to his fleet too!

DAVE MANNING

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I KNOW, I KNOW, IT DOESN’T SEEM TEN MINUTES (OR A FEW ISSUES ANYWAY) SINCE WE RAN AN ARTICLE ON DIRT DIGGERS, THE FLATTRACK EVENT THAT YOU CAN ENTER ON, AS THEY PUT IT, BIKES INAPPROPRIATE TO GO FLATTRACK RACING ON, BUT THAT WAS THE 2020 EVENT, AND THIS'S THE 2021 ONE.

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the coronafeckinvirus the numbers of spectators at Scunthorpe* Raceway were down as they weren’t able to encourage folk to just come and watch, but those who did turn up, including meself and the good lady, were treated to a real spectacle, we really were.

If you’ve not seen flat-track before, and a lot of people haven’t, then the first thing you have to understand is that it isn’t speedway. Although speedway’s an American (some say Australian) invention, it’s become, over the years, thought of as a predominantly European sport that

*Scunthorpe… I take Pam to all the best places, don’t I?

esides which, as you’ll know if you’ve been, it’s such a great event that it’s worth shouting about, y’know?

The brainchild of ex-BSH and AWoL editor Odgie and his oppo’ Richard Hollingsworth as a way of getting more and more people interested in what is an excellent way of getting involved in bike racing on a tight budget back in 2018, it’s grown over the years, and No 4, this year’s event, was another triumph. Okay, so due to

uses purpose-built, very lightweight, hardtail-framed, four-stroke, single-cylinder 500cc bikes running on methanol, whereas flat-track’s a less rigidly defined class that uses, primarily, four-stroke twin-cylinder bikes (although the legendary Kenny Roberts did run a four-cylinder two-stroke TZ750 engine, of which he famously said: “They don’t pay me enough to ride that thing”) adapted from production machines (most famously Harley’s XR750, and BSA and Triumph twins).

Not everyone can afford an old Brit, or a rare-as-rocking-horse-excreta ‘Arley though, so Odgie and Richard decided to make a race event that’d allow folk to do as they did in the heyday of the grassroots British motorcycle sport – turn up on the bike they own, tape up the headlight, remove the mudguards, race it, and ride home.

They also opened it up to bikes that were’t traditional flat-trackers too; yes, people could, and do, enter Brit singles and twins, but they can also use converted ‘crossers and supermotos and, more relevant to us, pretty much anything else they liked too from C50s to FireBlades, including choppers, and Dirt Diggers was born.

It’s an action-packed day; there were something like 50 races (qualifiers and finals) of four laps, and a whole host of different classes that meant that, with the exception of trikes, anyone could, pretty much, race anything. There’re classes for pukka flat-track bikes, vintage bikes, scooters, mini-motos, and more, but the ones we’d predominantly gone to see were the inappropriate road bikes and, of course, the choppers.

Now, because of the cross-over, most of, but not all, the choppers also entered the inappropriate class too, as did some of the vintage bikes, and that meant that the starting grid for those races was wonderfully eclectic – an XJ750 Seca lined up against an ER5 Kawasaki, Super Dreams, classic dirt bikes, scooters, a GS500 chop, and a very quick hardtailed Honda Dominator. The Dommie’s owned by BSH’s old mate Shaun ‘Dr Death’ Gemmell, who’s had a few quite mad rats/customs featured in magazines over the years, and he’s a bit good on it… actually, that’s an understatement – he’s lightning on it! He’s actually beaten Guy Martin and Neil Hodgson at Dirtquake (twice in Guy’s case)

in the Chopper class (and it’s whispered that Mr M has declined to enter since because of it), and he pretty much dominated (sorry, bad pun) every race he was in save for one that had to be restarted several times after crashes when he got arm-pump and had to back right off.

Of course, with a rep’ like that, you’d expect him to do well in the Chopper races and, indeed, he did. Entry numbers for the choppers were down a little this year – there were six to start with, but Richard Sharpe crashed his Victory early on in the day, hurting his wrist, and that left five: Shaun on the Dommie, Scott (on Shaun’s other bike) on the Rotax, Pete Stansfield on his old school Triumph, Fred on his GS500, and Warren on a wonderfully mad GSX750 chop with massive apes(!). Shaun pretty much lead each one from start to finish, taking a much wider line from all the

others that afforded him more grip, but the rest scrapped it out between them, and there’s something just so cool about watching an out-anout rat chopper and an old Brit hardtail fighting out on a dirt oval with a loony with monstrous ‘bars, foot-out, scrabbling for traction, roostertails of dirt flying from their back wheels.

For me, the Chopper races were the highlight of the day, but mention also has to be made of the brilliantly silly mini-moto race. Another really eclectic grid, it had traditional mini-motos, pit bikes, a converted mobility scooter, and a pushbike with an engine and a large toy dog under a blanket in a basket on the front (the rider, as far as I know, didn’t have, however, a long glowing finger, and I don’t think I saw him on his mobile once…), and began with a Le Mans-style start where the riders run to their machines and start them (not always successfully). Some of them had coloured smoke canisters attached, and it very soon was chaos, and I have no idea who won, who came second, who came third, or what the hell was going on. Class!

And as for Odgie, the man who (jointly) started all this? Bloody hell, he’s fast! He won the British and Vintage Flat-Track classes on his home-built 1966 BSA A65, with 750 conversion, and was holding his own against much, much younger competition machinery in others too – very impressive as, as I’m sure he won’t mind me saying, he’s no spring chicken these days. It’s funny, having followed his adventures over the years, I knew he was a good rider, but I didn’t know he was that good!

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ONCE UPON A TIME, IN A LAND FAR, FAR AWAY, THERE LIVED A MIGHTY OGRE, AND A PRINCESS. NEVER TRUST THE PRINCESS, SHE WAS A COW, BUT THE OGRE WAS A GOOD GUY. he day started normally enough.

The sun came up, and it looked like it would be a glorious April Sunday. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen, just an endless azure blue stretching into the distance. The ogre smiled to himself – there was no work today, the bridge he usually hid under was closed on a Sunday. Later that morning, after a breakfast of oats and mixed fruits, the ogre was shocked to read that ogres actually eat humans, especially children. He scratched his chin, “What do they think we are, monsters?”

At the side of his cottage lay a beautiful old wooden garage – not a swamp, this wasn’t, isn’t Shrek. Real ogres enjoyed taking

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their bikes out for a ride on a Sunday, not satisfying some insatiable thirst for human flesh.

Inside the garage awaited the ogre’s motorcycle. You might be wondering what kind of motorcycle would an ogre ride?

Well, it was a BMW, a horrible and ghastly thing with its engine so twisted and contorted that its cylinders were forced out sideways! With his fat ogre head squeezed into the limited space offered by a plastic open-faced helmet, the ogre smiled broadly, his ill-fitting teeth appearing like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Following the winding road from his cottage, the dreadful rhythmic thump of his Teutonic monstrosity echoed through the magical forest.

The Sunday morning traffic was light, just the occasional

farmer’s son taking a cow to market, probably for nothing more than a handful of magic beans. They were all the rage these days, the kids loved them.

It was playing havoc with the giants though, they couldn’t get a minute’s peace. No such worries for ogres, they’d just gobble them all up... well, if they ate children that is, which they don’t.

“Never even crossed my mind,” said the ogre to himself, giving the farmer’s son a wide berth before lining himself up for a sweeping left-hander. The Beemer shitbox took the corner like it was on rails, what else would you expect?

The road through the magical forest was regarded as the best road ever constructed anywhere (in fact it was the only road in the whole kingdom) – an epic series of sweeping curves flowing through a magical forest inhabited by sluts and whores... hold on, that can’t possibly be right?

The magical forest was actually a wondrous place,

inhabited by kindly elves and pixies, none of whom could ever be described as promiscuous – light of heart perhaps, and a bit camp, but nobody ever held it against them, they seemed happy enough.

Just around a bend the ogre slowed to avoid a toad trying to hitch a lift. They were best ignored – they all wanted to go to the magic kingdom, claiming they’d meet the princess, and be ‘the one’. Bloody nonsense, thought the Ogre, giving the croaking simpleton a sideways glance. A few miles further on was a little café who’s owner was friendly and welcomed ogres.

They even had their own corner of the car park where they would gather on a Sunday and swap ogre stories.

The ogres’d entertain themselves for literally hours on end by placing small goats in sacks to be eaten later... no, that never happened! They would actually stand around, drinking tea, while admiring each other’s motorcycles – no livestock was harmed, not a goat, not a lamb, nothing. It was all perfectly normal and harmless. Just a few ogres standing around talking about bikes, right?

Pulling into the café’s car park and exchanging nods with the other ogres, he noticed that quite a few of them also shared his lack of decency, and’d arrived on similar Bavarian shit tips, including the off-road ‘adventure’ version – something akin to crossing a jungle rope bridge on a werewolf. Sure, it was possible, but it was going to take a bite out of you at some point. Crossing the car park, the ogre was greeted by shouts and greetings from his friends, who

were stood around a sack on the ground which, they assured him, wasn’t a baby goat gruff, but was instead presents for the children up at the orphanage.

This wasn’t like them, thought the ogre to himself, and asked why the sudden interest in the children’s orphanage? They replied their interest was purely charitable, but a low rumble from someone’s stomach indicated otherwise.

The cafe was a small yellow building with a thatched roof, and inhabited by small people once called ‘dwarves’, but who are now classed as ‘seasonal workers’ to avoid a tax loop-hole for Middle Earthers, including dwarves, wraiths, and balrogs.

Entering the café, he was glad to see it was just dwarves and not bloody wraiths as he hated them – they’d sit huddled around tables cloaked in an air of black misery, wittering on about the cost of the bus, and the price of cat food.

As usual on a Sunday, the magical princess was behind the counter, her long golden hair cascading down her back ’til it almost reached the floor.

She served hot tea, and always wore a flimsy blouse two sizes too small, but nobody seemed to mind, specially the dwarves!

The ogre knew her better.

“Hey Brenda” acknowledged the ogre, with a nod of his head.

“Oh Frankieeee!” she squealed in a tone that made his ear lobes shrivel. “I didn’t see you standing there!” She giggled, pretending not to notice him.

“I’m a f**kin’ ogre, Brenda,” he sighed.

Tutting loudly, the princess poured him a hot mug of tea. If there was one thing she couldn’t

stand it was bad language… except during love-making, then there was no stopping the filthy cow. The ogre knew this only too well, and it had been nearly a month since he’d last seen her.

She was still achingly beautiful though, with those high cheek bones, and dainty little arms.

She was like a doll, and he could pick her straight up and pound the life out of her.

“Sugar?” she asked holding the tongs.

Damn, he was staring at those massive lumps again.

“Two, please,” said the ogre, trying to look anywhere but at Princess Brenda. Sure, you’ll put up with a lot for a princess, but even the ogre’d had enough when she started telling him to sell the motorcycle, and buy a nice convertible wagon – something with two ponies, and a comfy cushion to sit on.

Then there was the ogreing...

“Why don’t you get a proper job down the diamond mines or something?” He told her that kind of work was okay for ‘seasonal workers’, but he was an ogre through and through – he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes, and she knew it. He’d probably have gobbled them all up – ‘seasonal workers’ were delicious, with tender flesh and crunchy little bones. He could eat them by the dozen. His stomach gave a loud grumble.

Better go outside and see what the rest of the ogres are up to.

“Fancy a run up to the children’s orphanage?” asked someone.

“Go on then,” smiled the ogre.

“I’m starving!”

MURRAY ROBERTSON

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RHINO TRIKES HAVE A LONG ESTABLISHED REPUTATION FOR SOLID DEPENDABLE TRIKES – TRIKES YOU CAN RIDE EVERY DAY, AND STILL BUFF UP AND ENTER INTO A SHOW IF YOU’VE A MIND TO.

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ead gas axeman Nick has a bit of a secret past. In Germany, back in the Eighties, he had a custom business buying up old British classics, getting them around the strict German TUV (Type Approval) regs, and then turning them into radical choppers once the paperwork was sorted.

Then, in the ’90s, he moved back to the UK, and he established Rhino Trikes. Back then, there weren’t many trike builders – Chris Ireland and Nutty Norman at Desperate Dan’s built radical trikes, and around the same time Haydn started The Trike Shop, both looking to the top end of the market with their offerings. He decided to aim for the more affordable end with his early Rhinos before discovering, and settling on, Suzuki’s Intruder models as an excellent all-rounder. Back in the late 2000s, he rode a bike with a wide front end with five-degree raked yokes, and it looked, and rode, so well he decided to offer that option to all his trikes, and the ENGINE: Chunkster conversion was born.

1997 Suzuki VS1400 Intruder Then, in 2015, he decided to up the engine (K&N air-filter, Highway Hawk chrome mufflers, ante a bit with a trike featuring all the stainless hoses, anodised AN mods, and a sweet paint job to boot.

Performance hydraulic hose The plan, with the support of the fittings)/frame (modified)/ guy who was buying this particular foot-controls/front disc/ forks (extended springs)/front Chunkster, was to build a trike with master-cylinder (polished)/ the potential of winning ‘Best Trike’ controls/switchgear (polished)/ at the late lamented BMAD Paignton tail-piece/side-panels/loom Bike Fest – something that was going (modified), Highway Hawk Mad Max foot-rests, 170/80/15 front to be hard work as he’d be competing tyre, modified VS1400 rear against, amongst others, trikes built by wheel in front, Brembo radial The Trike Shop (who normally took front caliper, one-off mounting home the trophy). He really pulled bracket, one-off six-degree rake wide-glide yokes, Goodridge out all the stops (one-off back end, brake lines, Vincent-style flat severely chopped-about tank, new ‘bars. 8” torpedo risers, mini seat, new ’pipes, back wheel in the white-faced HiLevel clocks, onefront – the works), and gave it a deep off surround, Highway Hawk (www.highwayhawk.com) and amazingly shiny holographic aluminium grips/headlight/ paint job that, with its 23 coats of indicators, one-off front lacquer, absolutely sparkles in the sun. mudguard, modified HiLevel They also took along another fatbob tanks, one-off seat, Rhino Trikes 10” fibreglass rear trike too, a Ducati Monstermudguards, Rhino Trikes trike based one to which he’d fitted car rear end with mirror-polished spoilers, micro-lights and a fairing, Reliant diff/brakes, Hagon and rag-rolled it silver and candy Shocks (020 8502 6222 or www.hagon-shocks.co.uk) red over pink (which he hadn’t shocks, John Brown Wheels tried doing since the ’80s) just for

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(01926 817444 or www. johnbrownwheels.com) 7Jx13 ET-07 Starmag wheels, 20560x13 Laser Capri tyres, Rhino Trikes ‘bat’ rear lights

FINISH: Turquoise frame with cycle parts matt black overlaid with Specialist Paints (0114 275 2187 or www.specialistpaints.com) Holographic Silver/23 coats clear lacquer by Nick of Rhino Trikes, polishing by Moggy at Rhino Trikes, plating by Dorsetware (01202 677939 or www.dorsetware.com) ENGINEERING: Trike built & all engineering

by Nick at Rhino Trikes (01460 221110 or www.rhinotrikes.co.uk) THANKS TO: “Steve Greef for originally commissioning the build; & Simon for falling in love with it & buying it at the Calne show…”

fun with no aspirations of it winning anything – all their money was on the Chunkster with its eye-catching holographic paint, and reckoned all they’d need was sunshine to make the prisms come alive, and they’d have it in the bag. Sadly, on the day, it rained, and was overcast, and the Chunkster just looked black, and bland. The competition was a stunning orange trike that really was good, and Nick felt all was lost.

Unbeknown to him though, the celebrity who was judging’d brought his wife with him, and she fell in love with the Ducati, named ‘Baby Duke’, and they awarded it ‘Best Trike’!

Since the building of this particular Chunkster, Rhino’ve moved away from Suzuki Intruders as bases, and now offer Chunksters based on Sportster 883 and 1200 models (although they’re still more than willing to convert customers’ own bikes), and’ll have the first Harley Chunkster version very shortly. We look forward to seeing it!

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accessories

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clothing

OCTOBER 2021

THERE ARE FEW, IF ANY, MOTORCYCLES AROUND THE WORLD THAT HAVE SUCH A RECOGNISABLE LOOK AS THE CONFEDERATE P-51 COMBAT FIGHTER…

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arved entirely from a solid billet of military-grade aluminium, it has a look like no other production machine – it’s a vee-twin streetfighter that not only has the obligatory ‘big shoulders’ that the best ’fighters always had/have, but’s also angry enough to, to coin the old phrase, rip yer ‘ead off an’ shit down yer neck.

First produced towards the end of 2015, based on lessons learnt from the production of their first two models, the conventionally-forked Hellcat, and the over-sized girdered Wraith, the Combat, as it’s affectionately known, was a (very) limited production run beastie (numbers vary, depending who you talk to, between 61 and 65), most of which, it’s feared, have gone to museums and private collections and so, probably, won’t often feel the blacktop under their wheels. Most, but not all…

The one you see here belongs to Len Rinaldi, an ex-pat American who lives and works in London.

If his name sounds slightly familiar, it’s ’cos we featured his absolutely glorious genuine Exile Cycles Pure Sex Dragster back in issue 404, and he now also has this, probably the only one in the UK, Combat too. Don’t get the idea that it, or the Exile, are molly-coddled, vacuum-packed investment bikes though – he rode the Exile to Cumbria and back the other year, and pops down to the Ace every so often on it, too.

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As at the time this issue was going together he was off on ’is ’olibobs, so I can’t tell you of the circumstances in which he was to become the owner of one of the most exclusive production bikes in the world, but I can at least tell you about the bike. Made in Confederate’s Baton Rouge premises in Louisiana in the deep south of the US of A (as you maybe have guessed from the name), it’s powered by a 2,163cc, 56.25-degree V-twin that’s both an air-and oilcooled lump, and runs in a square layout with a 111.76mm bore and stroke, and uses three cams and four pushrods to time the two-valve heads. Induction control’s by way of a pair of 51mm S&S throttle bodies, with Delphi engine management, and it all rests atop a billet crankcase with a forged, one-piece crankshaft. It’s definitely no asthmatic cruiser – at 5,100rpm, it cranks out a very respectable

145 ponies, and its 170 foot-pounds of torque comes in at an astonishingly low 2,000rpm (just above tick-over!), and that means that this thing’s a bloody animal. To give you a comparison, the new BMW R18, an absolute torque monster, puts out just (just!) 116ft-lb, and that thing accelerates like a cat with a Roman Candle up its rectum, so what 170 at 2,000rpm feels like I can only imagine!

A multi-plate dry clutch puts down the power through a five-speed gearbox – it’s in a ‘stacked’ configuration that reduces the length of the gearbox, and uses Andrews gears (a highly respected name when it comes to quality drivetrain components). Exhausts snake around the left side of the motor, and exit (loudly!) behind the left rear-set.

This all means that one of the first Combats hit 164.93mph on the salt at

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Bonneville, and around towns and cities they’re pretty much unbeatable at the traffic light grand prix.

The bike carries its weight (254 kilos roughly) low, the wheelbase’s quite short at a smidge over five feet, and the seat’s reasonably low at 29.5 inches. Like most of the bikes we feature here at BSH, it’s not much of a race-track handler as, although it has a normal-sized 120 front tyre, the rear’s a monster 240. You don’t buy a bike like this to take it roundy-roundy racing though, do you, you buy it for the look…

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A large part of that look comes courtesy of the monocoque frame assembly that forms a kind of exoskeleton that the bike hangs from. Each Combat starts life as a 1,500 pound (680 kilo) chunk of aircraft-grade aluminium, and the factory mills and machines away everything that isn’t part of the design. A practical way to build a motorcycle? Not really, but nothing says quality like billet aluminium, does it? The seven-inch backbone also contains the 3.75 gallon fuel tank, and gives a look that brings to mind the old ‘strap tanks’ of yesteryear, and the girder-looking front end? Yep, it’s a doublewishbone parallelogram fork with a Race Tech shock (high/low speed compression, rebound-damping), and another Race Tech monoshock controls the alloy swingarm. Confederate-badged Beringer brakes (230mm front discs with four-pot radial calipers, a single 240mm rear disc with a twin-pot) sit on carbon fibre wheels, and the fuel and oil’re immediately visible through the windows in the frame, and you can watch the crank doing its thing through its window too.

In all it is, as I said, a motorcycle that instantly deserves the term ‘bad attitude’, and rides as it looks too.

It is, I think, one of the great motorcycle designs of the modern era, especially that front end, and the windowed frame, and I’m insanely jealous of Len for having it in his garage to see every time he opens the door…

NIK PICS BY GARRY STUART FOR MORE INFO’ ON THE CONFEDERATE P-51 COMBAT FIGHTER, AND OTHER BIKES IN THE RANGE TOO, GO TO WWW.COMBATMOTORS.COM

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“I ONLY SENT A PIC IN, IN THE HOPE OF WINNING A PAIR OF JEANS IN READERS LIVES – I WASN’T EXPECTING YOU TO COME AND FEATURE IT,” SAID STEVE, THE OWNER OF THIS REALLY RATHER AMAZING MZ CHOPPER WHEN I WENT DOWN TO SEE HIM EARLIER IN THE YEAR.

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*Wilf Green, the Sheffield-based motorcycle dealer who was largely responsible for the importing and popularisation of MZs back in the ‘60s

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e’d bought the bike after seeing it, and being blown away, on a Facebook ad, and, after a bit of research, tracked down the guy who’d built it – a chap by the name of Gareth Betteridge who has a history of building custom bikes and hot-rods. Information is a bit sketchy, but apparently the MZ was built for a bet – someone said to him: “I bet you can’t build a chopper out of an MZ!” They did have a point; custom MZs aren’t exactly common.

A quick Google of the words ‘MZ chopper’ turns up a host of really average creations (and, it has to be said, one or two absolute killers too) – nothing quite this good, quite this involved. And, whichever way you look at it, it really is involved. How any MZs do you know of, custom or otherwise, that have a one-off hardtail frame, a set of homemade girder forks, a modified custom tank, and a battery box that wouldn’t look out of place on a US hot-rod?

Let’s look at them individually, shall we? The frame, like most everything else, is all Gareth’s own work, and is an over-length affair, giving a wheelbase that’s longer than a stock MZ’s, and has a slight curve in its top tube/backbone as it stretches from headstock to rear axle. The skinny tube’s suitably braced and gusseted around said headstock, and the throttle cable(s) run down through it. The twin downtubes’re neatly done, and the 250 engine’s exhaust header comes out between them in a manner that’s pleasing to the eye, and the mounts for the torque arm at the rear’re nicely done too.

Moving forwards, those rather lovely girders’re also of Mr Betteridge’s design, and’re a work of art – slim, minimal, simple, and cleaner than Kim and Aggie’s kharzi. The ’bars’re part of the design, and’re as beautifully made as any high spec aftermarket ones. Controls and switchgear on ’em are both minimal and practical – just an aftermarket throttle, a neat little front brake master-cylinder, a simple clutch lever, and an old-school custom horn/high-low beam unit. The grips’re suitably padded, and don’t look out of place, and he’s further kept things clean by mounting a lawn-mower throttle-style choke lever down by the seat, rather than up on the ’bars.

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The fuel tank that sits behind them’s a bit special, too. It started life as a stock single-cap Mustang apparently, and’s been cut and narrowed dramatically to give a much more aesthetic shape, and’s had a neat rib added to its top. It also has a modified filler neck with a brass radiator cap from a 1932 car, and a very neat little curly breather to allow the tank to vent properly. It, in turn, sits above a cleaned, painted and detailed ETZ250 single-cylinder two-stroke motor with a polished bottom end and a contrasting black barrel and cylinder head. The carb’s been re-jetted, and fitted with an aftermarket cone air-filter, the left-side kickstart’s had its rubber pedal removed, and been polished, and looks all the better for it, and the exhaust’s an aftermarket ‘spanny (expansion chamber to you and me) that’s a lot more shapely than the original stock MZ drainpipe. It also gives a little boost in the engine’s power output, and lets the (in)famous MZ single ‘dink dink dink’ exhaust note ring out.

Moving backwards again, the battery box cum electrics box’s actually a reassuringly expensive Moon oil tank, from a dragster car apparently, picked up somewhere by Mr B, I suspect, for a song (well, a small amount of money actually, not an actual song… although you never know), and adapted to suit. The rear ’guard’s an aftermarket ribbed one that’s been cut down and mounted in such a way that it protects the engine, carb and electrics perfectly, and looks right, but does absolutely sod all for keeping the damp stuff off the rider. Oh well, they say you have to suffer for your art, don’t they, and, besides, we’ve all got washing machines, haven’t we?

The neat little light on the side-mount ’plate’s a tidy brass affair (as’re the forwards… well, brass and stainless anyway), and the front light, the headlight, is an aftermarket one with a brass grill on it ENGINE: that looks just right.

1989 MZ ETZ 250 engine (painted/ Gareth, who you’ll have understood detailed, re-jetted by now to be more than a bit handy carb, K&N airwith the spanners, is also responsible filter, aftermarket expansion chamber for the bike’s straight, but effective exhaust)/wheels/ paint. The frame, forks, and rear brakes, one-off ’guard’ve been done in the same custom frame/ stainless & brass suitably bronze/gold base coat as the forward controls/ tank, and then he stretched a set of girder forks/’bars/ fishnet tights over the top of the tank seat/loom/brass rear light/torque arm, before spraying the Kia lemon scallops. aftermarket levers, It’s a somewhat old-fashioned way of modified Mustang doing paint effects, but that doesn’t tank with 1932 car stop it being effective, does it? radiator cap/copper breather, modified Once the bike was done, he smoked aftermarket ribbed it about for a bit, then sold it on. Steve, rear mudguard, the current owner, found it from a modified Moon oil tank as electrics box, third party, and bought it, and he aftermarket bass grill absolutely loves it. It’s not immaculate, headlight he knows, as there are signs of wear FINISH: and tear, but that doesn’t stop it giving Kia lemon fishnet scallops over bronze/ him a big smile on his face every time gold base paint, & he rides it – something that’s added to polishing by Gareth by the fact that it’s his first bike since Betteridge 1983 (his missus calls it his mid-life ENGINEERING: Gareth Betteridge crisis). He has no future plans for it THANKS TO: other than to ride it, and “Gareth Betteridge enjoy it, and I really can’t say for building this I blame him. superb bike...”

NIK

PIC BY NIK

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AFTER I FINISHED MY FIRST CUSTOM BUILD (AS FEATURED LAST ISSUE) I GOT CARRIED AWAY AND DECIDED I WANTED TO DO ANOTHER BIKE. THIS TIME I DECIDED IT SHOULD BE A BMW… I PROBABLY SHOULD’VE GIVEN MYSELF SOME MORE BREATHING SPACE.

ometimes you get a bike that just fights you all the way, and this turned out to be one of those… which’s why it took about five years, and a pandemic lockdown, to finish! At times I got so fed up with it I left it for a while, and even built and finished another bike (also in BSH a while back) in between!

The donor, a 1979 R80/7, was found just across London. It looked worse for wear after a bad customisation attempt (and being left outside on a London street for a good while), but I rode it home, backfiring all the way.

That should’ve been a sign of things to come really! The seller mentioned some electrical issues, and the reason why became painfully clear very quickly – when I lifted the seat, there was a nest of wires that’d been ducttaped together (some wires weren’t connected at all).

When I set out I wanted to restore some of the bike’s classic looks, with nods to its heritage, while putting in some modern updates. Researching its history, I found that it’d served as a police bike in a former life, so I decided I was going to have it painted white, but with a pearl for some extra glamour. The tank was to be the biggest drama (and expense) by far! It’d been badly painted in yellow, and the inner seal was peeling off so, to refurbish it, I had it chemically

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stripped, but the painter found a whole load of pinholes, which were addressed by a mate of his, but so badly it had to be chemically stripped again. I had it sealed somewhere else, but it turned out the acid baths’d damaged the threads on the fuel taps so I had the nuts welded on to the threads, but this damaged the lining (again!).

I gave up on that tank, and sourced a new (old) one at considerable expense (these things are rare!), and had it painted, but the pain wasn’t over yet.

Just before final assembly the tank slipped off a chair in his kitchen, falling on to a bucket beneath, and spilling the contents all over the living room carpet… luckily, the tank wasn’t OCTOBER 2021

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modern X-Arc LED lights, the rear 3-1s (rear lights/brake lights/indicators) to make the rear of the bike as uncluttered as possible.

Being an ex-police bike, the radio box on top of the tank’s now utilised to house the electrical heart of the bike – the starter button (on top), the Boyer Brandsen ignition box, various relays, and a fusebox. Three strands of wire run through the drain hole in the tank, and connect into the loom with three Superseal plugs hidden under the tank. The loom’s been replaced/upgraded and, by using Superseal plugs, breaks into front, middle, and rear sections – easy to remove and install.

The finished bike’s registered as Historic, so it’s tax/MoT and, importantly in London, Congestion and ULEZ exempt. It’s also up for sale as I’m moving abroad – ring or text me on 07940 988883 if you’re interested!

MARCEL ORTMANS PICS BY NIK ENGINE: 1979 BMW R80/7 engine (flat-top Bing carbs with individual choke conversion, Boyer Bransden Micro Digital ignition, stock stainless downpipes with chrome cocktail shakers)/frame (new subframe by Down & Out Motorcycles)/foot-rests/ controls/wheels (rebuilt)/ brakes/forks/yokes/front master-cylinder/swingarm/ fuel tank, Avon Roadrider tyres, braided brake lines, Renthal Low ‘bars, BMW R50/5 switchgear/integrated throttle/levers/headlight/ mirrors, Motogadget Mini speedo/keyless igniton, LED idiot lights, 3-D printed/ milled alloy instrument surround, Biltwell Kung Fu grips, Flatracer GRP replica

damaged (bar a small ding on the tank lid which’s been fixed). To finish off the look, I wanted it (and the mudguards) to be hand-pinstriped so I asked my mate Nefarious to do the work. As always he did a great job but, unfortunately, it took me so long to finish the bike he never saw it done. I am now superprecious about it as he’ll never be able to fix it, and in this way he lives on.

I was never enamoured by the looks of the ’70s-style headlights and controls, so I looked to an even earlier BMW era, and sourced a re-pop headlight, mirrors, and original ’50/60s handlebar controls. These’re very hard to find (very!) and I ended up buying three from Germany and the US, and using parts of one to fix the buttons of another. To stay with the classic look I opted to refurbish the under-tank master-cylinder, and stock brake calipers, rather than upgrading them, and a last hint of the ’70s is the car seat vinyl on the seat, and the car door trim edge on the tank.

Although the looks’re classic, the electrics’ve been dragged into the 21st century; a Boyer Brandsen ignition unit was installed, and a new regulator/ rectifier to allow the use of a Antigravity battery (hidden under the swingarm).

Classic BMWs have an ignition key that inserts into the top of the headlight, so I installed a Motogadget keyless ignition in the same location, and I made a custom surround to go in it for a Motogadget Mini speedo, using a 3D printer to design it. These speedos’re usually run from a magnet at the front or rear wheel, but mine uses an Acewell speedo cable, in combination with a relay developed by a professor in Switzerland, to translate the signal for the Motogadget Speedo, and the speedo menu’s scrolled through by pushing one of the buttons of the refurbished R50/5 controls. Similarly, the indicators are

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front mudguard, Down & Out Motorcycles seat (re-covered in ‘70s vinyl), modified front mudguard as rear, hidden battery box, Hagon Shocks (020 8502 6222 or hagonshocks.co.uk) shocks, one-off side-mount ’plate, one-off loom, hidden battery, starter button on tank lid, hidden killswitch, X-Arc 3-1 rear light/ indicators, upgraded policespec regulator/rectifier

FINISH: Lexus pearl white paint

by Darren Scannell, silver hand-painted pinstriping by the late Simon ‘Nefarious’ Pollock, powder-coating by Windridge Coatings (01843 604474 or windridge.co.uk) & Hi- Spec Coatings (02030 020067 or hi-speccoatings.

co.uk), polishing by Nick the Polisher

ENGINEERING: Bike built by owner, engine work by local BMW workshop, final tune by Michael at BMW Motorcycle Boxer Workshop (07572 700469 or bmwclassicmotor cyclerepairs.com) THANKS TO: “Down & Out Motorcycles (01709 821600 or bespokemotorcycles. co.uk); Steve Hallam for advice on electrics; Richard ‘Higgybottom’ Higgins for covering the seat; Darren Scannell; & the late Simon ‘Nefarious’ Pollock…”

AS I SAID A WHILE BACK, PEOPLE WHO WANT A FACTORY CUSTOM/CRUISER DON’T, THESE DAYS, HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF CHOICE… 58

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ssuming you don’t want an ‘Arley (and a lot of people don’t… a lot of people do, I grant you, but a lot don’t too) or an Injun, of the Japanese marques, there’s really only the Kawasaki Vulcan or the Honda Rebel, in its 500 and 1100cc forms.

The Ducati Diavel isn’t really a cruiser, neither is the Enfield Meteor; there’re a few small capacity Chinese offerings, and… umm, that’s about it really. The only other cruiser, really, is Triumph’s Bobber, isn’t it?

As we (well, I) have a CMX1100 Rebel on a long-term loan, and Triumph’d

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offered the short-term loan of a Bobber, I timed it for when the good lady was off work for a few days, and we headed off to Cornwall for a back-to-back test of both bikes, so that we could swap back and forth all week, and really compare them. That didn’t actually happen – Pam decided she absolutely adored the Bobber, and the only chance I got to ride it was to turn it round each morning in the gravelly car park of the rented cottage we were in…

Anyway, moving swiftly along, both bikes really got put through their paces. The first day (Suffolk to Glastonbury across the Cotswolds) was bright and sunny, but the next

(Saturday), and the following one too (Sunday), were torrential pretty much dawn to dusk, and all I can really say about them is that the M5 and the A30 are really, really miserable in the pissing rain. Thankfully, the sun came out Monday, and stayed out for the rest of the week, and so we were able to get down to business.

So, comparing the two: the Rebel’s an 1100, and the Bobber’s a 1200. The Honda’s engine makes 85 horsepower, and the Triumph 76, but it does have 78ft-lb of torque to the ‘Onda’s 72 which means that the Bobber grunts away a little harder than the Rebel, but runs out of puff earlier. The Triumph also has a slightly smaller tank (12 litres to the Honda’s 13.6), and so has slightly less range – filling both bikes up at the same time saw Pam’s fuel light come on a good 10-15 miles earlier than mine. Weight-wise, the Trumpy’s just short of 30 kilos heavier than the ‘Onda (251kg to 223), the seat heights SEPTEMBER 2021

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are about the same (although the Honda feels smaller), and the Bobber has more conventional mid-mount ‘pegs as standard, while the Rebel’s are forwards.

The Rebel also has better brakes and suspension. Despite the fact that it has a single stopper at the front, as opposed to the Triumph’s twin discs, the front anchor on the ‘Onda’s a modern four-piston monobloc radial with plenty of power and feel, while the Triumph’s old-school twin-piston calipers’re a bit wooden. They work just fine, it has to be said, but they’re just not up to the standard of the Rebel’s.

Similarly, the Bobber’s rear shock’s bloody hard, and non-adjustable, and really does go ‘clang’ over bumps, while the Honda’s remote-ressie twins’re adjustable for pre-load, and just feel plusher. The Triumph’s forks’re fatter than the Honda’s (47mm to 43), but the Honda’s, again, are adjustable

whereas the Bobber’s aren’t. Out on the road you can really feel the difference – the Rebel feels a sight more comfortable than the Bobber, and you’re not continually fired out of the

THE HONDA CMX1100 REBEL THE TRIUMPH BOBBER COSTS FROM £8,999, AND COSTS FROM £11,850, YOU CAN GET MORE INFO’ AND YOU CAN GET MORE FROM YOUR LOCAL HONDA INFO’ FROM YOUR LOCAL DEALER OR WWW.HONDA. TRIUMPH DEALER OR WWW. CO.UK/MOTOR TRIUMPHMOTORCYCLES. CYCLES CO.UK

seat. The Triumph feels longer too, and steers quite a lot slower, and requires a bit more effort to tip into bends.

Both bikes have ABS and traction control, power modes (two on the Bobber, Rain and Road, and four on the Rebel – Rain, Road, Sport and User which allows you to adjust the levels of traction control, engine braking… and wheelie control, oddly), cruisecontrol (again, the Honda’s is easier to use), and absolutely sod all in the way of luggage capacity. The Rebel has a

rear rack (now), yes, while the Bobber really has bog all, but it fits so closely to the rear ‘guard that getting straps or bungees on to it’s a major pain in the arse. Really, if you buy either of these, you really need an other half with a bike with a decent back seat if you’re

planning any travels, or just don’t do big trips on ‘em!

Where the Bobber really does score far, far higher than the Rebel’s in the style stakes. From the moment it was launched back in 2017, it was always one of the prettiest bikes on the market, whereas the Rebel… look, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing actually wrong about the Rebel, it’s just that the tank is… well, odd. It looked odd on the 500, and it still looks odd on the 1100, too. It’s weird – Honda’ve always done the tanks on their previous cruisers (the Shadows, the smaller Rebels) perfectly, and’ve always made them suitably swoopy. The CMX tank though… it, umm, looks like Robocop’s head’s melted. I know it’s been done so

that your legs aren’t splayed outwards as with a traditional cruiser tank (which, no matter how low the seat height is, always have fat tanks and seats that spread your legs outwards and make them awkward for those with shorter legs), and so it’s skinnier and therefore more comfortable, but it just looks a little… yeah, odd’s the word.

Sorry Honda!

And, basically, that’s what it comes down to; the Rebel’s the better bike, but the Bobber’s that much prettier. It is, to use a totally sexist comparison, the difference between brunettes and blondes – us blokes’re almost genetically programmed to look at ladies with blonde hair, and when we do so we may miss a better-looking,

cleverer, and potentially more compatible brown-haired lass because of it. As I said, the Rebel’s the better bike (slightly faster, better suspension, better brakes, longer tank range, better equipped, and significantly cheaper (£8,999 to the Bobber’s £11,850), but it’s a bit plain next to the Bobber and, for a lot of folk, it’s the looks that count. Are you one of them?

NIK RIDING: PAM & AL OCTOBER 2021

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AFTER PRETTY MUCH THE WHOLE OF OUR 2020, AND HALF OF 2021, CANCELLED DUE TO ‘THAT VIRUS’, ORGANISERS THIS YEAR’VE BEEN JUMPING THROUGH MULTIPLE BUREAUCRATIC HOOPS TO BE ALLOWED TO PUT ON SEVERELY RESTRICTED VERSIONS OF THE EVENTS WE VALUE SO HIGHLY IN OUR LIVES.

ortunately for us the inimitable Penfold of the BBRF took a proactive stance, and ensured he won over the environmental health officers at Stratford-upon-Avon District Council with a fully vaccinated risk assessment that they couldn’t find fault with – huzzah for Penfold!

For a week beforehand the forecast claimed we were in for a wet weekend in Warwickshire, but I don’t think that deterred a single one of the 250 ticket

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holders – just about every one of them was there by six o’clock on the Friday night. I dumped my gear on to the grass and just lay there, soaking up the familiar smell of hot engines and musty tents – at last!

Southam Rugby Club site hosted half-a-dozen trade and charity stands, and a food van that offered a fair variety at reasonable prices. The rugby club ran the bar, and provided access to their proper toilets, and shower block, which made it a frightfully civilised little rally.

First band on the Friday were classic three-piece tribute artists 8 Foot Under who were brilliant, and DJs kept us happy campers entertained between bands with our kind of music. Next up was Ion Maiden, and with oodles of space for dancing, and plenty of tables and chairs spread around, patrons could feel confident about enjoying themselves safely.

Saturday morning brought mixed messages from the weather fairies, but joy was restored by Loopy introducing me to the joys of the Hot OCTOBER 2021

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Pack All Day Breakfast – a self-heating meal that’s ready in ten minutes, and’s just like real food but without the hassle of cooking (and it comes in lots of scrummy flavours!).

Saturday afternoon eased us gently back into party mood with bluesy rock from The Will Ball Trio, while people started to assemble the bikes for the show in the large space between the trade stands and the seating areas.

It’s a very laidback show, with judging by Penfold with rosettes

left on the winning bikes – Penfold’s Choice, Best Rat, Shiniest Bike, and Best In Show. Two bikes, a red Harley, and a very old Raleigh moped that was ridden there, were both given Honourable Mentions.

The Sore Arse Award for the furthest travelled went to Mary Bailey (187 miles), and Club Turnout went to Alliance MCC from nearby Rugby.

Saturday night there was a last-minute change to the line-up due to illness, so Diesel kicked off the early evening, followed by Overdrive, a rock covers band who play regularly at BBRF events. They were a singer short due to illness, but backing singer Heather stepped up to valiantly sing lead for the whole set. A short break for the raffle and entry ticket stub draw followed, then Jester stepped up from support to take the headline spot, bringing the event to a rocktastic finale.

Even with this year’s reduced numbers, Penfold and his team raised £1,000 to split between two charities – the British Biker Relief Foundation, which supports motorcyclists and their families across the UK after serious and life-changing injuries, and Justice 4 Harry, whose friends and family were there raising awareness for his case.

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FAZERDAZE

VOL. IV, PART IX

THE THING ABOUT BRAKES, APART FROM THE FACT THAT THEY’RE FAIRLY ESSENTIAL, IS THAT THEY PROVIDE A LOT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR MAKING PUNS, WHICH IS SOMETHING I THINK I SHOULD AVOID HERE AS WE COULD ALL DO WITH A BREAK.

ost motorcycles these days have perfectly adequate brakes, and any shortfall in performance’s usually down to a lack of maintenance rather than any design flaws, and fitting ‘better’ brakes won’t remove the need for maintenance. On older machines where the brakes aren’t up to the standard we’re now used to, fitting a master-cylinder with a smaller

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bore than the original can make a worthwhile improvement without involving anything more complicated than normal hand tools. Bear in mind though that it’s the area of the piston, rather than the diameter, that’s doing the work, and a 14mm bore has an area of 153.958sq.mm, and a 13mm bore has an area of 132.7495sq.mm – a drop of around 14% which is a fairly substantial change, and leads to a reasonable increase in brake fluid pressure. It’s a fairly common mod on XS650s, and

my old single disc XS650 was fitted with a 13mm Magura master-cylinder which made a lot of difference to the braking, and improved the feel.

If you’re thinking of improving the brakes on something of that era, then a master-cylinder swap is a good place to start. This brings me to the KLR, and its lack of a front brake. To go back to the beginning, when I was lowering the whole thing I wanted to use a smaller diameter front rim than the 21” it came equipped with and, to that OCTOBER 2021

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VOL.IV PART IX

end, I fitted a 19” Cagiva wheel that I had lying around. That meant there wasn’t a mechanical speedo drive any more, and the disc on the Cagiva wheel was about 10mm larger in diameter than the Kawasaki one, and sat further away from the fork leg (Fig.1), which meant that the caliper

5mm (Fig.2) and, since I had some 5mm steel plate, I could make the bracket out of that. The caliper mounting bracket’s also made out of 5mm thick steel, which’d tend to suggest that a piece of 5mm plate would be up to the job.

To do this by drawing it out I

empirical approach, and started by measuring the hole centres for the caliper (Fig.3). Since accuracy was important, and everything was Japanese, I measured it in metric because, chances are, if the ruler says 55mm then the holes’re exactly 55mm apart. That’s 2 11/64 of an

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11 wouldn’t fit. Okay, so this could’ve all been avoided by getting a 19” rim laced to the Kawasaki hub, but that would’ve meant spending money and I’m not very good at that so it was time to make an adapter bracket to move the caliper away from the spindle, and in towards the disc.

Having to move the caliper significantly inboard was fortunate as that left room for the adapter bracket. With the caliper sat on the disc, the gap between its mountings and the lugs on the fork leg was

would’ve measured from the centre of the spindle to the centre of each of the holes in the mounting lugs, and then measured them centre-tocentre, giving me three sides of a triangle. Then, I’d’ve taken the same measurements for the caliper with it sat in the right place on the disc, giving me two triangles that shared a common point (the spindle centre) that I could superimpose on each other, and rotate them until there was room for everything. Rather than draw it though, I used a more

inch, and you’re already about 5 thou out if you measure it in imperial.

Armed with a measurement, I slipped the caliper on to the edge of the steel plate, and marked where the holes landed with a felt pen (Fig.4). Then I centre-punched one of the marks, and set my calipers to 55mm, then put one leg of the calipers in the centre-punch, drew an arc with them, and measured the distance between the centre pop and the line, and adjusted the calipers to correct the distance.

Once I was happy that they were set at exactly the right distance, I scribed a mark on the second felt pen mark (Fig.5), set the centrepunch on it, and lightly tapped the punch with a hammer. Getting an accurate punch mark can be tricky but, by making a very light mark,

drill bits make slightly oversize holes, a 10mm one’d probably’ve worked.

At this point the 5mm plate needed sculpting to clear the caliper body, so I took off just enough material to clear the body with a flap disc on the grinder (Fig.9). With the caliper bolted to the plate, I offered

At this point it’s helpful to have an assistant hold the caliper while you mark the positions of the mounting holes on to the bracket, so you can safely assume that the picture of me marking the holes with one hand (Fig.14) while taking a photo with the other was faked. Since

then it’s possible to move the mark by angling the punch, and striking it harder this time. (Having the calipers set to the distance you require also makes starting again relatively painless.)

With the hole locations centre punched, I drilled them with a pilot drill (Fig.6) before moving on to the correct size drill. I chose a 10.2mm drill (Fig.7) so that I had clearance on the bolts, but everything wasn’t going to flop around while the bolts were loose (Fig.8) although, as most

it up to the disc to get a rough idea of what I was going to have to cut off (Fig.10), and used the jig-saw to cut the material down to a more manageable size (Fig.11). That let me get the caliper in something like the right place to mark the holes for the mounting lugs. Before doing that, I taped some thick wire to the disc to space the caliper off the edge (Fig.12), checking from the other side of the disc to see that the pads were sweeping the right part of the disc (Fig.13).

the mounting holes were originally meant for bolting the caliper too, it followed that they were the same distance apart as the caliper holes, so I’d set the calipers to one side so that they were still adjusted to the correct measurement. When marking out the holes, I first centre-popped the one nearest the wheel spindle, then scribed an arc with the calipers before drilling that hole to 10.2 mm.

This allowed me to position the plate, and the caliper, on the forks and re-mark the second mounting

VOL.IV PART IX

hole as a bit of insurance against having made an error due to the lack of assistance (see Fig.14).

Once I was happy that the last hole was in the right place, I centre-popped it, and drilled it out to size before trimming the bracket to its finished size. Placing washers under the heads of some bolts placed in the holes’s a useful guide when marking out the finished shape (Fig.15). As luck would

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have it, there was sufficient clearance between the adapter bracket and the disc to get a nut in there (Fig.16), which saved me from having to machine anything, and a rummage through the bolt drawer produced a couple of 10mm bolts with shanks long enough to protrude from the mounting lugs and into the adapter bracket once the threads’d been cut down to length (Fig.17), but I’m going to have to go

online and find the fine thread bolts for the caliper, which means I’ll have spent some money after all.

With the bracket bolted in place (Fig.18), the caliper sits behind it, and bolts in place quite happily (Fig.19), and I think that’s pretty much all the major lumps sorted out on this (Fig.20), and just a few bits and pieces to track down. Anyone got a YDS7 petrol cap?

MR. BRIDGES OCTOBER 2021

I’D JUST FINISHED THE HALF-POUNDER (‘ONE HALF-POUND OF PRIME MINCED SCOTCH BEEF ON A KING SESAME BURGER BUN, GARNISHED WITH TACO RELISH, DILL, CUCUMBER, TOMATOES, ONIONS, PRAWN SAUCE, AND FRENCH FRIES’), AND I WAS SETTLING DOWN WITH CONSIDERABLE ANTICIPATION TO THE HOTTO-CHOCCO HEAVENLY SURPRISE (‘HOT CHOCOLATE GATEAU SURROUNDED BY SWIRLS OF CREAM, AND TOPPED WITH A YUMMY-SCRUMMY HOT CHOCOLATE SAUCE’) WHEN I WAS DISTURBED BY THE APPEARANCE OF SCUM, A YOUNG AND WILD-EYED BABY BIKER OF MY ACQUAINTANCE.

looked decidedly out of place in the serene Viennese splendour of Fritz Galnickal’s Austrian Burger Bar, especially since he was dressed in his older brother’s oily Levis, a Clash tee-shirt, hiking boots, eight feet of studded wristbands, and a green Barbour jacket worn over a fringed suede waistcoat, not to mention the pigtails, and the Marlon Brando leather pilot’s cap with chains (and I’d rather not, come to think of it).

“Ere, Jim,” he informed me, “you’d better get to Cheapside – all the bikes have fallen over.”

Cheapside is where we park all our bikes on a Saturday, since it’s one of the few places sanctioned by the Council, albeit unofficially, where you can park bikes and not have them napalmed by traffic wardens, disinfected by the social services, or welded together by enraged car owners.

There’s just one problem – it’s on a hill and, while older and more mature bikers, like me, always go to the trouble of heaving our bikes on to their centre-stands, it has been known for the less thoughtful to just kick out the prop-stand and wander off, leaving their machinery to tilt sideways in the sun-warmed tarmac. That’s all right if they’re at the bottom of the hill, at the far end of the line...

Scum’s words’d just reminded me that my BSA was at the bottom of the hill, at the end of the line (parked on the main-stand, of course).

I groaned, cursed, pushed the Hotto-chocco Heavenly Surprise to one side untasted, and got up to leave. As I walked out, a bony, middledaged vegetarian lady looked at me with some satisfaction, and commented: “You’ve probably saved your life, walking away from that muck.

Do you realise there’s 3000 calories in chocolate cake with cream and hot sauce? And, frankly, you don’t look as if your arteries’d stand much more abuse.”

“Piss off,” I told her, because it didn’t seem the time or place to start explaining why I’m a firm believer in the 13,000 Calories Per Day Sumo Wrestlers Diet.

As I was walking through Market Square I was accosted (I use the word loosely, you understand) by a bulky dungaree-clad feminist with shortcropped hair and a distinctly rodent-like cast of features; she was carrying a bundle of magazines, and I caught sight of the leading article on the front page – ‘Castration: The Solution to Sexist Aggression? The Sisters Speak Up’.

“Ere, mate, want a ‘Woman’s Voice’?” she rumbled at me.

HE

“No thank you,” I squeaked back in my highest falsetto, “can’t you tell I’ve already got one?”

It took me five minutes to walk away, and throughout all that time I was followed by the best and most colourful verbal abuse I’ve ever encountered – not only was I accused of things I had actually been and done, but I was castigated (and I mean castigated!) for things I’ve never even contemplated doing… well, not until I had them described to me, anyway.

When I got to Cheapside, I was quite cheered up by the sight of the bikes, despite Scum’s ominous words of warning. An LC125 (yes, it’d been parked on its prop-stand) had fallen over the other way, and knocked over a 400 Super Dream. This’d toppled an XS850, which’d knocked a ratty 500 Triumph into a BMW, which’d caused a Gold Wing to lurch over, crushing a Jawa and an MZ125 (which now had a bit of Puch moped sticking through it). And, eight feet away from this mountain of scrap, and still on its centre-stand, was my BSA Lightning, looking as good as it always did.

I was still sniggering about this when someone backed an Austin Allegro into it from the other end, with a sound like a Centurion tank being fed slowly through a hover mower piece by piece.

The driver, a middle-aged man with a flat cap, a pipe, and braces holding up grey flannel trousers, got out of his car, and looked down at the bike, which was dribbling petrol out of the filler cap vent-hole, which was at least washing some of the oil off the leaky barrels before it hit the Tarmac and started melting it.

“Bloody stupid place to park a bike eh, mate?” he said to me. “I’d like to meet the pillock who decided to park here.”

I handed him the headlamp, which I’d picked up just as it was starting to roll downhill, damaging Joseph Lucas’s fine chrome – it’s funny how the Prince of Darkness never got around to making decent electrics when you consider his headlamps were shinier and more rust-resistant than anything the people who actually made the bikes ever got around to fitting. “Just give this a rub,” I told him, and he looked puzzled, as well he might.

“Why?” he asked me.

“Because,” I told him, “I’m the genie of the bloody lamp, that’s why, and I’ve decided to grant your wish – you blind arse’ole, I’m the pillock who owns the bike, that’s why.”

He suddenly became interested in BSA A65s, and scrutinised it closely. “It’s a BSA twin, innit?” he queried. “About fifteen years old?”

I nodded.

“Whew,” he said, with a crazed smile of relief, “good job I didn’t run into a new bike, eh? Particularly one of those big Jap ones, it would’ve cost me an arm and a leg!”

“It still might,” I said, fishing in my bag for the three-foot, six-pound adjustable wrench.

“But I’m sure we can come to some amicable arrangement before your appointment in intensive care...”

“But I’m not ill,” he assured me, so I assured him he was a lot sicker, potentially, than he’d ever believed possible, at which point the penny dropped, and he started reaching for his cheque book.

When he’d driven off, looking amazed at the cost of spares for British bikes, I levered the Beesa up, and pushed it down the hill to the bike shop, which was still being run by Frank (Senior) in those days, and was the last bastion of British bits, advice, commonsense and sanity (it still is, incidentally, now it’s in the hands of Frank Junior, although he’s caught on that £3.12.11d is no longer a reasonable price for a Gold Star silencer, which is something of a pity).

_____________

Old Frank was in good form when I entered the shop. “No,” he was saying to a depressedlooking pseudo-outlaw, “I can’t ever recall Harley making a two-stroke vee-twin. Can you?” he said, catching sight of me, and I assured him that Harley had made a lot of funny bikes, but never one quite as funny as that.

“Of course,” he went on, looking up at the sky as if receiving divine revelation, “if you’d only ever owned a Bantam and a Suzuki 500, you might think a Harley side-valve was a twostroke, with those funny fins sticking up on the cylinder heads, eh?” He grinned, knowing this was a sore point with me ever since I’d called at a garage on my WLA and had an over-eager attendant put a pint of oil straight into the peanut tank, convinced of the same point (not that the Harley ran much worse for it, but there you go). “Seized, has it?” he asked the luckless other H-D owner.

“But I was running it on a 40:1 petrol/oil mix,” the bemused would-be Peter Fonda answered. “I never had any trouble with my Bantam like that…”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Frank replied patiently.

“I’ll try to explain it simply to you. The thing is…”

At this point I decided to borrow some tools and bolt the Lightning back together again, because I wasn’t sure that my sphincter was up to dealing with all that suppressed hysteria.

“Oil,” Frank was saying as I walked out of the shop, “is like blood…”

“I don’t understand,” the H-D owner was saying. “I mean, Duckham’s is green, innit?”

I got into the car park, pushing the Beeza, and caught sight of the Harley. You couldn’t mistake it – it was the only bike there with bright blue and purple exhausts all along its length, not to mention a smell of melting metal, of course.

As I was bolting the headlamp back in place, there was an erratic spitting, roaring, clattering, whistling noise from the far end of the car park, and Mad Max broadslid towards me on his GS750 chop. Not THE Mad Max, of course, just A Mad Max. Not that he wasn’t called Max (that’s what his parents’d called him), and everybody else’d added the ‘Mad’ when the leather-clad figure of Mel Gibson erupted on to the silver screen just as our Max got his first big bike. It was an old BSA Thunderbolt I’d sold him in fact, but he never seemed to hold that against me, although we’d had a slight disagreement about why I’d ridden it for a year without even an oilleak, and he’d blown it apart in six weeks.

He’d started taking the nickname seriously, and dressing the part, which’d achieved the sort of style that had got dogs yapping at the mere smell of him, old ladies keeling over at the sight of him, and every copper who was old enough to have done National Service and remember the fading vestiges of Empire wish to have him in a sniper’s sight for five seconds – don’t ask me why, he was completely harmless, it’s just that he was… err, well, mad, that’s all.

“Hiya, Foggie,” he said to me, grinning crazily, and flinging his bike on to its stand, and cutting the engine.

“Christ, that Suzuki of yours sounds really rough,” I answered. “Burnt valves, blown gaskets, leaking silencers, carbs out of synch…” “…You haven’t noticed the dragging clutch, huh?” he said triumphantly. “You must be getting senile. Like the crossbow?” he added, waving an arm on which there was a nylon moto-cross shinpad strapped, with something mediaeval mounted on it. “And how about the chainmail, eh?”

He was wearing chainmail underpants, outside his patchwork leather jeans of course. It went well with the brass studs, the scrambler armour, and the disintegrating leather and denim, and I told him so, too.

“I’m ready for the breakdown of civilisation,” he assured me. “How about you, eh Foggie?”

“I’m not even ready for civilisation,” I answered. “I spend three hours every morning wondering which leg I ought to put first into my Levis when I start to get out of bed…”

“That right?” he replied, and looked at the slightly battered Beeza. “Oh, I thought you’d just started work on your Armageddon bike.”

“No, that was a guy in an Allegro,” I assured him, and he asked me if the guy could do the same for his Suzuki, and I said it was quite likely.

“Fancy coming to a religious meeting?” he suddenly asked, and it surprised me enough to ask him why.

He smiled with that crazed serenity you often get with people like Mad Max. “Thought you’d be interested,” he answered which, I’ve got to admit, delivered as it was in Max’s own inimitable style of barmy charm and supercilious cunning, made me think he had an ulterior motive, which probably indicated that

he’d got something planned that could easily be entertaining in a warped sort of way.

“Okay,” I was not too surprised to hear myself saying. “Why not? I was only going to have the cat doctored today, and I guess it’ll keep. Besides which, I’ve got to catch the bloody cat first, in any case, and I don’t think I can be bothered, either. Okay, lead me to it, huh?”

_____________

I don’t suppose many people’ve heard of the Septimus Oakshott Society for Spiritual Regeneration and Cosmic Consciousness by the Power of Tharg. That’s right, Tharg. I got to learn a lot about Tharg while Max and I were looking around the display outside the lecture hall in the building that had once been a Victorian mortuary. You can’t see it, hear it, touch it, or be aware of it in any way whatsoever… well, unless you’re Septimus Oakshott, in which case you’ve been given it in great chunks by the Neptunian Master Pril, who’s one of the Cosmic Masters whose special job it is to look after Earth. Apparently crime, banditry, perplexity of nations, and distress in all forms’ll cease, and we’ll all be spiritually regenerated, when Septimum Oakshott’s recognised worldwide as the Voice of Pril (or possibly Tharg – the posters weren’t too clear on that). Not only that but Tharg (or possibly Pril) built the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Chartres Cathedral, and Milton Keynes (don’t ask), and we British are the Lost Tribes of Israel and/or the remnants of the Atlantean and Lemurian civilisations.

“Do you believe this?” I asked Mad Max incredulously, as we were waiting for the lecture room doors to open.

“Course I bleedin’ don’t,’”he told me indignantly, which made me start to think again, in a very reassuring way, I might add, that maybe Max wasn’t all that Mad after all.

“Well, why the hell are we here then?” I asked him, and he winked, grinning secretively, and tapped his nose with an oily forefinger.

_____________

All started to be made clear when we were ushered into the lecture room by a tidy and dapper sandy-coloured gent of middle-age to take our seats amongst other equally tidy, neat, fussily prissy people of mixed ages and both sexes. They all looked like librarians, retired teachers, computer programmers who’d become religious maniacs, and born-again tax inspectors.

I don’t know about you, but I find the obsessively tidy a bit unnerving – I’m always convinced that all that primness and prissiness’s hiding a horrendous secret they’re going to unleash upon me personally just as soon as they can get me where there aren’t any witnesses. I always feel more at home with squalor, somehow – you’re bound to when you’ve been riding bikes as long as I have. Mad Max was grinning as the speaker came up to the rostrum. “Good morning, Brothers and Sisters of the SOSSRCC,” he said, beaming out through his tidy glasses, which were perched on a tidy little nose above a tidy (and prissy) little mouth, “and may Tharg be with you. Well, unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances Mr Oakshott can’t be with us,” (which wasn’t too good for someone in touch with Pril and the rest of the Cosmic Masters, I couldn’t help thinking), “but we have a guest speaker here today whom I’m sure you’ll find very interesting, when he tells you about how Tharg has changed his life. Please put your hands together to welcome Mr Dennis Pritchard, whose

story will fascinate, enthrall, and spellbind you as living proof of the power of Tharg as it is working today through Neptunian Master Pril and Septimus Oakshott!”

A horrendous figure shambled out from a side room, lurched over to the rostrum, and got on to it with much creaking, both from the wooden rostrum itself, and the many layers of leather the guy was dressed in. He was tall, scrawny and pimply, but he still managed to look gigantic because he was wearing bottom-heavy motocross boots with steel shin-pads, leather jeans that looked as if they’d been made out of dead rhino, a leather jacket festooned with every cloth and metal badge ever made, as well as chrome studs, pieces of bog-chain, padlocks, and what looked like bits of grandfather clock, as well as a fur jacket over that, that’d probably looked far better on the original animal (whatever the hell that’d been – probably a giant carnivorous hamster). To complete the ensemble he wore a leather hat with conchos, a scrubby beard, and fingerless studded leather mitts.

“May Tharg be with you, Children of Pril,” he opened, with a voice that might’ve been resonant if it hadn’t seemed to be suffering from the squeakiness of delayed puberty (it must’ve been delayed, because he looked about thirty). “Before I saw the light, and received enlightenment from the Cosmic Masters and Septimus Oakshott, I was the meanest, roughest, toughest Hells Angel this side of California – a hog-riding, dopedealing, violent dude the cops called hell on wheels, known to friends and enemies alike as Dangerous Dennis, the Angel of Death,” he went on, obviously not into starting his talk on a quiet, conversational note.

“Wait a bloody minute,” I hissed to Mad Max. “I know that guy, isn’t it…”

“That’s right,” Max replied in a whisper, smiling happily. “It’s Thin Bollock…”

Maybe I ought to explain the nickname. I used to go to school with a guy called Fat Bollock – he got that name because… well, first of all he was fat, and secondly because, in a moment of desperate exasperation with his stupidity (which was the only thing he ever worked hard at) an English teacher’d said to him: “My God, Prentiss, you’re about as much bloody use to the world as a bollock on a teapot,” shortly before handing in his resignation and signing on for the Fleetwood trawlers, which led to him eventually writing a successful novel.

Thin Bollock was his younger brother – he was thin, but he’d got the other 50 per cent of unyielding natural stupidity God’d handed out to the Prentiss family, and that explains the nickname.

“Hells Angel?” I queried. “Surely not? They wouldn’t even’ve had him in the Boy Scouts!”

“They wouldn’t even have had him in the bleeding Brownies,” Max mumbled back. “I told you this’d be good.”

“I didn’t know he’d even had a bike,” I answered, and Max choked and sniggered at the same time.

“He’s got a Francis Barnett 200 with apehangers,” he assured me, “but his Mum never lets him ride it. That must be what he means by ‘hell on wheels’!”

“Mean? Dope-dealing? Violent?” I questioned, and Mad Max grinned lopsidedly.

“Never buys a round of drinks – he’s really mean,” he told me. “Sells nicotine chewing-gum to schoolkids who’re trying to stop smoking, and once hit a girl’s handbag at a disco when she told him to piss off. Criminal record too – hit a bubblegum machine when it wouldn’t deliver, and out falls 15,000 little red, yellow, blue and green balls.

He panics, and he’s trying to cram ’em all back

when a copper comes up and books him for breaking and entering, vandalism, and not having an MoT certificate for his scrambles boots!”

“A real hard dude, huh?” I commented, and Mad Max nodded.

“Dangerous Dennis, the Angel of Death,” he answered, and then fell off his seat, twitching and trying to cram his spotted bandana in his mouth to avoid cracking up altogether, as the tears spilled out of his eyes, and he started making snorting and snuffling, whimpering noises.

By this time people were beginning to notice us, you might say, and everybody was turning round, making cat’s-arse expressions at us, and enjoining us to listen to the Voice of Tharg, which I took to mean the voice of Thin Bollock, aka Dangerous Dennis, etc., etc.

“Er, sorry,” I told them all. “My friend isn’t… err, feeling too good, perhaps we’d better leave, huh?”

“Bring him hither,” Thin Bollock intoned, which surprised me, because I didn’t know the word ‘hither’ was in his limited vocabulary. “Let the Power of Tharg heal him.”

By this time, Mad Max’s heels were drumming on the floor and he was rolling around mewing and chortling, and it was my belief that the power of Theakstons might be more efficacious, but I caught a glimpse from one tear-filled, red-rimmed eye, and it was winking in my direction.

I found myself being pushed towards the rostrum, and Thin Bollock, by a crowd of earnest, eager, scrubbed and bright-eyed Brothers and Sisters of the SOSSRCC, dragging Mad Max by one twitching elbow towards the Voice of Tharg. Thin Bollock loomed over Mad Max, and put both his hands on Max’s head (which showed more courage than I’ve ever had, but there again he probably didn’t know what Max put on his hair to keep it in place under his spiked open-face with the brass nose-piece).

“Power of Tharg,” he screeched, “working in me through the Neptunian Master Pril and Septimus Oakshott, his chosen one on Earth, cure this suffering creature, and let him speak of what he has seen of the Power of Tharg.”

Mad Max stopped twitching, and went deathly still – his eyes rolled around, he twitched once, and then he staggered to his feet to confront his anticipatory audience of tidily-dressed, sensiblelooking, respectable citizens who, even so, were all far crazier than he was.

“Perhaps he’ll speak in the tongues of Tharg,” one middle-aged lady with her hair-scraped back in a bun said eagerly, and I knew this’d be too good for Max to resist.

“Kawasaki,” he said sonorously. “Izumi, Moriwaki, Yoshimura, Yamahaondazuki, Guzzimorinibenelli, O Ducati, Ducati, Katana, Ninja, Sturgis, Aspencade, Zundapp, Van Veen Wankel. Message ends.”

“But what does it mean?” an elderly retired schoolmaster type of gent asked, and Mad Max looked at him sympathetically.

“Buggered if I know, squire,” he said solemnly, and then turned to me. “You any idea, Foggie, you’re an educated sort of guy…?”

“I think it means ‘Have a nice day’,” I told everyone. “And I think it means we… err, ought to be going now too. It’s... err, all been very interesting.”

“Ere, don’t I know you?” Thin Bollock said to me, dropping his messianic diction as a stray idea managed to force itself into the area between his ears that made two short planks look as if they ought to be given a Ph.D. “Bye, Thin Bollock,” I told him, and Max and I headed for the door, just in time to hear a plump Margaret Thatcher-lookalike say, “What did he call you, Dangerous Dennis?”

As we were starting up our bikes, Max was struck by a sudden thought. “They might be right,” he told me.

“Stranger things have happened.”

One leg of my jeans was rotting, and when the acid from the lead in the battery started smouldering the hairs on my leg I began to catch on that maybe the battery’d split when the Allegro owner ran into the Beesa.

“Fancy a ride back to Franks?” I asked, ignoring what might’ve been a knotty metaphysical point, and Mad Max nodded as his chop wheezed, banged, clattered and whistled back into life, which was a set of noises that matched the tired, grunting, coughing and spluttering of my battered Lightning perfectly. “I could do with a bit of sanity…”

When we got back to Frank’s shop he was standing outside in the car park, talking to the owner of the Harley, who was still puzzled, looking down at his melting pride and joy.

“Now, if you’d said chlorophyll,” he was saying to a bemused-looking Frank, “I’d’ve understood you. Chlorophyll’s green, and so’s Duckham’s.

Blood’s red – nobody does red oil. So just go over it again - why isn’t my Harley a two-stroke? I didn’t understand what you meant by valves?’

I was just getting off the bike with the intent of buying a battery when the bony, middle-aged vegetarian lady I’d last seen in Fritz Galnickal’s Austrian Burger Bar walked round the corner, and made a beeline for me.

“Look,” she said in an unnervingly forthright

fashion, “I’m very sorry I spoke to you the way I did in that place about the Hotto-chocco Heavenly Surprise.

I didn’t know your gross obesity was due to some terrible hereditary genetic glandular disorder.”

I must’ve looked surprised (because it isn’t - it’s due to years of self-indulgence, all of which I’ve enjoyed thoroughly… besides which, I’ve got heavy bones, that’s all), because she said: “Your friend… err, Scum told me all about it,” she went on. “Tragic, tragic, especially since it ruined your career as a virtuoso concert pianist…”

Now that was laying it on a bit thick, I thought – if there’s one certainty in life, it’s that I’ve got Van Gogh’s ear for music (the missing one, that is), and I began to think about tracking down Scum and having a bit of a talk with him about respect for one’s elders, but then I decided not to after all because the offensive, jokey sickos of teenage tend to grow into proper bikers, and I should know, I suppose…. “… so I’ve brought your Hottochocco Heavenly Surprise here, so you can eat it at your leisure,” she ended. “Your friend told me you had to rush off for your life-saving medication.” She handed me a mess of congealed brown clag surrounded by runny white mush on a paper plate – it looked like aardvark droppings in snow (if that ever happens, which is unlikely maybe).

“Have a nice day, you poor creature,” she told me pityingly, and wandered off back to her soysages, TVP, and nut cutlets.

The dungaree-clad feminist had, in the meantime, approached Mad Max. “Fancy a ‘Woman’s Voice’?” she grunted at him, proffering a magazine.

I groaned. I knew what he was going to say.

And he did too.

“Hang on,” I called across to her, as she was just about to draw breath for her next tirade. “I’ll have one.”

She looked at me suspiciously.

“N… err, I’m quite sympathetic to your aims,” I told her. “I’d like to know more about your Movement. How would I go about becoming a feminist, huh?”

“We could always have you castrated,” she answered scathingly, but she still took my eighty pee. “Have a nice day, you bastard,” she muttered grudgingly, and moved off, still looking malevolently at Mad Max. “Yeah, maybe tomorrow,” I said, and looked down at my smoking leg, and all the oil pooling up underneath the Beesa’s centre-stand.

Mad Max looked across at me. “Is that a Hottochocco Heavenly Surprise?” he asked me, and I looked down at it. It’d started melting again, with the heat from the BSA’s engine, and ran claggily and soggily through my fingers, slid down my naked, smouldering leg, and ran into my boot.

“Maybe they’re right after all,” Max told me, smiling crazily.

THE LATE JIM FOGG RIP ILLUSTRATIONS BY LOUISE LIMB

Disabled Falklands veteran Simon Weston, CBE, has taken to the road on a bespoke Triumph trike partially financed by crowdfunding. He was presented with the gleaming machine just days before his 60th birthday by former Triumph engineer and world speed record holder Norman Hyde, who initiated the £25k project two years ago.

As we told you a while back, Triumph Motorcycles donated a new 2020 T120 Bonneville to act as the base of the design, and Hank and the crew at Trike Design in Caerphilly (coincidentally Simon’s hometown) were picked to build and create the trike with adaptive controls.

Simon said: “I’m living my dream. When I was young, my late mother made me promise never to have a motorbike, but I had wanted a trike for years. I cannot thank enough Norman and the many people who donated for their kindness and generosity and turn my dream into reality.”

You can see a full feature on the trike in the next issue of BSH!

BMW’ve announced two new variants of their impressive R18 mega-cruiser, both of which fall into the bagger/touring category.

The new bikes have bigger than stock ‘batwing’ fairings (high windshield on the Transcontinental, and lower windshield on the B), a 10.25-inch TFT colour display with integrated map navigation and extensive connectivity, Dynamic Cruise Control (DCC), optional extra Active Cruise Control with integrated distance control for relaxed touring, a Marshall sound system with two-way speakers in the front of the fairing, three attractive colours in addition to black, and heated seats on the Transcontinental too.

Bikes are to be expected in retailers this month, and prices start at £21,500 for the B, and £23,300 for the Transcontinental. Get more info’ from your local BMW dealer or bmw-motorrad.co.uk

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OCTOBER 2021

The new Machine Mart catalogue’s packed full of all the tools and equipment you need whether as a hobbyist, DIY enthusiast or professional, featuring over 400 price cuts and new products, and has over 21,000 items over 500 pages!

To order your catalogue simply go online to machinemart.co.uk visit your local store or call 0844 880 1265.

Motorcycle Live returns to the NEC, Birmingham, on Saturday 4th December with doors opening at 9am. Discounted advance tickets are now on sale and available from motorcyclelive.co.uk It takes place from Saturday 4th–Sunday 12th December, and is the UK’s largest motorcycle show with the very best of the industry to delight, entertain and inform bike enthusiasts of all ages. Oh yeah, and us lot too…

There will be numerous opportunities to get on two wheels, interact with new features, technologies and displays, as well as seeing the return of the muchloved Custom and Classic Zones – we’ll be running the BSH Custom Heroes stand as usual, with the winners of the BSH Custom Champs on display, and a selection of others of the best British custom bikes too.

See you there!

Persuading men to open up about their mental health’s long been a challenge, but a new study may’ve found an answer that involves motorbikes and photographs.

Mental Health Motorbike’s a support service that targets the biker community to promote an awareness of mental health, and give people the support and tools they need to develop their wellbeing, as well as signposting them to appropriate crisis support where required.

For more information about Mental Health Motorbike visit mhmotorbike.com

WHITE-LINING – riding down the middle of the road (really? We need to tell you that?)

WANKEL - engine in which a triangularshaped rotor rotates within a specially shaped chamber, also known as a rotary engine, most famously used by Suzuki’s RE5, and Norton in the ‘80s

W.H.O.R.E (we haul our rides everywhere) people who van/trailer their bikes to within two miles of an event, unload them, and ride them in sure in the knowledge that they rode their bike there…

WANNABE - person who ‘wants to be’ a biker, doesn’t ride, but who behaves/dresses as though they do

WINGABAGO – American term for a Gold Wing that we’ve never heard before, but made us laugh

WATER-COOLING

WIRING – wires wot

- indirect method of losing heat from the engine via a radiator.

make your bike go an’ stuff that’re actually filled with smoke which’s why you see it leak out when you get a hole in ‘em…

WATERPROOFS (or ‘proofs) – essential item of clothing for the British biker…

WAVE – on-the-move

Steven ‘Scardy’ Scard passed away aged just 39 at the end of June, and is much missed by his family and all of the members of the Uninvited RRC. RIP Steve.

The Isle of Man Post Office’s launched a set of six stamps spotlighting a selection of very special transport museums to be found on the island, focusing on road vehicles as a tribute to the selflessly-dedicated enthusiasts who restore and preserve an extraordinary assortment of machines for the Manx public and visitors to enjoy.

They feature machines, predominantly bikes, from the Manx Transport Heritage

under acceleration or by use of the clutch… they are big, and they are clever

OUR REGULAR, NOT TOO SERIOUS, LOOK AT SOME OF THE MORE POPULAR TERMS USED IN THE MAGAZINE - THIS ISSUE, THE LETTER ‘W’…

biker greeting that’s seen very rarely these days

WEAR BAR - raised ridge in a tyre’s tread that indicates when it needs replacement WEEKEND WARRIOR – derogatory name for someone who only rides their motorcycle on the weekends

WFO - wide f**king open… going quite fast WHEELBASE measurement from the centre of the front wheel to the centre of the rear wheel WHEELIE – lifting the front wheel either

WOBBLE - potentially dangerous and unexpected side-toside movement of the front or rear wheel at speed (see whitelining) WOTTLESHEDO – how fast does your bike go, mister?

WRENCH – American term for spanner…

WSB (World Superbike Racing) - productionbased four-stroke motorcycle racing that’s not on telly enough these days

WTF – American term commonly used by people who don’t understand custom bikes…

Museum in Peel, the Jurby Transport Museum, the Murray’s Motorcycle Museum, the A.R.E. Classic Motorcycle Collection, and the Milntown Car & Motorcycle Collection, and the Isle of Man Motor Museum.

If stamps like these’re your thing, get yours from iompost.com

OCTOBER 2021

75

This sissy-bar bag fits almost any sissy-bar with its three elasticated Velcro straps on the back, and one on the bottom to attach to a luggage rack. It’s big enough to store a helmet in, is made from water-tight 840D nylon with PVC backing, and comes with a carry handle for off the bike, two elastic straps, and a rain cover. Size? 44 x 32 x 31cm.

It’s available at your Zodiac dealer; go to zodiac.nl to find your closest one.

Designed to be worn in even the hottest of climates, the Chigwell Lite's fully meshed front and back, including the front and back of the sleeves, for optimum airflow. Made from the exclusive Halley Stevensons-Merlin wax cotton ‘Cotec’, it’s lighter than a traditional wax (only 8oz rather than the 12oz of a traditional wax cotton), but still has p a five-piece set of D3O armour (shoulders, elbows and back), and a short h t YKK conn connection zip or a Euro jacket-tojeans connection c hoop allowss easy hment attach ans. to jea ey’re The available in bllack or olive, o in siizes XL, S-3X d cost and 79 99 £179.99 from anywhere that stocks the Merlin Bike gear g ar. range or merlinbikegea com

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OCTOBER 2021

These Rick’s side-mount kits give a clear view of the rear of your bike and rear tyre, are bolt-on (to the rear axle) and come complete with a billet aluminium support arm, ‘plate light, and billet aluminium ‘plate holder.

They fit all 2018 to present Softail models, and may be able for other bikes too too, and’re and re available at your local adaptable Zodiiac dealer – go to zodiac.nl to find your closest stockist.

This street/ass / ault mask from Oxford looks cool,, and p protects your face from errant road debris and small flying beasties, and transforms an open face helmet for wet weather use too.

It has a flexible TPU frame, anti-fog/anti-scratch lens (clear as standard, with grey or mirror options), UV protection, ergonomic foam padding, excellent ventilation, and silicone detailed straps, and the lower mask detaches if needs be, leaving just the goggles.

They cost £39.99 (the grey lens is an extra £10.99, and the mirror one an extra £12.99) from anywhere that stocks the Oxford Products range or oxfordproducts.com

Two of HJC’s best-selling helmet designs, based on Marvel’s Venom and e Universal’s Despicable Me series, have had a modern make-over.

The new Venom and Otto Minion designs are available on their top-ofthe-range race-spec RPHA 11, and’re available in sizes S (55-56cm), M (5758cm), L (58-59cm), and XL (60-61cm), from anywhere that stocks the HJC range or oxfordproducts.com

KBS Coatings’ XTC Silicone Zinc Primer and XTC Xtreme Temperature Coating provide great-looking, durable, and long-lasting finishes on exhaust headers, and systems, are available in aerosols or quart, gallon and five-gallon containers for brushing, rolling, or spray equipment, and’re available in ten great colors.

They withstand temperatures over 1200° F and provide incredible rust protection even in high humidity, high condensation, and salt air conditions.

The Primer locks itself to bare metal surfaces leaving a matte gray finish that can be used as the final finish, or as a perfect primed surface for top coating, while the XTC Coating’s guaranteed not to burn off/peel/flake/chalk.

They’re available on-line or from KBS Coatings UK at kbs-coatings.co.uk

The new Kickback 2.0 riding shirt from Oxford builds on the huge success of its predecessor, and retains the popular features of a hidden security zipper behind the popper closure, and hidden security belt loops to connect up with trousers, but uses more luxurious materials, better quality fittings, an improved fit, and now has upgraded CE armour (packaged separately in a smart cloth bag)... it’s simply better in every way!

Available in red, black or grey, it costs £119.99 from anywhere that stocks the Oxford Products range or oxfordproducts.com

These new hoodies from Muddy Beach Customs’re slightly longer than yer normal hoodie, and so’re very popular with ladies, and us gentlemen with fuller figures.

Costing just £30, and available in a huge range of colours and designs, you’d best have a look at their website at muddybeachcustoms.com

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 in the front (somewhere) of the mag!

As usual I took my favourite laxative (this time issue 449) into the loo, and started on Nik’s editorial, and then moved on to Rick Hulse at the other end.

My only connection to him is having met him on a Faro run many years ago, and being grateful for putting my camping gear in the truck. I don’t always agree with him or his views, but then that’s not mandatory, and I’m sure he doesn’t mind.

His last column, ‘Tilting at Windmills?’ was a well written and incisive view of what’s going to become of the future of the biker lifestyle, like it or not. Everything he says rings true, especially why would the manufacturing industry and fuel suppliers bother with the remaining petrolheads? I can only do about

160 miles to a tankful on either of my bikes, and reducing the number of petrol outlets’ll make this a real problem, and as time goes by, I can see only the people with ‘investment’ collections paying high prices for what’ll become museum pieces…

Is it my problem? No, not really. I’m reaching that point in my life where the weight of a bike’s a factor (even electric bikes are heavy), and I’m not sure I want a trike (maybe… time will tell). We’d best enjoy the next ten years or so, and get some more memories under our belts, and hope the next generations’ll have as much fun on their electric (or whatever) machines as I have over the last 53 years.

This was me at the Malle Mile with one of the craziest commentators there is (his partner-incrime in the kilt was awesome too). It was one of the most amazingly chilled and laid-back racingfor-fun weekends I’ve been to.

I’d like to apologise to Nik as I met him Friday night, and stuttered and waffled due to being a bit star-struck… lol.

Top mag, cheers!

JIM W. Jeez, mate, you met me and were star-struck? You really need to get out more… N.

TONY

This month’s Star Letter wins a DUCHINNI D388 OPEN FACE VINTAGE helmet. RRP £99.99 – a minimalist open face helmet, made to meet current safety standards, with an elegant leatherette covering and luxury vintage-styled textile lining. More at thekeycollection.co.uk

I really look forward to each issue, and reading all the articles, especially the one at the back by Rick Hulse, but this time, though, I thought his article in issue 449, ‘Tilting at Windmills’, kind of missed the whole issue of electric vs ICE bikes.

Although it’s difficult to argue with his logic, I don’t think Rick told the whole story. Yes, it’s pointless campaigning to keep ICE engines in motorcycles after 2030, but just changing over to electric isn’t just a change of engine, it’s possibly a complete change of the biker lifestyle, if not its complete extinction.

Harsh words I know, but bear with me.

How many viable electric motorcycles are on sale now? The answer is very few, and only one or two by major manufacturers. It seems as though they don’t see electric bikes as a priority? Maybe the reason is that they know that, with biking being, these days, a leisure pursuit, it’s not worth producing something that’ll be expensive and unusable in the long run, especially in the secondhand market.

How many of you always ride alone? Not many, I bet – you usually go out with at least one other or, if you’re in a club, it could be seven or eight of you. Imagine riding in the Peaks, or wherever, and then having to all stop to charge your bikes. What’s the chance of there being seven or eight chargers available, in one place, especially at the weekend?

Does waiting the four or five hours to all get charged up become the norm, or does that initial expense of 78

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the bike, plus the inconvenience when charging, mean you don’t bother?

That’s why I think electric bikes’ll spell the death of our way of life. Rick was right that fuel for ICE bikes will become more and more expensive until it prices you off the road, but where’s the alternative we need to keep our lifestyle going? Will someone see sense and produce a hydrogen-fuel bike? Car manufacturers, including Hyundai, Kia and Toyota are producing hydrogen cars, but where’re the alternative fuel bikes? Where’s the MCIA when you need them to let us know if there’s a light at the end of the tunnel or if it’s about to be turned off for good?

Sorry to be depressing, but to me it looks like we’ll be the last of the breed...

KARL OLDHAM Mate, I’ve long thought we’re the last generation of bikers – when us load of ol’ farts goes, that’ll be it, pretty much. Yeah, there’ll be a few young ‘uns that keep riding the new ‘leccy bikes, but… and maybe I’m being overly pessimistic, to me the fact that the big four Japanese manufacturers aren’t rushing to get electric/hydrogen machines out isn’t a good sign. N.

COVENTRY

Discrete; not drawing attention to itself; no ostentation, No grand gesture, fancy flag or lurid decal.

Just simply: ‘Made in Coventry’ Heading for home I took a piece of Bethlehem with me.

I bought a stock, but not completely original, 1996 Yamaha XJR 1200 for £1,600 at an autojumble earlier this year with the intention of selling it straight on for a small profit. It had an MoT, started, ran, stopped, everything worked.

On closer inspection a replacement engine’d been fitted at some point, complete with a couple of broken fins just by the right-side spark plug, and there were two small dings in the fuel tank (not bad, but noticeable), so obviously it wasn’t going to win any concourse prizes or fetch as high a price as any good standard XJR1200, so I decided to cafe racer it and, if I liked it when done, maybe keep it.

First item on the list was a fuel tank, bought off eBay for £110, brand new, plain steel with locking cap, and tap, originally made to fit an XJR600. When received a few days later, it probably took me about two hours to make up front mountings which just involved fitting a bar across the frame to support the rubber bungs. The rear mount was easy too – just a simple stepped bracket from tank to frame, no welding so far. I drilled a hole straight through the frame to allow the fuel pipe to connect to a new fuel tap – not an ideal solution, but it looks tidy, and the dangers are minimal, and the alternative’d be to move the fuel pipe as it exits the tank to a different location.

The seat was next. I picked up a racing seat unit at the Stafford Classic Bike show for £30, probably off an old Norton. It was a really good find – it was narrow enough to fit under the fuel tank, and be held in place by the same bracket I mentioned earlier, and wide enough at the back to fit over the stock rear frame, and I only needed to chop the last few inches off the frame to allow the seat to sit down in place. The rear light unit was another autojumble find that I paid £15 for.

The handlebars are ‘70s Ace bars, and it was a bit fiddly changing things over, but time and patience as they say. I spent about a week, on and off, sorting things out but could’ve done it in a day if I’d put in a full day in one go with all the parts to hand, and luckily I didn’t have to do any rewiring – just connected the new rear light unit to the original harness, tucked it up under the seat, and relocated the rear indicators.

I spent around £30 on paint, using smooth Hammerite straight to metal as undercoat, then matt black over the top, and heat-resistant fire engine red for the motor. The finish isn’t great, but could be easily improved, and I’ll use it like this for the summer, and get the tank and seat painted properly later. I’ve had some criticism of my choice of engine colour, mostly from other bikers, and I can see the logic in matt blacking the whole thing, but if you look at it from the perspective of a pedestrian, or a passenger on mum’s school run, then all you really see is a big engine making a lot of growling noises; the rider and bike are just something wrapped around it.

As the bike is now, it’s much easier to ride than it was before with the narrower seat, and smaller tank, and even the Ace ‘bars’re quite comfy (and I don’t get wrist-ache I was expecting) so, all in all, a good outcome – the price of parts I bought were pretty much covered by the parts I sold (and I still have a few to sell yet too).

A special thank you to Chloe, and Miya, for making my bike look good!

MARK PINCHIN

ROBERT LEE

Riding my old Triumph, I think with awe, Of the people of Coventry and all they endured, 14th November 1940 etched in their souls, Who threw off the rubble and built again.

Triumph Engineering Co. Coventry then Meriden, How hard the workers strived to save the brand, And these same men and women built my bike, With love and devotion; each nut, wire and bolt.

Coventry remains my favourite City, And I can’t be the only person to honestly think so, Cruising past the centre glancing at St Michael’s spire, As Edward Turner would have all those years ago.

I stood in the Cathedral; felt humbled and just waited, Listened in that great space; absorbed the beauty, Light filtering softly through the stained glass, Reaching into my soul. I felt God in this place.

I stood by the font; a rock from Bethlehem, And just rested; heart and mind open and free, Treading softly out past the etched clear glass doorway, Into sunlight that seemed clear and brighter than before.

Putting on my leathers, helmet and scarf, Promised myself to come back each year, Taking a final look before swinging on the kickstart, Engine thundering into life, traversed the cobbles, Out along Priory Row, guided by my nacelle, Past the gaze of Lady Godiva across to the right, My bike had come home roaring out across the City, Spirit and heart ablaze with searing flame, Enjoying the feeling; banking hard across the lanes, The motor all powerful; unquenchable, unstoppable, Reflecting the magnitude of this great City and its people, Always the people; true engine of resilience and resolve, Pulling in the clutch moving up into fourth, No one could have seen, no one could have noticed as powering away The City now stretched, but not left, far away behind me, Three small words on the base of my number plate,

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SEE THE RETURN IT’S BEEN GREAT TO NTS OVER THE E OF SOME BIKING EV ’S NOT ALL PAST MONTH, BUT IT THE FUTURE GOOD NEWS FOR NOW IT. OF RIDING AS WE K manufacturers missing from the list (cars as well as bikes). We recommend you do your research before you head to the pumps. As an example, I’ve noted that my nearest small filling station doesn’t currently have super-unleaded (petrol containing no more than 5% ethanol) on its forecourt.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Y

ou may’ve missed the Government announcement of its Transport Decarbonisation Plan (TDP), published on 14th July, in which politicians laid out their route for the UK achieving Net Zero by 2050, throwing all its eggs in one basket with an unprecedented drive towards electrification.

It’s important to us as riders because motorcycles (one of the vehicle types forming the L-category) are included within its 220 pages. The plan lays out that all new motorcycles will, subject to consultation, be fully zero emissions at tailpipe by 2035 or sooner.

The benefits of motorcycles are recognised within the plan, but this refers purely to zero emissions vehicles rather than the transport mode in all its forms.

We know from a recent survey that most riders expressed a preference for a petrol engine, with many appreciating the engine noise – something lacking from electric vehicles. Whilst many riders have no intention of buying a new motorcycle, and there’s no call for the banning of older vehicles, it’s likely that, over time, there’ll be an increase in urban areas that charge non-conforming vehicles, as well as a significant drop in the number of fossil fuel filling stations. Electric-powered vehicles’re improving. and many enjoy the immediate power delivery of an electric motor, but our argument remains that fossil-fuelled vehicles should not be legislated off our roads, and that riders should have the choice. You can download and read the TDP here by Googling ‘transport decarbonisation plan’.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------When the consultation opens (promised for this year) MAG will submit a robust response, sighting the many immediate benefits of a move from four to two wheels, and the reasons why we see the compulsion to move to electric as a step too far. You don’t need to wait for the consultation to express your views to your MP though. If you feel strongly about the Government’s single focus on electrifying the UK transport fleet, then write to your MP, and express your views politely – ask them about theirs, and how they’re going to represent you. Details on how to contact your MP can be found easily on the Internet, for example via: www.theyworkforyou.com Your MP may be busy on summer recess, or off to their conference, but do write to them, and chase them up if you don’t receive a response. Feel free to share any reply you receive with us at central-office@mag-uk.org ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Those interested in this subject may also wish to look out for a report from the Fair Fuel APPG for UK motorists and hauliers relating to the 2030 ban on the sale of fossil-fuelled new cars and small vans. Lembit Öpik, MAG’s Director of Communications & Public Affairs, has been involved with the group as we look to seek alliances with other road users who may share our concerns.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Look out too for changes at the fuel pump. E10 fuel (petrol containing 10% ethanol) is scheduled to hit our forecourts in September, and there’s a Government advertising campaign to alert us to this fact. There’s even a checker on the Government website where you can check if your vehicle’s compatible – www. gov.uk/check-vehicle-e10-petrol I’ve looked and it doesn’t include a link for the two bikes I’m currently running (an AJP and a Moto Guzzi), and there are, in fact, lots of

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I wrote in a previous article about MAG’s vision for road safety, and a document we released titled Welcoming Roads, with the concept that everyone shares the road space and has respect for each other.

I’m pleased to say that this’s been well received, and recently also received the backing of the National Motorcyclists Council.

By way of contrast, the release of the new Highway Code hasn’t been received well by riders. You’ll recall that MAG objected to the introduction of the ‘hierarchy of responsibility’, and related changes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Motorcycle crime hasn’t gone away, and we’re still working to get a meeting with Kit Malthouse, Police Minister. A new (third) release of our Police Force Bike Theft Rankings document was released on 2nd August, and this’s a document we hope you’ll use to engage with your Police Crime Commissioner. As always, share your experiences with us. We need to know what the police forces around the country are communicating back to riders. Motorcycle crime should not go unrecognised or unaddressed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------We also need your help to create a Bikes in Bus Lanes register.

We’re appealing for information relating to bus lanes that’re open to motorcycles so, if you know of such lanes, could you please drop Colin an email at cbrown@mag-uk.org Please give us as much info as you can, such as location, time restrictions, and anything else you feel’s noteworthy. There isn’t a national register, so we’d love to create the first one with your assistance. We’re asking councils too, but past experience informs us that we’re likely to get an unhelpful response along the lines of, ‘If the sign indicates motorcycles can use it then, yes, you can’. Your knowledge of where those signs are is of far more use to us.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------The next article I write will be my last as National Chair of the Motorcycle Action Group, as on 25th September we’ll announce a new Chair, the position being contested between Neil Liversidge and Tim Fawthrop. You’ll continue to see articles from MAG in the magazine, as I’ve lined up Colin Brown, Director of Campaigns & Political Engagement, to write an interim article whilst the incoming Chair settles into the role.

----------------------------------------------------------------Please support MAG by becoming a member.

It costs as little as £25 a year if you sign up with Direct Debit. To all of you who are already members, ‘Thank you!’. Whether you’re someone who gets active with our campaigns and events, or you simply pay your annual subscription, every member is important.

SELINA LAVENDER MAG NATIONAL CHAIR

CONTACT MAG AT CENTRALOFFICEMAGUK.ORG OR CALL 01926 844064 TO JOIN YOU CAN CONTACT CENTRAL OFFICE, VISIT OUR WEBSITE (WWW.MAGUK.ORG CLICK ON ‘JOIN MAG’) OR SIGN UP AT A LOCAL MEETING OR MAG STAND.

FIND MEETINGS CLOSE TO YOU OR EVENTS, BY VISITING OUR WEBSITE / FACEBOOK PAGES.

Advertise your events here for free and get them seen by everyone in bikerdom! Email the info to nik@backstreetheroes.com ‘COS OF THE RESTRICTIONS PLACED ON ORGANISERS BY COVID, IT’S BEST TO CHECK WITH THE EVENT/VENUE THAT THE EVENT’S STILL ON BEFORE YOU SET OUT, OKAY?

SEPTEMBER 2nd Sept: Krazy Horse Bike Night at Krazy Horse, Empire House, Lamdin Road, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (IP32 6NU). More info from www.krazyhorse.co.uk 3rd Sept: Ace Cafe Reunion Weekend Continental Run Ride-In at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www. london.acecafe.com 3-4th Sept: Netley Marsh Eurojumble at Meadowmead Farm, Ringwood Rd, Netley Marsh, Hamps.

More info from www. netleymarsheuro jumble.com 3-5th Sept: NE MAG’s Stormin’ the Castle at Witton Castle, Sloshes Lane, Witton-le-Wear, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham (DL14 0DE).

More info from www. storminthecastle.co.uk 3-5th Sept: Wozwolf RC’s Wozwolf Rally at a site near Matlock, Derbys. Tickets £20.

More info from www. wozwolf.co.uk 3-5th Sept: HAMC Kent’s Kent Custom Bike Show at Angel Farm, Ropers Lane, off Ratcliffe Highway, near Hoo, Rochester, Kent (ME3 8PT).

Tickets £20. More info from dusty81kent@ btopenworld.com 3-5th Sept: Sarum Bikers’ September to Remember Rally at Laverstock & Ford Sports Club, Church Road, Salisbury, Wilts (SP1 1QX). Tickets £15 prebook or £20 on gate. More info from 07734 749513 or Facebook.

4th Sept: Ace Cafe Reunion Weekend Party & London RideOut at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe. com

Meer Brook, Leek, Staffs from 10am, free bacon/sausage baps.

More info from www. staffsbiker.co.uk or Facebook.

5th Sept: ABF Soldiers’ Charity Bike Ride from Triumph, Normandy Way, Hinckley, Leics at 10.30am. Tickets £25 or £35 with pillion. More info from motorcyclerider@ soldierscharity.org 5th Sept: Dawlish Bike & Trike Show at The Lawn, Dawlish, Devon. Donation entry. More info from wolfpackAFB@hotmail. com

4th Sept: AFB STABS (September Trike And Bike Show) at the Robin Hood, Icklesham, E Sussex. More info from Facebook.

5th Sept: Stratford Autojumble at Stratfordupon-Avon Racecourse, Luddington Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwicks (CV37 9SE).

More info from www. stratfordautojumble. co.uk

4th Sept: BTW’s Keep The Ball Rolling Bike/ Trike/Quad Show at the Silver Ball Cafe, A10, Reed, near Royston, Herts. More info from rmkent63@ gmail.com

5th Sept: Vintage Vehicle Meet at the Hinton Arms, Petersfield Road, Hinton Ampney, Alresford, Hants (SO24 0NH). More info from 01962 771252.

5th Sept: Ace Cafe Reunion Brighton Burn Up at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com

5th Sept: Heritage Sprint Ride to the Park at Betteshanger Park, Sandwich Road, Deal, Kent (CT14 0BF).

More info from www. heritagesprint.com or Facebook.

5th Sept: Bikers’ Breakfast at Tittesworth Reservoir,

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5th Sept: Classic Bike & Car Day at the Tile Shop, High Street, Buntingford, Herts.

Free entry. More info from Facebook.

5th Sept: Six Town Chopper Show at Moorville Hall, Leek Rd, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs (ST9 0DG). More info from Facebook.

9-12th Sept: FIA/FIM European Finals at Santa Pod Raceway, Airfield Rd, Podington, Wellingborough Northants (NN29 7XA).

More info from www. santapod.co.uk 10-12th Sept: Wild South West Rally at the Britannia Inn, Par, St Austell, Cornwall.

More info from makaproapoc@gmail. com 10-12th Sept: Tiger MCC’s Soggy Moggy Rally at Wood Green Animal Centre, Kings Bush Farm, London Rd, Godmanchester, Cambs (PE29 2NH).

Tickets £25. More info from www.tigermcc. org.uk or Facebook.

10-12th Sept: The Trip Out at Euston Park, Thetford Road, Euston, Suffolk (IP24 2QW). More info from www.thetripout. co.uk PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE/ VENUE. 11th Sept: Kempton Autojumble at Kempton Park, Staines Road East, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex 82

(TW16 5AQ). More info from www. kemptonautojumble. co.uk 11th Sept: Trike & Bike Show at the Robin Hood Inn, Main Rd, Icklesham, Winchelsea, Sussex (TN36 4BD). More info from Facebook or robin-hood.uk 11th Sept: Stripper & Bike Fest at Fortress Motorcycles, Unity 5B, Plews Way, Northallerton, Yorks.

Tickets £25, 200 limit. More info from fortressmotorcycle events@gmail.com 11th Sept: Free Spirits MCC’s Custom Bike Show at the Farmer’s Arms, Marsh Lane, Ravensmoor, Nantwich, Cheshire (CW5 8PN). More info from freespiritsmcc@ clubmember.org or Facebook.

12th Sept: Blue-Haze Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com

12th Sept: Druids MCC Ireland’s Back to the Beginning Custom Bike Show at Conlons Booleight, Co Kildare, Eire (R51 AX71). More info from Facebook.

16-19th Sept: Rejects Brotherhood’s Drink, Drop & Doss Rally at a site in Kent. More info from Facebook.

17-19th Sept: NSRA Hot Rod Drags at Santa Pod Raceway, Airfield Rd, Podington, Wellingborough, Northants (NN29 7XA).

More info from www. santapod.co.uk 17-19th Sept: Jesters MCC’s Cum’ N Dribble In T’ Ribble Rally at the Whittingham Club, Old Whittingham Hospital Grounds, Whittingham, Preston, Lancs (PR3 2JE). Tickets £15 prebook. More info from 07434 694265 or www.jestersmcc.org.uk

17-19th Sept: Ride ‘Til We Rot’s Right Rotten Piss-Up at the Breighton Ferry, Breighton, Yorks 12th Sept: Romney (YO8 6DH). Tickets Marsh Show & Jumble £10. More info from at Ham Street, Ashford, Facebook.

Kent (TN26 2JD).

18-19th Sept: NCC More info from 01797 Bucks’ September 344277 or www.elkThunder at Newport promotions.co.uk Pagnell FC, Willen 12th Sept: Long Shop Museum’s Bike Show at Main St, Leiston, Suffolk (IP16 4ES).

More info from www. longshopmuseum. co.uk

OCTOBER 2021

Road, Newport Pagnell, Bucks (MK16 0DF). Tickets £7 both days, £5 Sat, £3 Sun. More info from will1261@hotmail. co.uk

19th Sept: Custom & Cruiser Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www. london.acecafe.com 19th Sept: East Anglian Copdock Bike Show at Trinity Park, Ipswich, Suffolk.

More info from www. copdock-cmc.co.uk 19th Sept: Normous Newark Autojumble at Newark Showground, Lincoln Rd, Coddington, Newark, Notts (NG24 2NY).

More info from www. newarkautojumble. co.uk 23rd Sept: Bideford Bike Night at Bideford Quay, Bideford, Devon (EX39 2HW). More info from Facebook.

24th Sept: Oily Rag Bike Night at Unit 9, Rockhaven Ind Est, Triangle Park, Metz Way, Gloucester (GL1 1AJ). More info from www.oilyrag.com 24-26th Sept: Matt Black Rat Late Spring Meet at North Dorset RFC, Longbury Hill Lane, Gillingham, Dorset (SP8 5SY).

Tickets £15. More info from Facebook.

24-26th Sept: Lioness MCC’s Roar Rally at Hope View Sensory Farm, Marsland Green Ln, Marsland Green, Astley, Manchester (M29 7LH). Tickets £15 prebook or £20 on gate. More info from Facebook.

Advertise your events here for free and get them seen by everyone in bikerdom! Email the info to nik@backstreetheroes.com 25th Sept: North Manchester Custom & Classic Bike Show at Ramsbottom Cricket Club, Acre Bottom, Ramsbottom, Bury, Manchester (BL0 0BS).

Tickets £5. More info from Facebook.

26th Sept: 59 Club Day & BSA Bantam Meet at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com

7-10th Oct: Halloween Rock Weekend at Pontins, Shore Road, Southport, Lancs (PR8 2PZ). More info from Facebook.

9-10th Oct: Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show at Stafford Showground, Weston Rd, Stafford (ST18 0BD). More info from www.staffordclassic bikeshows.com

10th Oct: Brit Vs 26th Sept: Rugby (Vincent & Velocette) BikeFest at Rugby & Classic Bike Day at Town Centre. More info the Ace Cafe, London. from rugbyfirst.org/ More info from www. rugby-bikefest-2021 london.acecafe.com

OCTOBER 3rd Oct: End of Summer Scooter n’ Mod Special at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www. london.acecafe.com 3rd Oct: Classic Motorcycle Day at Crich Tramway Village, Crich, Derbys.

More info from www. tramway.co.uk 3rd Oct: FTW (Forever Two Wheels) Bike Show at Westgate Ward Social Club, Victoria Street, Ipswich, Suffolk (IP1 2JX). More infro from Facebook.

7th Oct: Krazy Horse Bike Night at Krazy Horse, Empire House, Lamdin Road, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (IP32 6NU). More info from www.krazyhorse.co.uk

17th Oct: Red Oktober Eastern Bloc Vehicle Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com 23rd Oct: Kempton Autojumble at Kempton Park, Staines Road East, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex (TW16 5AQ). More info from www. kemptonautojumble. co.uk 24th Oct: Normous Newark Autojumble at Newark Showground, Lincoln Rd, Coddington, Newark, Notts (NG24 2NY).

More info from www. newarkautojumble. co.uk 24th Oct: Naked Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com

30th Oct: Bosun’s Bikes Halloween Bike Show & Meet at the Plough, Leechpond Hill, Lower Beeding, Horsham, Sussex (RH13 6LT). More info from Facebook.

31st Oct: Rat, Brat, Bobbers, Choppers (& Rat Rods) at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com 31st Oct: South of England Classic Show & Jumble at the South of England Showground, Ardingley, W Sussex (RH17 6TL).

More info from 01797 344277 or www.elkpromotions.co.uk

NOVEMBER 7th Nov: Ton Up Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com 14th Nov: Poppy Day Parade & Service & Military Vehicle Meet at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com 21st Nov: Ariel O.C. Founders Day & Classic Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www. london.acecafe.com 21st Nov: Normous Newark Autojumble at Newark Showground, Lincoln Rd, Coddington, Newark, Notts (NG24 2NY).

More info from www.

newarkautojumble. co.uk 28th Nov: Mud Pluggers Day at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www. london.acecafe.com

DECEMBER 4-12th Dec: Motorcycle Live at the NEC, Birmingham.

More info from www. motorcyclelive.co.uk 5th Dec: Bike Day & Ace Cafe Club Day Xmas Meet at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com 12th Dec: Paw’s n’ Claws Pet Food Run at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com 19th Dec: Xmas Toy Run & Carol Service at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www. london.acecafe.com 19th Dec: Normous Newark Autojumble at Newark Showground, Lincoln Rd, Coddington, Newark, Notts (NG24 2NY). More info from www.newarkautojumble. co.uk 26th Dec: Cold Turkey Meet at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com 31st Dec: New Year’s Eve Party at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london. acecafe.com

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accessories

clothing

Send pics of your bike, your lady, your bloke (but not your dinner, this isn’t Facebook) to nik@backstreetheroes.com

Krazy Horse Customs supply their bikes with secondary side-stands for very soft ground… pic by Dave D. LEFT: Glorious old pic of a GS chop at one of the old Flatlands shows in Suffolk in the ‘80s by Gibby. I think I remember that bike!

TOP: There’s no mistaking a very young Bosun, is there?

ABOVE: Andree’s Sporty – paintwork by her hubby and feature artwork by her – clever sod!

LEFT: Toby on Paul Jones’ current project, a very tough Bandit Twelve ‘fighter – love the headlight fairing!

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Lynne Wallace’s Screamin’ Eagle ‘Arley, another painted by Gus at Muddy Beach Customs and, in typical Gus fashion, this was s’posed to be black!

Send pics of your bike, your lady, your bloke (but not your dinner, this isn’t Facebook) to nik@backstreetheroes.com

ABOVE: Bob Lund’s truck and a friend… I want to be friends with Bob’s friends!

BELOW: Pam and friends at the Tor… their exhausts weren’t loud enough to wake King Arthur apparently

ABOVE: Triplets Jax, Jesse-James and Joey Williams – start ‘em young!

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BELOW: Alister Flower sent this photo of his older brother’s chop, a 1961 triumph Saint with a 21” Invader front and Sugar Bear-style springers – he does annual rides around the North Island of NZ on it, and gets loads of attention. I bet!

Nige the Miserable Ferret’s new Sporty chop down by the sea in Paignton – nice!

BELOW: Nice to see Hades’ given Cerberus the day off and he’s popped out on his Buell…

ABOVE: Jack Hough’s CB250 Honda bobber – now that’s a (Super) Dream worth having!

BELOW: Photographic evidence that Jay is such a good rider he can even pilot his Vincent when he’s asleep!

ABOVE: Nick’s very cool 125 has an air of battered Sportster about it, doesn’t it?

ABOVE: Laura on some bloke called Dave’s XJR asking: “What did you say I’m looking for?”

ABOVE: Nice black n’ white of Darren’s Harley and Kris’ Victory at a lovely memorial building in Lancashire. They called the pic ‘Bomber Command’.

RIGHT: Jamie ‘male model’ Moulson and his 750/4 back in ’99… pout for me, daahling!

BELOW: Dave Brown’s dad on the far left on the Triumph, and his (Dave’s, not his dad’s) aunt and uncle on the BSA. The Triumph’s reg is now on a BMW car, but his uncle’s BSA is still around!

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BELOW: Colin Hocking’s very, very black V-Rod is very, very black.

YAMAHA XVZ1300 ROYAL STAR: 2001, custom paint, £1000s spent, custom forwards, bobbed front ‘guard, American exhaust, original parts included, 25k miles, long MoT, £4,250 or p/x something more retro. Tel 07949 868824 or email thecowleymen@gmail.com (Kent).

OLD SCHOOL XS650: ‘70s-style, extended forks, period accessories, turn-out exhausts, San Diego king/queen seat, white clocks, twisted Z-bars, recently restored, new MOT, new battery, fresh oil, good Dunlop tyres, no smoke/rattles, runs great £3,750 ono.

Tel 07505 115470 or email djivangsouren@ yahoo.co.uk (London).

H-D FAT BOY: 2003, 1450 Anniversary model, fab condition, only 8k £8,500 or px/swap old school chop/bobber (nothing too big though, I’m looking for something a bit lighter!) Tel 07729 122363 or email markchave@gmail.com (Somerset).

YAMAHA VIRAGO XV535: 1996, MoT June ’22, only 6k miles, Datatagged, good condition £2,200 ono. Tel 07894 087342 or email ehill10112@aol.com (Northants).

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H-D DYNA CHOPPER: built J&B Classics.

1450 Dyna engine/running gear, hardtail gooseneck frame, flame stitch seat, twisted chrome spokes, 7in. chrome headlight, beach ‘bars, beautiful paint £4,000. Tel 07927 170572 or email goddardj1@sky.com (Surrey).

KAWASAKI VN1500 TRIKE: great paint, loud exhausts, leather saddlebags, MoT April ’22, £6,500 ono. Tel 07810 124293 or email Trikertk@gmail.com (Cornwall).

YAMAHA V-MAX TRIKE: Casarva-built, Quaife reverse ‘box, Lenso Mugello rear wheels (255x50/17 tyres), Exactrep long range top fuel tank & original, unused bike parts included, good condition, looks/goes great, MoT July ’22, £10,000 ono. Tel 01234 210640 or email d.d.morley@hotmail.com (Beds).

KAWASAKI 440 BOBBER: 1981, handbuilt, excellent condition, low & loud, MoT Nov (exempt next April), garaged, never seen the rain, was on show at MCN show, good tyres/chain/sprockets, very reluctant sale £2,500 ono. Email nealfamily19@gmail. com (Cornwall)

H-D SPORTSTER 883: showroom condition, time capsule gem, 400 miles from new, stunning deep purple metalflake paintwork, pullback drag ‘bars, mini bullet front indicators, new battery/oil change, MoT, ready for the road £4,950 ono. Tel 07505 115470 or email djivangsouren@yahoo. co.uk (London)

XS650 SWINGARM CHOP: imported from California, rust-free frame, 1978, registered as historic vehicle, rare SR500 front drum/21inch Italian rim, 8inch buckhorn ‘bars, classic levers/grips/headlamp (converted to LED), Cole Foster tank in large flake/candy paint, rebuilt engine/carbs, runs like a dream, brass electrics box/matching alternator cover, oversize custom stainless exhaust, custom leather seat, loads of new parts, stainless fasteners everywhere, beautiful bike £6,000 ono. Tel 07367 997774 or email laurieashton343@ googlemail.com (Lancs).

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HAVE I EVER TOLD YOU ABOUT THE TIME I NEARLY KILLED A COPPER? good few years back, some time in the late 1990s, in the days when Streetfighters magazine was a thing, they had a couple of staff bikes – a ZX-7R, and a ZX-9R. I’d not ridden a Nine and so, one weekend when I had a visit to Chris Ireland’s Great Yarmouth workshop planned, I borrowed it, and headed down from The Towers in Manchester to the sticky-out bit of the country that is East Anglia.

I stayed that night with mates in Newmarket, and the next morning, early, set off for Chris’ place. Having lived in the east for a good few years prior to (and after too) joining BSH, I knew some of the roads quite well, and’d planned to head up the A11 to Norwich, then along the A47 to Yarmouth, ’cos I knew I’d be able to give the Kwak its head on a section of the A11 along which there’re no junctions or turnings to allow myopic shagwits to pull out on a speeding bike from.

Passing the last roundabout at Attleborough, the speed crept up and, as soon as I reached the right section of concrete two-lane dual-carriageway, I ducked down behind the screen, and nailed it. The speedo and the rev-counter both climbed skywards, and before long the Kwak’d topped out at an indicated 187. Quite satisfied with that, I backed off the throttle, and settled down to an 80mph cruise, slowing a few miles later for the A47 roundabout.

As I approached it, just under the posted 70mph limit, I saw that the road was crawling with police in hi-vis directing cars off the main carriageway, obviously having caught them speeding with a radar trap. I thought to meself smugly, ‘I’m fine, I’ve been under the limit for the last couple o’ miles’, but to my surprise they waved me in too. Slightly confused, I followed the Aged William’s instructions, and pulled up in front of two officers of Her Majesty’s constabulary.

“Good morning, sir,” said the younger of the two, probably twenty years his oppo’s junior, “you were going a bit fast, weren’t you?”

“Err, no, I don’t think so,” I said.

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“We got you at 124.9,” said the officer with a slight smile on his face, while the older one glowered at me from under his peaked cap. “There was a radar trap a few miles back.”

“Oh,” I said, annoyed, but thankful at the same time that it hadn’t been a little further back than that ’cos in those days anything over 150mph was a pretty much guaranteed three-month solitary holiday at Her Royal Highness’ expense.

As matey started filling in the relevant paperwork, with his mate still glowering beside him, he casually remarked: “If it’s any consolation, you’re not the fastest we’ve had through here today.”

Knowing that I was already looking at a ban anyway (anything over the ton was an instant ban), I made a joke of it. “Giss another ten minutes, I’ll have another go…”

At this, the older guy, probably in his late 50s, absolutely exploded with rage. Honestly, he really lost the plot, calling me every (non-sweary) name under the sun. He really was absolutely apoplectic – spittle formed at the corners of his mouth, and flew from his lips, and he genuinely started to go a funny sort o’ red colour. His younger partner tried to calm him, but he wasn’t having any of it, and continued ranting, getting more and more worked up until, suddenly, he made a sort of ‘gnurrk’ noise, and clutched at his chest.

‘F**k me,’ I thought, ‘this “ladies’ front bottoms”s having a heart attack!’ Christ, I’m going to get had up for f**king manslaughter if he does, as well as speeding!’

Younger matey was doing his best to calm his incandescent older colleague, telling him to calm down, and directing him back towards their car so that he could sit down, while other gentlemen in blue serge looked up, and started walking over to see what all the fuss was. “I’ve finished the paperwork,” the younger copper said, turning to me. “I think you’d better piss off now, don’t you?”

“Yes, officer, I will, officer. Thank you,” I said, and hopped back on the Kwak, and made off sharpish.

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GORGEOUS MOTOR’EAD ‘ARLEY

NOT ONLY WAS THE YORKSHIRE PUDDING RALLY MY FIRST EVENT IN 12 MONTHS, IT WAS MY FIRST SMACKED ARSE COMEDY SHOW IN FRONT OF A LIVE AUDIENCE IN 12 MONTHS TOO!

had managed to run four ‘virtual’ comedy shows since the onset of the pandemic but, although they were very well received, there’s no way an online show can even come close to the experience of interacting with a live audience whose reactions are plain to see. A year off-stage’d left me with a tangible mixture of eagerness and trepidation as the weekend approached.

I’d volunteered to ride a Can-Am Spyder trike to the event so it could go on the NABD stall in a bid to gauge what level of interest there’d be amongst rally-goers when we raffle it off in 2022.

I’d not ridden a Can-Am before so I was interested to see how it compares to the more traditional style of trikes I’ve been riding over the past 30 years or so. We’d stored it at an industrial unit in Bolton owned by an NABD member, due to our own storage facility being full, and fortunately he’d kept it in good condition, so when I collected it, it was ready to go.

I quickly realised that my arthritic knees’re no longer happy on a motorcycle with foot-pegs in a sports position. Then I ran into the first traffic jam of the weekend on the M60 and, after 20 minutes in slow-moving traffic, my left hand began to tingle quite painfully, and I could feel the tendons cramping up. Advanced spondylosis in my neck puts pressure on the nerves that run down to my hands, and this

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tingling/cramping’s a common issue even when driving a car. Being the eternal optimist I am, I thought ‘using a hand-operated clutch lever might actually prove to be good physio… once I get used to it again’.

I got home and picked Mandy up just in time to set off into a heavyduty thunderstorm, which stayed with us as we met up with our friend Paul Blacklock, and headed for Yorkshire via three long, tortuously slow, traffic jams over the Pennines on the M62 in constant heavy rain. As we crossed Hartshead Moor at a crawling pace in pissing rain, I couldn’t help thinking to myself, ‘Welcome back to rallying, Rick!’

By the time we arrived I could barely control the clutch at all. My left hand felt like a Mickey Mouse glove and, though I could pull the lever in okay, I really struggled to release it with any finesse. Several episodes of stalling as we crossed the rally field were the cause of much hilarity amongst onlookers who obviously think it quite acceptable to laugh at the problems caused by disabilities. Suffice to say that while the world seems to’ve been in stasis for the past eighteen months, my disabilities’ve moved on apace, and the days of riding machines with a manual transmission’re just about over for me. Still, it felt good to be back in a field with a couple of thousand bikers once again!

Friday evening was an absolute joy, catching up with people we hadn’t seen for far too long, drinking like it was going out of fashion and, once again, revelling in the banter and f**kbollockry

that inevitably ensues when bikers get together. By the time we headed back to our tent (supplied by Carry Nowt Camping) at 3am, a happy little voice in my head was saying, “Welcome back to rallying, Rick!”

Saturday morning began for me with a hangover-clouded stumble to a portable Turdis, where I produced what appeared to be the result of melting several Curly Wurlys and a giant Pritt Stick together.

Then I found there were just three-and-ahalf sheets of toilet paper left on the roll in the holder… With a distraught sigh, I began the depressingly well-practiced art of ‘Porta-Loo Origami’, knowing from the outset that three-and-a-half sheets’d never be enough. Next, I emptied my pockets, and used up all of my fuel receipts for the past month, then finally, after casting a desperate gaze about me, I spotted a Harley-Davidson ‘Live to Ride’ bandana tucked behind the handsanitiser. ‘Needs must when the devil drives’, as the saying goes. Soon that Live to Ride eagle was completely interred (inturd), and I no longer felt like I was sitting on a tramp’s regurgitated kebab.

After copious hand-sanitising, I vacated the dark demesnes of the Turdis and, as I turned to close the door behind me, spotted three full pristine toilet rolls that’d been stacked behind me to my left throughout the whole grotesque incident. With a resigned sigh, I thought, ‘Welcome back to rallying, Rick!’

A few hours later I had the unutterable joy of compering a phenomenal comedy show to a packed marquee with waves of love and laughter coming at the stage like breakers on a Pacific beach.

Once again, rally bikers proved to be an audience to die for, and every performer felt the lay-offs of the pandemic finally beginning to wash away into the shitcan of memory. As the final wave of thunderous applause dissipated at the end of the show, a joyous voice in my head once again said, “Welcome back to rallying, Rick!”

I’ll happily admit that much of the rest of the day passed in a somewhat drunken blur, and the ride home on Sunday was every bit as painful as the ride in on Friday’d been but, despite the ravages of old age and disability leaving me totally burnt out for a further three days, I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I’ve missed rallying far more than I would’ve believed possible.

My heartfelt thanks go to Pete Walker and his stalwart team of volunteers from MAG for welcoming us all back to rallying!

RICK HULSE

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