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ISSUE 447 JULY 2021

£4.50

FEBRUARY 2021

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accessories

clothing

12: OLD-SKOOL SWEDES – THREE OF THE BEST OLDERSTYLE BIKES FROM THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN 18: £500 SUZUKI – BUILT ON A BUDGET, AND BOSTIN’ NEAR BOSTON 20: SPORTSTER SIDECAR OUTFIT – THREE-WHEELED CLASS FOR THE DISCERNING GENTLEMAN! 24: SUPERCHARGED TriLess – A ‘70S CHOP WITH A TRIUMPH ENGINE, A MATCHLESS FRAME, AND A DAMN GREAT BLOWER!

36: XS650 FLATTRACKER – BIG-BORE SIDEWAYS SKATER

ET TO GGITAL Y I D MPL THE APP, SI ACK E S B ‘ R ION APPL EDIT ARCH FO’ IN THE D A S E S EROEE FOR iPLAY P ET H R STRE PP STO OOGLE D A I G E O N R PAG OR O OR AND ACEBOO)K F F ES

40: SHOVEL’EAD – DON’T DRINK AND RIDE, KIDS, YOU’LL ONLY SPILL IT…

O SH HE B EET HER GROUP UT T R OK – CK O ACK ST CEBO EROES CHE A (B F P BSH ET H THE K STRE L GROU D N A T BAC FFICIA A HE O T

44: XS650 COVER BIKE – DIDN’T WE HAVE A LUVERLY DAY THE DAY WE WENT TO… ERR, WHITBY 54: ‘ARLEY SHOVEL – A CELTIC SWEDE?

65: MR BRIDGES THE GURU IMPARTS MORE OF HIS KNOWLEDGE OF MECHANICS 69: FOGGIE FICTION THE THIRD INSTALMENT OF OUR FOUR-PART ESPIONAGE TALE

28: BRIT CHOPPER CUSTOMS – THE LOWDOWN 32: BRITISH BIKER SUB-CULTURE – PART TWO OF OUR LOOK AT HOW WE GOT HERE TODAY

74: NEWS ALL THAT’S NEW AND HAPPENING IN THE CUSTOM BIKE WORLD 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 30: THE 2021 BSH CUSTOM CHAMPS ALL THE INFO YOU’LL NEED 50: CENTRESPREAD AN ARTISTIC POSTER FOR YOU TO PUT ON YER WALL 52: SUBSCRIBE TO BSH SEE HERE FOR THE BEST SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS 57: LONG-TERMER INTRODUCING YOU TO OUR NEW LONG-TERM TEST BIKE 62: ALMOST A ROADTEST BSH GOES ELECTRIC… SHOCK HORROR!

76: PRODUCTS LOADS OF GOOD STUFF FOR YOU TO SPEND YOUR HARD-EARNED ON 78: LETTERS SOUND OFF, ONE, TWO, SOUND OFF, THREE, FOUR! 80: MAG NEWS OUR REGULAR COLUMN BY THE MAG CHAIRNON GENDERSPECIFIC 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 97: NEXT MONTH JUST TO WHET YOUR APPETITE… 98: RICK HULSE THE MUSINGS OF ONE OF THE MOST ELOQUENT THINKERS IN BIKERDOM

PIC BY PAM

Awright you, how’s it going?

Welcome to this new issue of BSH – the 447th since its inception… isn’t that a somewhat staggering thought?

It’s now been close on thirty-eight years since Steve Myatt, Ali Mac, and the early days crew put the first issue together on a dining room table in Manchester… this time thirty-eight years ago, I’d just turned 16, and was attempting to hurt myself quite badly on a 50cc Suzuki moped on a regular basis (some things never change… well, apart from the fact that I no longer have a Suzuki moped), and the magazine that was to become such a large part of my, and a hell of a lot of other folks’ too, life wasn’t to be published for a couple o’ three more months. No-one could’ve predicted what effect it’d have on the British bike scene and, most definitely, no-one could’ve predicted that it’d still be going thirty-eight years later, fronted by an overweight scrote who couldn’t even afford a leather jacket when he started riding all those years ago. (I had an anorak for the first year… at least it was black.) Funny ol’ world, innit?

So the world is, so far, on schedule for returning to (relative) normality after a year an’ a bit of lockdowns and restrictions (assuming the flop-haired buffoon in No 10 doesn’t change his mind… again). As I’m writing this, the latest deadline, 17th May has been and passed, and the shops are open again for the purchase of useless tat, and we’re now allowed in pubs and restaurants (although we still have to sit at our tables like good little boys and girls). I’ve had me second jab (and, no, sadly, I’m not magnetic, and Bill Gates’ internet Stasi have yet to offer me a cheaper deal on me bike insurance), and I’m quite looking forward to going out and not having to watch other people like they’re bastard seagulls waiting to nick yer chips. I’d just like it to stop raining if that’d be okay? I mean, I know it is, as I write this, still May, and traditionally May is, weatherwise, about as predictable as a wasp on speed (you know why it’s called May, don’t you? It may be nice, it may be not, it may be raining, it may be not…), but I’m fairly sure that if the imaginary cloud fairy who made us’d’ve wanted us to spend this amount of time under water, he’d’ve given us gills…

But as you’re reading this, it’s June, and June’s traditionally hotter than a swimsuit model in stockings. Bike nights an’ stuff’ll be well under way by then, perhaps even the odd bike show or, for the really brave (or possibly foolhardy), even rallies? My first proper day-time outing amongst people is, I think, not going to be for a few more weeks yet but, even so, I’m looking forward to getting the bike out in the sunshine without waterproofs or me heated weskit, I really am… of course, if I get to June and find out that you lot, who’ve got there before me, haven’t sorted the

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NIK SAMSON

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NIGEL HOLE

weather out, I’m collectively blaming you all – you know that, don’t you?

Smart motorways, now there’s a misnomer, eh?

To me, the doing away with the hard shoulder of motorways to provide an extra lane for drivers, relying on desk attendants watching cameras to spot broken-down vehicles before they get plowed into by traffic is probably one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard, and it’s only by some bloody miracle that none of us bikers’ve been killed on one… yet.

So far there’ve been, I think, three deaths since their inception, but it’s only a matter of time before there’re more. Having ‘emergency pull-in’ areas is no real help – I don’t know about you, but I’ve never yet had a bike break down at a convenient time, and the chances of having it happen so that I can safely pull into one of the alleged refuges isn’t, I suspect, high.

Common sense, it seems, is a rare commodity these days, especially among the powers-that-be, and even though a majority of people don’t think smart motorways are safe, the Government’s pressing on with their implementation anyway. A recent poll by the UK’s largest independent road safety charity, IAM RoadSmart, found that 85 per cent of drivers asked want a halt on their construction until the safety case’s fully proven; 84 per cent had little faith in the current system’s ability to detect them if they were to breakdown in a running lane, and protect them until help arrived; 81 per cent felt less safe travelling on a smart motorway (compared to a normal one); and a similar number wanted hard shoulders reinstated immediately.

Will the powers-that-be listen? Probably not, it’s not about safety, it’s about money – there’s an awful lot of it involved in the construction of smart motorways, and successive governments, especially this one, have proved time and time again that they’re willing to hand out contracts and do favourable deals for their cronies, so I can’t see anything improving any time soon.

As I said, thankfully none of us two (or three) wheeled types’ve come to any harm on them yet, but every time I find myself on one (which, thankfully, isn’t that often) I do find myself thinking along the lines of ‘What if I got a puncture?’ or ‘I do hope this isn’t the day the old bike decides to have a paddy… ‘cos it may be me last if it does’. If you do have to use them, then ferrchrissakes be careful, eh? Yeah, yeah, I know, I don’t have to tell you that, just humour me, eh?

It’s as an old grizzled biker in a pub told me many, many years ago: “When it comes down to it, the only person looking out for you is you…” and I know, I don’t have to tell you that either…

See you next month!

FREELANCE CONTRIBUTORS:

CHARLEY CHARLES, SIWER OHLSSON RIP, SIMON EVERETT, TONY HADDEN, MR BRIDGES, JIM FOGG RIP, LOUISE LIMB, SELINA LAVENDER, BOSUN, RICK HULSE

NIK

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Distribution by Marketforce UK Ltd, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU. Tel: 0203 787 9001. Printed by William Gibbons and Sons, Wolverhampton. ISSN: 02679841. BSH is copyright to Mortons Media Ltd 2021 and all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

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here is, they say (whoever they are), nothing new under the sun – just about everything’s been done, in one form or another. You know what I mean; fashions, both in bikes and in clothing (especially in clothing), are cyclic – people look back to what’s been done in older days and recycle/update it to suit the modern age.

Take the retro chopper boom that’s happening, for instance. The bikes that’re being built in this style today, old Harleys, Brits, and the odd 750/4, don’t look that different from the ones that were featured in BSH in the mag’s early days, and there’s also been a resurgence in the building of ’80s and ’90s-style Japanese-engined chops and street bikes (we’ve just photographed an archetypally ’90s monoshock FJ for a future issue), with more and more of them coming out of workshops and garages all across the land. Equally, so many custom Triumphs and other Brits don’t look that different to the ones built all those years ago too – classic bobbers (although they weren’t called that then) in a style that hasn’t really changed in the past 40 years.

As we get older too, any time bikers’re gathered together people start to talk about the bikes that inspired them – the ones from the magazine’s long history that had such an impact on their lives when they first saw them. Having spent the last year or so scanning early issues of BSH to go on the website (www.backstreetheroes. com), I’ve found myself getting lost in the pages of those old mags, remembering where and when I first saw the bikes that set me on the path to owning a succession of cool (if not overly reliable…), characterful bikes that’ve given me some of the best years/experiences of my life.

So, because o’ this, we thought we’d look back at some of the most inspirational bikes ever featured in the magazine over its 38-year history, and we thought we’d start with one of the most talked about choppers ever built in Britain – Fuschia….

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WE’VE NOT DONE ANY SWEDISH BIKES FOR A BIT SO WE THOUGHT WE’D SHOW YOU THESE THREE

peedhopper, the purple Shovel, was built by Charlie Swordson, a guy who, back in the ’90s, built a ’32 Ford hot-rod called Solid Gold that was lauded as Sweden’s finest ever. So why did this hot-rod dude decide to try building his first motorcycle?

“Well, simply because I have a lot of biker friends who kept telling me to get a bike so we could ride together. I didn’t start the project until I had a clear image in my head about exactly what I wanted to accomplish. It was always going to be a chopper because a classic Harley bobber would’ve limited my creativity – I wanted the kind of bike a young American war veteran back from Vietnam in 1971 with a wad

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ENGINE: 1971 H-D Shovelhead 1200 engine (‘hot’ cam, SU carb, one-off exhaust, Morris magneto ignition)/fourspeed gearbox (1.5-inch belt primary, NEB clutch from speedway bike), one-off frame by The Motor Shop (45-degree rake, 2-inch stretch), one-off footcontrols, Michelin 3x19 front tyre, AEE front hub, Borrani rims (19-inch front, 18-inch rear), one-off 12-inch over forks, Z-bar handlebars (narrowed), 1970s Alien fuel tank, one-off alloy oil tank, one-off seat by Anders Björklund, narrowed aftermarket rear ‘guard, oneoff rear hub, modified Honda CB350 front brake/shield/ drum as rear brake, Metzeler 4x18 tyre, 1970s Aris GT headlight, English bicycle tail-light

of cash in his pocket could’ve built. That’s why my bike has a ’71 Shovel motor – people tell me it could’ve been even cooler with a Pan or Knuckle engine, but they haven’t seen my point. Why would a young dude back then want some tired old Knucklehead? He’d’ve wanted the hottest new thing on the market!”

He wanted a frame that he’d read about in old copies of Choppers Magazine – a single-loop rigid from The Motor Shop in Oxnard, California. They only bult around 200 between 1968 and 1972, but after lots of searching on Craigslist and eBay he finally found one. Except for the frame, the tank, the AEE spool hub, the handlebars and rear muddie, he pretty much fabricated all the rest by hand, and the rigid front fork’s the reason the bike’s called ‘Speedhopper’ – “it looks pretty speedy, and being rigid both front and rear, I expected it to do some bouncing and hopping!”

He was very careful about everything following along the lines of the rare old single-loop frame – the oil tank and the exhaust pipes all perfectly flow along with the frame tubes. A normal Harley clutch basket sticking out the left side was out of the question too – he managed to find a much more compact NEB clutch from a speedway bike and fitted that, and the rear brake’s also handbuilt with only the innards taken from a Honda 350 front drum (the cylinder from a ’60s sprint car’s tucked away behind the gearbox). He also mounted the Morris magneto 180 degrees from how it should be (the exact opposite of the way you’re supposed to put it!) to follow the V-shape of the engine, and he got rid of some of the clutter around the SU carb by making his own float bowl.

FINISH: Paint by Johan Sjölund, chrome by Dala Krom ENGINEERING: Bike built by owner

For the paint, he was hell-bent on getting the exact mix of purple candy he had in mind, and even the number of bubbles on the sides of the tank. “It was like a case of telepathy between me and the painter,” he said.

He wanted to debut it at the biggest, best, and most famous show in Sweden, Norrtälje, and not surprisingly he won the AMD jury class! A chopper that could’ve been built by a Vietnam vet in the 1970s? No way – it’s got a lot more class than that!

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ellow Fever, the digger, is a genuine survivor from the American 1970s – in 1978 it won the Rat’s Hole Show in Daytona, and two years later was sold to Sweden as a rolling advertisement for the bike shop Custom Cycle outside Stockholm. Today it’s part of Mats Hedenstrand’s awesome Harley collection at a secret address.

The digger style was invented by the late lamented Arlen Ness in northern California, but that didn’t keep a certain Mr Ronnie Napodano in Brooklyn from spending eighteen months creating this bike but, not long after, he was involved in a motorcycle accident resulting in expensive medical bills that had to be paid

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so Yellow Fever was put up for sale, and a pair of Swedish Harley dealers on a shopping spree on the east coast cashed up. Matt was there in Brooklyn when Custom Cycle bought the bike, so now it’s like it’s gone full circle, you know? When one of the founders of Custom Cycle passed away a couple of years ago, he asked the widow if he could buy the old Pan-Shovel. It’d been doing duty as décor in a display window of a bank, but someone threw a brick through the window and damaged the paint (which was, thankfully, skillfully fixed by a local painter), and when Custom Cycle closed in 1989, it was displayed at the MC Collection motorcycle museum in Stockholm until the bike shop’s founder brought it home with him

ENGINE: H-D Pan/Shovel 1370 engine (Sifton cam, heads ported by Jerry Branch, S&S Super B carb with velocity stack, Paughco exhausts, Joe Hunt magneto)/4-speed gearbox (belt primary)/Clutch/ primary cover, Arlen Ness frame (40-degree rake, 6-inch stretch)/8inch over springers/’bars, one-off foot controls, Avon front tyre, Morris wheels, Lockheed brakes, Arlen Ness fuel tank, AEE oil tank, custom seat, modified Sportster rear ‘guard, Arco rear tyre, Bates headlight, Lucas tail-light FINISH: Paint/gold leaf by Dave Perewitz at Cycle Fabrications, airbrushing

by John Hartnett, chroming by Brown’s Plating Service, Kentucky ENGINEERING: Bike built by Ronnie Napodano, Brooklyn

during the last months of his life.

Technically the bike’s based on stuff from Arlen Ness: frame, forks, ’bars, and tank are all from Ness’ shop, Bay Area Custom Cycles. The wheels are Morris, and the brakes’re from Lockheed, originally intended for go-karts.

The engine’s a Pan-Shovel with a 1948 bottom end and ’75 cylinders and heads. The fact that the bike’s a Big Twin’s a little special – it was mostly Sportsters that were turned into diggers (and quite a few Honda 750s). Lots of glitter and engraving were obligatory for the Bay Area style, and this bike got the pearl/gold leaf treatment from no one less than Dave Perewitz himself (check out his signature on the tank and the CYCLE FAB lettering), and with all that shine, it’s small wonder that Yellow Fever was portrayed in ads for the equally legendary chrome shop, Brown’s Plating Service in Kentucky, and in 1978 the bike was a show-winner in New York, Philadelphia and Daytona before it was sold to Sweden.

Sueco Loco, the green ’un, was built by Michael Hallgren from Gothenburg who works as a car designer for Saab, Volvo, Highland Motors, and now the Chinese automaker Geeley, and he’s also created customs from Aprilias and Enfields. The inspiration for this Sportster was a custom from southern California called El Flaco, and he decided to build his own version called El Sueco Loco – The Crazy Swede. He found a ’79 XLH in the US that’d been left out in the desert for years (there were literally birds living in the engine), and took it apart, cleaned out all the dirt, and found he didn’t need to change anything except the piston rings and clutch plates! Then he chopped off the rear section

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ENGINE: 1979 H-D XLH 1000 engine (SU carb, one-off exhausts, Twin Tec electronic ignition)/4-speed gearbox/clutch/frame (hardtailed by David Bird in California), H-D foot controls, Avon Speedmaster 3x21” tyre, 21” front wheel, stock front brake, Showa 2-inch under forks, one-off ’bars, Kustom Tech/H-D hand controls, modified aftermarket fuel tank, fire extinguisher oil tank, Biltwell seat, Lowbrow Customs rear ’guard, 16” rear wheel, stock rear brake, Shinko 5x16” tyre, aftermaket headlight/tail-light FINISH: Gold metalflake paint on green base by owner, nickel-plating

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and replaced it with a weld-on hardtail by David Bird in Los Angeles. Up front he lowered the forks two inches to match the rear section too.

With the essentials in place, he could start on the details.

He modified a gas tank that may be from Lowbrow with a relocated cap and a ridge along the top, and made the oil tank out of an old fire extinguisher. Another unusual idea was chopping the sprocket cover on the engine’s right side for a more naked look – he only saved the kicker bushing and sawed off the rest.

He doesn’t really like chrome, and prefers nickel-plating, which has a warmer tone. He bought a nickel-plating kit to be able to do his own plating (in his garage), and the exhaust system, handlebars, sissy-bar and other parts now have that slightly yellowish nickel tone. The gold metalflake paint was done by Michael himself too, complete with gold leaf and what he calls “an embarrassing attempt at pinstriping”.

All in all, a street-legal, trendy Ironhead. So does he have any grandiose dreams of showing it at Mooneyes in Yokohama, Born Free, or any other high-profile show like that? ”Not really, no, but Wheels & Waves in Biarritz would be a nice trip, and not totally unrealistic!”

CHARLEY CHARLES PICS: SIWER OHLSSON

* A monkey is, as any Cockney worth his pickled eels’ll tell you, five hundred quid

IT STARTED AS A CHALLENGE – MY OLD MATE SCOTT CASUALLY ASKED IF IT WAS POSSIBLE TO BUILD A ROAD-LEGAL BIKE FROM SCRAP FOR VERY LITTLE MONEY. I’M SURE NO ACTUAL AMOUNT WAS AGREED AT THE TIME BUT, SOMEHOW, THAT BECAME A MEAGRE £500...

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much spot on with no dead spots, and a most satisfying armstretch when she comes on cam. The exhausts were one of the biggest challenges as the budget was tight; I used two sets of GSX600F headers, a pair of 2-into-1 ‘y’ pieces from a Hayabusa, a length of stainless tube from the local motor factors, two Chinese mufflers, and a couple of lengths of inch angle iron found under my bandsaw. It took a couple of days of sweat, blood, and tears (and some of the best swearing you’ve ever heard), but I was happy with the end result.

When I originally put it together, the wide motor and big back wheel meant the chain’d only just pass the frame. Grub, whose bikes many of you’ll know, popped round to buy some parts off me, cast his expert eye over it, and made a few suggestions, and so I used a pair of handlebars to make a new upright that kinked outwards to give the required clearance.

Paintwork’s courtesy of Halford’s rattlecans; the choke n’ clutch cables were made THANKS TO by me, as was the wiring loom; and the “Scott for having the throttle cables were found in the scrap pile. stupid idea in the first place; my Mrs In all it’s taken about nine months as it for putting up with was done in my spare time, and finished the Olympic standard swearing; & Trinket the within the budget (well, it went twenty dog for being there quid over, but that’s my dirty little secret). when Daddy got a sad The day before BSH came, I’d spent all day on...” polishing it to make sure it was looking its

’m a selfemployed bike breaker (Boston Bike Bits 07413 993330 or www. bostonbikebits.co.uk), so the project began with a pillage of the pile awaiting the scrap man.

There didn’t seem to be much that was usable, but Scottie spotted an old hardtail frame.

The rummaging continued, and I found the petrol tank that’d originally come with the frame, yokes and forks off some old Yamaha trail bike, a rear mudguard in very poor shape, a Suzuki VZ800 rear wheel, and a Bandit 600 that’d been so badly smashed I had to cut the engine out of the frame.

I found a Yamaha Diversion wheel with twin discs and, as I only wanted one, the centre of the second disc was cut out and turned in my lathe to make a natty blanking plate, and a Triumph caliper was the right size, so a custom bracket was made to suit.

The carbs were re-jetted one size up on the idles, mixture screws out to three-and-a-half turns, 110 mains, and it’s pretty

finest, but two carbs’d flooded, hydraulically locking at least one cylinder. I whipped the plugs out, put a rag over the engine, pressed the starter, and what seemed like a gallon of petrol shot up into the air – all over my freshly polished bike. Bugger.

It was about then the (workshop) lights started flickering, went off, and didn’t come back on for hours, meaning polishing by torch-light so that the bike’d look its best the following day.

Fortunately I got it done; the results are what you see on these pages.

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DAVE POWELL PICS: DAVE MANNING JULY 2021

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I FIRST SAW THIS BIKE (WELL, KIND O’) GAWD KNOWS HOW MANY YEARS AGO ON A VISIT TO THE THEN ATTITUDE CUSTOMS IN SOUTHAMPTON. MY FIRST VIEW OF IT WAS OF IT ON TWO OF ITS THREE AVAILABLE WHEELS, PILOTED BY A GRINNING SIMON, WITH A SCREAMING GIRLIE IN THE CHAIR…

thought then, ‘I’ve got to photograph that,’ but for one reason or another it didn’t actually happen, and it wasn’t until many years later I happened to pop into So Low Choppers in Bury St Edmunds, and saw it parked up there. That was it. I arranged to shoot it then and there as I wasn’t going to let it get away a second time!

It was originally built by Simon (Harris) in one of his periodic, ‘I’ve got loads of bits, can I build a bike out of them?’ phases. He’d picked up the Charnwood Meteor side-car somewhere along the line for just £150(!), but’d left it lying about for a few years until, one day, the ‘build a bike from bits’ bug bit him again. He had a four-speed Sportster engine with a broken gearbox, a four-speed Shovelhead gearbox, and a three-inch belt drive primary kicking around the shop, as well as half a Harley wishbone frame, so he decided to cut the gearbox off the Sporty motor, and mate it to the Shovel ’box with the 3-inch belt (something that is, quite obviously, a lot easier to type than to actually do). He did that, mounted it into the frame (which he’d repaired), found some long broken springer forks, and shortened and repaired them, fitted them, and stood back and thought, ‘It needs something else, what?” The answer – a side-car. He wheeled the unsuspecting lop-sided Meteor over and, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail (whatever that feckin’

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means?!?), had it bolted to the rigid Sporty/Shovel hybrid. A set of car tyres were shoehorned on to a set of sixteen-inch Harley spoked wheels, a few wires were connected up, and he fired it and hooned it round the yard, finding out very quickly that, yes indeed, it’s very easy to pop the chair up into the air when you’re not expecting it…

Test-hoon done, it was stripped back down again, and the frame and a few other choice parts were sent to Attitude’s powder-coaters of choice, Trestan Finishers, while the chair and tank were given to the JULY 2021

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late, great Alan Stacey for a few subtle coats of red and cream.

When they landed back, Simon rubbed some dirt into the cream to make it look more aged, and then gave Peter Green a free hand to add logos and pin-stripes an’ that.

Once done, he rode it as was for a couple of years, and then sold it to a local guy, Phil, who did a few more bits to it, and then sold it to a guy in Bury St Edmunds. He later rang Simon about making a few changes (Avon Speedmasters rather than the car tyres, a different rear ’guard, etc.). The motor was also changed for a five-speed, ’leccy-start Sporty somewhere along the way, and then the outfit went back to Suffolk. A while later, owner matey had an issue or two with the engine so, rather than haul it all the way back to Southampton, he took it to Hip and Jay and crew at So Low for repairs and a few more changes, the most obvious of which is the Edgar Allan

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ENGINE: H-D Sportster engine (EMD Shovelheadstyle rocker covers, unknown air-filter, one-off exhausts, one-off hand-shift), modified H-D wishbone frame, unknown forwards, Charnwood Meteor sidecar, H-D 16” spoked wheels/brakes, modified springers, aftermarket ‘bars, EMD headlight/chair light, Sportster tank, unknown seat, Attitude Cycles oil tank/rear mudguard/tool box/loom,

Ford replica tail light FINISH: Paint by Alan Stacey RIP/Peter Green, signwriting by Sam’s Signs (07946 570410 or Facebook) ENGINEERING: Outfit built by Attitude Cycles (023 8032 4373 or www.attitudecycles. uk), engine rebuild/mods by So Low Choppers (01359 253600 or www. solowchoppers.org)

Poe/Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride paint scheme.

This was when I saw it again, and was lucky enough to get to take it out on me own to do these pictures, and what a hoot that was! I’ve ridden a couple of outfits over the years, some good, some not so, and this one’s as big and solid and planted as it looks. It’s not fast ’cos it’s heavy, and only has a Sportster motor to pull it, but it’s a real craic to ride, and everyone, but everyone, looks and smiles and/or waves as you blart past on it. The short ’pipes crackle away around your right knee, the hand-change is an utter twat to get into neutral, and your face soon aches from grinning – so much so that I very seriously thought of asking the then-owner if he’d be up for a deal on my 45. I didn’t though, for one reason or another, and now it’s gone to live with someone else oop t’north. You, sir, are a lucky man!

NIK

OFTEN WHEN A CUSTOM BIKE CHANGES HANDS, THE DETAILS OF ITS CONSTRUCTION DON’T ALWAYS FOLLOW SUIT, MAKING LIFE INTERESTING NOT ONLY FOR A NEW OWNER SOURCING PARTS, BUT ALSO FOR ANY MOTORCYCLE JOURNALIST ATTEMPTING TO WRITE ABOUT IT… 24

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he stunning machine you see here was imported from Sweden at some point and ended up at Andy Tiernan Classics in Suffolk, where it was seen by Clive Bacon from Halstead who fell in love immediately and bought it. The details of who originally built it are, therefore, a little sketchy, and the reasoning behind why they put a twin-cylinder Triumph engine into a swinging-arm Matchless frame, and then fitted a sodding great supercharger, will have to remain a mystery…

The frame’s that of a 1953 (perhaps ’54) Matchless 500, mildly modified to allow the fitting of the 500cc ’54 Triumph T100 engine, albeit with the Matchless gearbox/clutch. While the frame retains its original twin shock swinging-arm design (an unusual choice given the design, and the long girder forks), it’s been modified around the steering head, and reworked to take the unknown fuel tank, and at the rear (the seat rails’re different, and the shocks sit at a shallower angle), further modified to support the fitment of a supercharger – something very unusual for any road bike, let alone a chopper. You see, while the engine itself’s nothing unusual for a chop of the time (in that it’s a pre-unit Triumph twin of half-a-litre capacity), superchargers like this were really only seen on quarter-mile drag bikes – the way in which a ’charger rams gobs of air and raw fuel into the inlets means

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they were rarely used on road bikes of the Seventies, let alone radical choppers! Okay, so digger-builders in the USA did put them on 750/4s and the like occasionally, but they were primarily show bikes – not often road ’uns like this!

It looks as though the blower fitted to the TriLess (Triumph engine, Matchless frame) is a Volumex – a mechanically-driven (via a pulley on the left-hand end of the crankshaft) Roots-style supercharger that works by having two intermeshing rotors within a cast housing, and was actually used on several sporting car JULY 2021

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models built before the Second World War. The Tiger 100 lump, built between September 1954 and July 1955, isn’t in the same specification now as it was when it first rolled out of the Meriden factory, given that it’ll’ve most certainly been beefed up in order to withstand the extra power capable of being delivered, thanks to the blower. We don’t know the exact spec’, but he fact that it hasn’t blown itself to pieces suggests it’s been built properly.

The classic Sixties chopper stance’s been delivered courtesy of a set of girder forks of unknown origin. They’re nicely made though – look at the way that they taper at the top spring mount, how neat the linkages are, and how they merge together at the wheel spindle. The front wheel, which Clive, like the back, had rebuilt, is from a Seventies 550/4, while the rear’s a 16-inch drum that’s presumably Matchless. The forward controls are bespoke, made with levers and ’pegs from a set of Tarrozzi rear-sets, and the side-stand is loooong (and presumably a one-off).

With a custom-style mudguard, and suitable fuel tank of indeterminate origin, it’s the finish that really sets this classic chopper apart from any other. The paint’s something totally out of the ordinary for a custom motorcycle, even for one of a Sixties vibe – there’s no clichéd dragons, skulls or warrior maidens with exposed love dumplings here.

No, it’s more like the styles used on canal narrowboats, and the like, with its hand-painted (you can see the brushstrokes) flowers, leaves, and

ENGINE: 1954 Triumph T100 (polished/detailed, Volumex supercharger/belt cover, Amal carb, Matchless gearbox/ clutch, one-off exhausts with wrapped section), modified 1953 Matchless swingarm frame/swingarm (chromed), one-off head-steady, one-off side-stand, bespoke forwards, 18” Honda front wheel/brake, unknown girder forks, twisted risers, unknown ‘bars/controls, unknown front mudguard/ tank/seat/rear mudguard, one-off oil tank, one-off sissybar, aftermarket shocks, 16” rear rim, Matchless hub/brake, one-off loom, aftermarket headlight/tail-light

wildlife – the sort of thing Mike Wolfe of American Pickers’d call ‘folk art’.

In contrast, there’s also an abundance FINISH: of high-quality chroming, of fasteners Silver base coat with handand bracketry as well as on the forks, painted details by previous the engine, the supercharger belt cover, (Swedish) builder the oil tank, and the swinging arm, but ENGINEERING: Bike built by previous also on the intricately twisted sissy-bar (Swedish) builder that matches the twisted handlebar THANKS TO: risers (although they are, somewhat “Andy Tiernan Classics peculiarly, painted silver – not chromed (01728 724321 or www. andybuysbikes.com); & the like everything else). guy who recovered me on his Since buying it from Andy two or trailer when the battery went three years ago, Clive has, as I said, had down on a ride…” the wheels rebuilt as they weren’t great (the ’builder told him the front was in serious danger of collapsing!), fitted an air-filter to the Amal carb, added a little bit of exhaust wrap to keep the heat off his right ankle when in queues or at traffic lights, changed the headlight, fitted a speedo and better shocks, and dealt with a few electrical issues (new battery, new reg/rec as it kept burning the coil out, etc.). Other than that, it’s a rolling piece of custom bike history – the same as it was when first built, and providing an interesting insight into how custom bikes’ve changed (or not) over the last forty years…

DAVE MANNING PICS: NIK

MANY FOLK OUT THERE’LL BE AWARE OF THE NAME BRIT CHOPPER CUSTOMS OR, AT THE VERY LEAST, BRIT CHOPPER, BECAUSE OF THE CUSTOM BIKE MAGAZINE OF THE SAME NAME LAUNCHED BACK IN 2006 BY MARK ‘PHIXER’ DUCKETT, AND THE LEGENDARY CHRIS IRELAND.

adly, as is often the way with custom bike magazines, Brit Chopper’s no longer with us – it lasted some four years, and out of its ashes came Brit Chopper Customs, a predominantly Harley-based customising, servicing and repair shop on the outskirts of Norwich.

It was (and still is) the brainchild and baby of Phixer, a gentleman who’s always been into bikes, and has a long history of building customs for both himself and his mates, mostly in the early days from his garage at home. Around seven years ago he retired from his day job (running IT departments in universities), and decided to turn his hobby into a business. He found a unit on an industrial estate in the small village of Rackheath a few miles off the speedtrap-haunted A47 between the county town of Norfolk, Norwich, and the seaside paradise (ahem) that is Great Yarmouth.

In the early days of the business he’d work on all kinds of bikes and customs, but specialises now in Harleys, with the odd Brit thrown in too. He has nothing against other bikes, y’know - it’s just that Harleys are what he likes and what he’s good at, and so that’s what he prefers to work on. The ethos behind the shop isn’t a purely financial one either – he’d like to help people create and maintain their dream bike (or trike) than just take money off them as so many shops do.

To that end, Brit Chopper Customs (okay, mainly Mark, but with help from Jimmy, Keith, and Brian the oldest tea boy in the land) can offer everything from full custom builds and/or modifications, to servicing, engine rebuilds/upgrades, wiring, troubleshooting, restoration, maintenance, custom parts (catalogue and one-off) – basically, anything your bike needs. He has good contacts with local painters and airbrush artists, and access to a renowned dyno, and there isn’t much Harley-wise he can’t do or get done.

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The day I was there was, I suspect, a fairly typical one; there were two or three bikes on benches getting sorted, a fairly glorious fat-rear Zodiac-framed chop that they’re selling for a customer in the middle of the floor (ring Phixer for info’, it is rather nice), and a couple of mild customs in for tweaking, and folk came and went, drank tea, and chatted about all things bike.

It didn’t so much feel like a shop per se, more a place where you can go to get bits for or done to your bike by people who just like you know the score. Phixer laughs: “It’s an old mens’ support club!”

If it sounds like your kind o’ place, pop along for a visit to the unit at 21 Mahoney Green, Rackheath, Norwich (NR13 6JY), or give them a call on 01603 721603, or you can check them out on line at www.britchopper. com (where there’s still a forum for folk who were into the magazine too, keeping its spirit alive).

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The BSH Custom Bike Championship’s back again for 2021 – now in its sixth year!

Due to the effects of the bastard bat plague, we’re going to have to run much of it as an online thing again. There’ll be three more online rounds (June, July, August – we’ve already had May’s) that you enter simply just by posting a pic of your bike in the relevant thread on any of the Facebook pages listed below: BSH Facebook Page BSH Facebook group (Back Street Heroes – The Official Group) Streetfighters Facebook group (Streetfighters Magazine – Hooligan Underground) Butchered Classics Facebook group As well as those, we will (fingers crossed) be able to do two real world rounds too:

THE JUDGES ARE:

3rd JULY NCC LONDON’S DIAMOND DAY ACE CAFE, ACE

PAUL TIMPSON FROM ZODIAC UK

CORNER, NORTH CIRCULAR RD, LONDON (NW10 7UD)

29-31st ROCK & BLUES CUSTOM SHOW CONEY GREY SHOWGROUND, CHESTERFIELD ROAD, PENTRICH, DERBYS (DE5 3RF) AND EACH ROUND WILL HAVE, THIS YEAR, SIX CATEGORIES:

1. BEST CHOPPER 2.BEST CUSTOM 3. BEST NEW SKOOL CUSTOM (CAFE RACER, STREET SCRAMBLER, ETC.)

4.BEST PAINT 5. BEST ENGINEERING 6.BEST BUTCHERED CLASSIC (PRE-1990) One bike from each of these categories’ll be picked as the winner of that class at that round and, just like previous years, to ensure that all judging’s completely impartial (and not just ‘who’s got the most mates to vote for their bike’), we’ve a hand-picked panel of judges, respected folk from the custom bike world who really know their stuff, who’ll choose their favourites from the winners of each category, and the one with the most votes from them wins (in the event of a tie, us ‘ere at BSH’ll have the deciding vote).

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ODGIE (YEP, THE LEGENDARY MAN HIMSELF) MURRELLS FROM THE NATIONAL CHOPPER CLUB COMMITTEE VIC & LIN FROM DESTINY CYCLES DAVE SOLOMON FROM BUTCHERED CLASSICS The six winners from that’ll 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 with awards, huge amounts of prize money (approx. £500 each category, £750 for Best Overall!), and Zodiac vouchers worth £250 too!

You don’t have to enter each round, unless you want to of course, because you can only win once. Of course, if you don’t win at the first one, you can always go to one of the others to give yourself another chance. Last year it was probably the biggest custom show in the world – over 1,000 entrants!

Good luck!

LAST YEAR’S WINNERS

PART TWO LAST ISSUE, I TALKED ABOUT THE BIRTH OF THE BIKER SUB-CULTURE, CHARTING ITS EMERGENCE FROM THE YEARS AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR, AND THE TEENAGERS OF THE 1950S... aws around motorcycle riding also changed in the 1960s, including a new one that limited learners to 250cc bikes, with ‘L’ plates, and this, although no-one really knew it at the time, was to play a major role in changing biking.

British 250s of the time, like the BSA 250 Star (list price £179.17.10 new), weren’t exactly thrillproviders, but all was not doom and gloom for young learners as there was another perfect storm brewing – this time blowing in from the east in the form of Japanese bikes. At the same time as the BSA Star, Yamaha launched its YDS1 – a two-stroke, fast, reliable twin with a top speed of 90mph that was more than a match for the old single-pot four-stroke BSAs and the like.

The writing was on the wall for the British bike industry. A new wave of reliable, fast bikes was to hit British streets over the coming years, and they can, definitely, be seen as a contributing influence on the British biker’s change of look and direction. By the end of the decade, secondhand prices of British bikes’d plummet as riders switched to cheap and, more importantly, more fun Japanese offerings.

Also this was the Sixties – the Swinging Sixties. To be fair, the Mods (scooter riders, antithesis of Rockers) knew what was coming, and embraced new styles, fashions, and music in a backdrop of optimism and colour. Jet Age Britain was rising out of the post-war gloom, and the Sixties saw many influences come to bear on the British biker as he scrambled to reinvent himself again. Rock & Roll, for example, was to take a step backward as the music scene changed, and the start of large music events such as Woodstock and the Isle of Wight. There were TV sets in most homes now, and colour films at the cinema made far-off lands such as America look a lot closer. One film that was to have a resounding influence on the British biker was 1969’s Easy Rider, starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. This film, about two long-haired, drug-using chopper riders drifting along America’s highways on a trip to visit the Mardi Gra in New Orleans was influential in one particular way – the bikes were undoubtedly the stars. Both actors rode Panhead Harley-Davidsons that’d been radically customised, and Peter Fonda’s ‘Captain America’ was to become an iconic image of the Sixties in its own right with its exaggerated extreme rake forks, high

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sissy-bar, and Stars & Stripes paint. It, and Dennis Hopper’s less radical ‘Billy Bike’, were images that travelled across the Atlantic, and could be seen to be one of the contributing influences of the change in the British biker and his identity. Not only that, but there was a rise in American MC clubs who’d travelled across ‘The Pond’ and set up – gone now was the church hall club!

The 1970s were a backdrop of rising economic unrest in Britain, and football violence was often reported on the evening news on television, along with images of trade union strikes. The three-day working week, and black-outs, were imposed on the British public to save money, and music drifted from the ‘glam’ rock of Marc Bolan, Sweet, and Gary Glitter through US disco to punk – the Sex Pistols proclaiming ‘Anarchy in the UK’. Heavy metal’d also been born, with the likes of Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper, and this amplified, pounding wall of noise was to become part of the identity of the biker, just as was Rock & Roll was in the ’50s for the Rocker. Another perfect storm was brewing too, but this time it was more subtle.

In 1971 the learner laws for riding bikes were changed again. You now had to be over 17 to ride a 250cc bike, but 16-year-olds could now ride a 49cc moped. This, on the surface, would seem to curtail the antics of the adrenaline-fuelled teenager (which I’m sure was the intention of the introduction of the law at the time), as what mopeds there were available at the time were very basic, very slow, go-to work machines like the Raleigh Runabaout – not the type of thing that’d get the blood pumping in a sixteen-year-old who’d just started work for the first time, and was seeking independence. The rising storm in the east, though, launched in 1972 – the Yamaha FSIE 49cc sports moped (actually the FSiE, meaning For Sixteeners In Europe, but commonly known as the Fizzy), and it was a world away from the British offerings of the time. Now, it has to be said, we can look over all the most iconic bikes in British biking history, the BSA Gold Stars, the Manx Nortons, the Bonnevilles, the Commandos, etc., and also bikes like Ducatis, Laverdas, HarleyDavidson’s Evolution re-birth in the 1980s, Honda’s CBX 1000 and Kawasaki’s Z900, among countless other bikes, but when it comes to influencing the British biker the Fizzy can be held aloft as a true hero of the people.

The reason was simple – the powers-that-be’d introduced the 49cc

limit for sixteen-year-olds to aid safety, but maybe also to curb the rise in popularity of motorcycles, to deter those wishing to enter into this perceived lawless, and dangerous, rebellious lifestyle. The Fizzy, and other sporst mopeds, obeyed the rules, but exploited loopholes and, with its relatively high performance two-stroke engine and sporty looks, was more than a go-to work moped; it was ‘freedom’ for the teenager. Counterparts followed in the form of the four-stroke SS50, and Suzuki’s AP50, but none had the iconic image of the Fizzy.

What these small sports mopeds did was to encourage young teens to enter into biking – possibly quite the opposite of what the Government wanted. Sixteen-year-olds could now break their biking virginity by running around town with their friends on their bikes, swapping stories and tips about their bikes, believing myths like putting an expansion chamber exhaust on their bike’d drastically increase its speed – they could become bikers.

In 1977 though, suits in Government, with an easy swipe of a pen, limited 50cc bikes to 30mph. Sales plummeted, and it was thought to be the end of the road for the sports moped. The damage, in their eyes, had been done though – there was a new influx of young bikers, many of whom may not’ve even entered biking if it wasn’t for sports mopeds.

These young bikers quickly moved on to 125cc and 250cc Japanese machines, such as the Yamaha RD 250 or Suzuki GT 250. 250s’d been around since the 1960s, of course, but these new two-stroke screamers were very different from the old plodders of yore, and with the now well-established hire-purchase process in place, it was a simple manner of using your current bike as the deposit on the next and, as long as your credit was good, away you went with your new bigger machine – invariably Japanese now though, rather than British. Crucially, what was happening was a numbers game – it’s likely that, if the law limiting sixteen-year-olds to 49cc hadn’t been introduced, Japanese manufactures wouldn’t’ve produced the Fizzy, resulting in less young men being attracted into motorcycling in the first place. It was, however, the catalyst for many to feel the enjoyment and freedom of biking, and many went on to bigger and better things in biking in the next few years.

The storm, this time, was helped along its path by a new breed of motorcycle magazine. Bike, launched by Mark Williams in 1971, was more than road tests and nice stories – it tapped into the emerging young biker culture, helped by its hero cartoon character, Ogri, written and drawn by Paul Sample. Issue one’s cover featured a chopper with a beautiful girl (in enormous flares!) lying back on it, with a caption that stated, ‘All that’s fast, furious, and fun on two wheels’, and it was funny, irreverent, and slightly dangerous back in its early years.

There were many other magazines, of course, too, and some tapped into this, while some didn’t. Motorcycle Mechanics, for example, had been around since the early ’60s, and remained influenced by the traditional world, but Bike, and Super Bike in its early days too, were aimed at this new generation.

When exploring the subject of biking magazines there was one, an American one, that can be said to have a resounding affect on biker culture in both America and Britain. Easyriders (note the difference between it and Easy Rider, the film), produced by Palsano Publications, started production in 1970, and championed the chopper/alternative way of life, even though what it portrayed was a world apart from British biker culture – photos of custom motorcycles, mainly HarleyDavidsons, images of long desert roads, and the freedom to ride wherever and whenever. Its readers’ photos pages, called ‘In The Wind’, had pics of readers seemingly living the ideal biker life – beer, bikes, and beautiful women. This was helped by the centre spread paintings

by David Mann depicting the same fantasy lifestyle, and topless models – altogether a potent mix for the young British biker dreaming of being the rebel and living a free, non-conformist lifestyle.

The year 1977 saw Super Bike launched, and it, again, was something different. Its pages depicted highly modified Japanese bikes, built often by their owners, and again imagery of scantily-clad women posing with them on its centre pages meant few copies from the day still exist as many were pulled apart to act as posters on bedroom walls for teenagers throughout Britain at the time.

What’s significant about these magazines is that were more than just information – they were saying ‘this could be you’. They related to

the biker on another level, just like The Wild One did all those years ago – it spoke to the pioneers of British biker culture in the 1950s, and these magazines spoke to bikers of the 1970s, bonding them together more so than in the past. Readers didn’t sit passively taking in the writings and images in their pages, but identified with it, and colluded to create the lifestyle or culture.

The 1970s, then, were a time of influences coming together to help mould the image of the British biker – some were drawn to the new high-powered machines coming from Japan, and the turbocharged world of Super Bike, while others looked to America for their direction, and the desire to emulate a lifestyle seen in the pages of Easyriders.

There were distinct changes in dress, too, for the new bikers. The obligatory black leather jacket, loved by the Rockers, was now sometimes coloured and more stylised as it was influenced by famous bike racers of the time such as Kenny Roberts or Barry Sheene. Bikes were often adorned with bolt-on, ‘go faster’ attachments, better exhaust systems and rear-set foot-controls and the like, and after a new crash helmet law was introduced in 1973, brightly-coloured helmets to match leathers.

Riders became conscious of brand names, like Bell, Simpson, or Lewis Leathers, for example.

There was, of course, a counter image to this, and that involved the Easyriders-type reader trying to identify with the wild, lawless image of the American dream, and their fashion was very different. The word Greaser was often used to describe them with their long hair, beards, and ‘originals’ (the original pair of jeans that you started your bike riding life with, never washed, shredded, and covered in oil). Greasers took pride in the shocking, dishevelled image they portrayed. (It’s interesting to note at this stage cut-offs weren’t often worn, and if they were, they were denim jackets with the sleeves cut off over the top of their leather jacket – the advent of the leather vest/waistcoat commonly worn by many now was a few years away.)

Social l life l f for f these h two groups w was becoming very S different too. The speed-influenced crowd met at tea huts like High Beech in Epping Forest orr Ryka’s at Box Hill in Surrey, to name but two, and there were regular runs to Brands Hatch and Silverstone race tracks t to watch their heroes race. The Greasers, though, went w to rallies (camping weekends in fields, not in any way, shape s or form like car rallies). Although there’s no clear in ndication of when they started (the Dragon Rally in Wales in February each year has just celebrated its 60th year, and d it’s not the oldest), they bcame more popular from the 19700s onwards, and took several forms, from large, organised d gatherings (like Sturgis in America, for example) to smallerr club events with only a hundred or so attendees, and all po oints in between). Out of rallies, which were weekend-long evvents, grew custom shows to display one’s custom bike – they, too, could be weekends, but were, and still are, often one-daayers. Rallies, several hundred in fact a year, continued off course, organised by local motorcycle clubs with basic temporary entertainment facilities, and all attending campingg for the weekend in tents.

It’s interesting that, back in the day,, they were often attended by both groups of the biker lifestylee, and also that, in the main, they were held in the winter month hs. This changed with the aging demographic of the biker as most m preferred to camp in the summer as they got older.

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as and Blues in Derbyshire by the Outlaws MC, and another HA event – the Bulldog Bash in Warwickhire.

There was also another key 1980s event that took place in 1983 and, again, it was to do with the media. Back Street Heroes magazine, launched and published by Steve Myatt and Alastair McFarlane in Manchester, went on sale in November 1983, and it was a British answer to Easyriders magazine. According to Wikipedia, it ‘popularises a new breed of custom motorcycle… celebrates the sex, drugs, and rock & roll, long hair, and open exhausts aspect of motorcycling’. I’m not quite sure that this description is an accurate representation of the magazine as I’m sure I’ve never seen them advocate the use of drugs in their pages, but you can see the similarity with Easyriders – BSH, as it became known, was more than just a motorcycle magazine, it presented and documented a definite counter culture.

There are, of course, marked differences between BSH and Easyriders in that the bike scene depicted in BSH’s more varied, and shows other makes of custom bikes, other than Harley-Davidsons, and the many and varied different sub-sub-cultures associated with the British biking lifestyle (rat bikes, trikes, streetfighters, etc.). It’s difficult to express just how different BSH was from previous UK motorcycle magazines too – they were just about bikes, even Bike and Super Bike, while BSH was about bikers, and the people who rode them, and had a huge effect on a lot of riders who’d’ve never really gone anywhere near Easyriders because it just wasn’t relevant to them. This new ‘bible for the biker’, alongside the birth of the custom show, was just what the doctor ordered for British biking, and gave it the needed shot in the arm that it needed.

Interestingly, when looking through old photos or films of this period, including those of the early Kents, you’ll notice something by its absence, and that’s the leather cut (as it’s become known following the success of the US TV series ‘Sons of Anarchy’ – British bikers still call it a cut-off or waistcoat). It’s unclear when leather vests/waistcoats/cuts (call them what you will) became obligatory wear for the British biker, but it feels as though it’s always been there, but in truth it hasn’t. Yes, there’ll always be those who say they’ve always (or never) worn one, and this is probably true, but while at any biker function, be it a rally, party or show, you will see most wearing them. This wasn’t the case ’til about the mid-1980s. It’s difficult to get definitive information on when they made an appearance in British biking culture, and people are of divided opinion as to why they’ve become the iconic thing they are, but I do think that, as the cut

was predominately worn by members of 1% clubs n the 1970s/80s, and the fact that we all got a ot closer in the ’80s to these clubs at shows and ther events, it’d be a fair assumption that that was an influence, along with the imagery from merican custom magazines, as a cause for its ise in popularity. Here again we see the influences rom America, like the films and imagery of he 1950s, Easy Rider in 1969, and Easyriders magazine in the 1970s – it’s a strange addiction to Americana that the British biker has.

At this point, I’m about to say something ontroversial… up to about this point in British iker history, Harley-Davidsons were not the most popular make of bike in Britain. In fact, in a ountry awash with cheap, fast, and reliable largeapacity four-cylinder Japanese bikes, why would yone choose a veryy expensive, often unreliable -twin in t , ack in the ’ , he same a or the sam weren’t as ounterpar quick to re with a dec ‘custom’ fr out there w but, nine t second bik was inevita Coming the verge o being own Machine & Vaughn Be working on Evolution the compa the Evo wa a favourab liked a Ha quality con rose thro of celebriti statement. brand to n clothing an yourself. It the relaunc even BMW o always bee effect on th of a biker? conformis it, so it beg or just consumers of a fashion accessory the same as many of the celebrities/people with too much money who want to play at being a biker rushing to own a new status symbol?

With its owners being manipulated, and buying into a brand that’s loyalty controlled by the company, is that the definition of a biker?

TONY HADDEN

NEXT MONTH: HARLEYS, HIPSTERS, AND A WARNING FOR THE FUTURE!

FLAT-TRACKERS, AS ENY FULE NOSE, ARE BIG THESE DAYS.

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ot physically, of course (they tend to be a little smaller than most bikes as they’re made to be slung sideways around dirt ovals so a lower centre of gravity’s always an advantage), but in the popularity stakes – Indian offer the FTR; Harley’re (and’ve always been) pushing their involvement in the sport; there’s a more than healthy UK race scene with an official and unofficial (like Dirt Diggers, etc.) calendar; and amongst us lot, the great unwashed masses, road-going ’trackers are a common sight.

Carl Wright wanted a flat-tracker built around the bike known as the Japanese Triumph – the XS650 Yamaha. He’d scored one with a rebuilt motor that’d been stroked

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to 750cc by an unnamed engine guru, and he spoke to Dave and Chris at P&D Customs in deepest, darkest ’Orsham about turning his road-based sow’s ear of an XS into a silk purse of a sidewaysstyle racer. For them, such tasks are (relatively) easy, and they took to it with bisto… sorry, sorry gusto (which doesn’t make as nice gravy, I can tell you).

The frame was stripped of all the unnecessary lugs n’ brackets, and a new slimmer subframe was constructed, and they made a new swingarm to take a wider, knobblier rear ’oop built using an Excel rim spoked to a later Yamaha XT (the off-road single range) hub, and fitted reassuringly sturdy Hagon shocks to keep said wheel from being sat on by said subframe. Up t’front, they used longer forks from (possibly) the same XT, and another Excel/ XT wheel combo too. The brakes were uprated with Brembo discs and calipers, and a pair (although there’s really only one) of suitably fat… sorry, sorry, phat Renthal ’bars were added up top.

The stock XS tank was modified to look more ‘trackeresque, and they made a new seat unit with a lovely swoopy shape and an inset rear light. Those tiny little indicators they put on the Buell in the last issue were used again, and they also made the very factory-looking seat and had it covered locally. A front ’guard (well, it’s not a chopper, is it?) was fabricated, and a suitably chunky bash-plate, and very old Brit scrambler-style frame infills, added to give it that off-road look, and a highlevel stainless two-into-one exhaust made and fitted with an aftermarket end

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ENGINE: Yamaha XS650 engine (rebuilt, stroked to 750cc, one-off stainless high-level exhaust)/frame (modified)/ tank (modified), Yamaha XT hubs/forks/yokes, Excel rims, Brembo brakes, Renthal ‘bars, on-off front mudguard/ seat unit/seat/swingarm,

Hagomn shocks, one-off look by owner, aftermarket lights FINISH: Paint by Stig’s Custom Paint (07595 319476 or Facebook), polishing by AJ&M Polishing ENGINEERING: P&D Custom Bikes (01403 791038 or Facebook)

can (possibly a Scorpion?) with a natty carbon end flange (don’t you just love that word – flange?).

T’paint was done, as is usual, by P&D’s painter of choice, Stig’s Custom Paint, and is suitably subtle (’trackers are race machines, remember, so they don’t really have blingy paint), and Carl, the owner, wired the beastie up himself as he’s a bit good at such things.

I say ‘Carl, the owner’ because at the time these pics were taken he was – the owner. O’course ‘cos o' the magical world in which magazines work, by the time you see this article the XS’ll’ve gone to live with someone else, but such is often the way of things… ho hum. Nice bike though, Carl!

NIK

BEEDS, THE OWNER OF THIS CLASSIC SHOVEL CHOP, HAS BEEN KNOWN, ONCE OR TWICE, TO HAVE A DROP OR TWO OF JACK DANIEL’S TENNESSEE WHISKEY…

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found the bike that was to become the machine you see before you in Ontario in Canada, where it’d been built by an outfit named Maximum Motorworks. It’s a ’74 74 (1974 74 cubic inch) FL motor in a one-off hardtail frame, with a set of DNA springers, and spoked wheels (21-inch front, 18-inch rear with a 200 tyre), and it’d originally been built for a guy who’d made a wedge from ENGINE: the proceeds of the investigation into the Rupert 1974 H-D Shovelhead 1200 (rebuilt, S&S Super E Murdock trial a number of years ago and had, carb, unknown air-cleaner, consequently, named the bike ‘Rupe’. Beeds got wrapped ‘pipes, three-inch his hands on it, and arranged for it to be shipped open belt primary, fourfrom his parents’ house in the land of the maple speed kicker ‘box), one-off leaf to his native Wales and, once it’d landed, hardtail frame by Maximum Motorworks, Avon tyres he and his good mate Clive Hodgson began the (12” front/200x18 rear), transformation into what it is today. spoked aftermarket As I said, he’s a tad fond of the Lynchburg amber wheels (double drum front liquid, so he decided to theme the bike around brake/disc rear), DNA his favourite tipple and, to that end, he and Clive springers, unknown ‘bars, aftermarket white grips, set about designing and fabricating a fuel tank one-off tank, sprung seat, that’d accommodate a bottle of Jack – not an easy aftermarket rear ‘guard, task keeping the bottle securely inside the tank’s horseshoe oil tank with environs while, at the same time, ensuring it (the Jack Daniels hip flask tank) still contained enough fuel to get further than over-flow, one-off hidden loom by Clive, aftermarket the end of the road. They did it, and the precious headlight/tail-light bottle does indeed sit securely in the tank, unable to FINISH: leap out and smash itself to pieces on the blacktop.

Clear-coated tank/rear It’s probably a good job, though, that his poison of

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‘guard, polishing by owner/ Clive ENGINEERING: Bike originally built by Maximum Motorworks, re-worked by owner/Clive coffee/jam butties...”

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choice is Jack, and not Bollinger, isn’t it, with the vibrations of a Shovel motor? I mean, he’d be forever worrying he was going to have a passer-by’s eye out with the cork, wouldn’t he? Another nod to Mr Daniel’s patented liver-rotter is the filler cap, and the hip flask oil tank over-flow (neat), but thankfully they haven’t overdone the theme, and the chop remains a classic Shovel with just the odd JD highlight.

And it really is a classic chop – from the 21-inch front ’oop, the springer forks, and the apes with their white grips, to the wrapped ’pipes and the open belt primary, to the thick leather sprung seat, the classic horseshoe oil tank, and the cropped rear mudguard, this bike is exactly what many folk’d picture if you said the words ‘Shovelhead chop’ to them. It’s visually restrained – the tank and rear muddie’ve had clear-coat put over the smoothed and prepped steel for a suitably simple, traditional finish, and the wrapped ’pipes and extensive polishing go hand-in-hand with that to achieve the classic (that word again) look. Clive made sure that nothing detracted from it too, giving the bike a superbly minimal wiring loom that’s hidden neatly within the frame, etc.

Beeds’ JD-themed Shovel – I’ll raise a glass to that… just not Jack though, eh? Can’t stand the stuff meself.

NIK PICS: SIMON EVERETT JULY 2021

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DO YOU REMEMBER THE WHITBY 77 BIKES? I DO, I LOVED THEM…

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bought the bike that was to become this, a 1978 XS650 Special, in early 2017 from a mate’s dad for £400; it was in terrible condition after being laid up in a barn on his farm since 2000. After a bit of fettling, cleaning the points and the carbs, I had it running with a remote fuel tank. Nik put a pic of it in Readers Lives a few issues ago – it was fooked!

Soon after that I stripped it down, and sold off what I could (and scrapped the rest due to its poor state). I’d already spent a year or so collecting parts for the build, inspired by the Whitby bikes, so I contacted my mate John Moore at Mooretec CNC Engineering to get a headstock machined up, as well as axle blocks, and a new top yoke too.

I didn’t really start on it again until late 2018 when Wellsy (NCC Devonshire Honorary) helped me set up the geometry on the frame jig, and I started fabrication soon after. By that December it was welded, off the jig, and on to its running gear (Hayabusa wheels, late model ZX-10R Kwak forks). All the fabrication was undertaken by me, and everything was shaped by hand with an angle-grinder, linisher, and file.

I tried a fair few tanks (including a CZ175, a BSA Bantam, and a Sportster one to name a few) in order to get the look I wanted, but ended up going for the beautiful Drag Specialities Legacy Lynx as it was the perfect size and style I was hoping to achieve.

Over the next year I slowly chipped away at the fabrication jobs, and my brother Adam came back from Australia for a few months so he helped out a bit too. I finally had the dry build sorted, but really struggled with the battery/electrics box style and shape (what you see on the bike is actually the third attempt). I originally wanted a stainless item, but it just didn’t suit the lines

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of the bike overall, and stood out a little too much. I fabricated the exhausts to match the shape of the frame for a cleaner look, and opted for vapour blast finish instead of polished as I prefer the bronze colour it goes. The top end of engine was rebuilt as the base gasket was leaking, and it was treated to a good clean/ vapour-blast and paint. I had to have a 23mm offset front sprocket machined up by Phoeniks Gears to get the chain to line up with the one on the six-inch Hayabusa rear wheel with 190 tyre, and I installed a hydraulic clutch slave off an Aprilia RSV1000 due to the worm gear from the original clutch assembly fouling on the new offset front sprocket. I also decided to go with a set of more modern carbs from an EX500 Kawasaki (or GPZ500S as they’re perhaps better known over here) which, it has to be said, were a bit of a pain to set up.

The chop was finally ready to tear down for paintwork and finishing in late 2019, and it took me forever to choose the right colour. I had the tank emblem and script I wanted to use for some time – the word ‘Omerta’ (a southern Italian/Sicilian code of silence and honour in the face of questioning by authorities or outsiders, most famously used by the Mafia) and the silent skull in iridescent gold leaf with blue size, gold pin-striping, and black n’ grey chequers over an Osiris green base. All the paintwork was expertly executed by none other than Leicester’s finest John Cooper (who used to paint all of Phil Piper’s bikes before he moved to Malta) – he bought our old flat in 2014, and we became good friends after we discovered our mutual passion for custom bikes. I finally pestered him out of retirement for one of his epic custom paint jobs, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

Another good friend of mine, Roy, took care of the one-off loom, and also made an amazing job of making it look almost factory. It has a Boyer Bransden ignition for reliability, and I used minimal switches for that clean look.

The build was finally completed mid-June last year, and I’m really pleased with how the chop’s turned out, although it’s had its fair share of teething problems – the Kawasaki carbs really were a pain to get set up, ENGINE: and the sprocket ratios 1978 Yamaha XS650 Special engine took some figuring out (Kawasaki carbs, Ramair air-filters, too, and I’ve got used to Aprilia Mille RSV1000 hydraulic clutch slave, Boyer Bransden electronic having to keep tightening ignition, one-off 38mm stainless EVERYTHING on the bike exhausts, one-off CNC oil cooler on due to the vibey nature of clutch casing, offset front sprocket

by Phoeniks Gears (07885 992355 or the motor. I also had to www.phoeniksgears.co.uk), one-off baffle the exhausts after a hardtail frame (30 degree rake, 2-inch few complaints about noise stretch), Kawasaki ZX-6R rear-sets, Michelin Pilot Sport Power 17-inch – personally I didn’t have a tyres (120 front/190 rear), Suzuki problem with them, but my Hayabusa wheels/discs/rear caliper, neighbours didn’t share my Kawasaki ZX-10R calipers/front mudguard/forks/bottom yoke, slab opinion… top yoke, HEL brake lines, Pro-Taper Everything seems to have ‘bars, Aprilia Mille master-cylinders, custom switches, Renthal grips, Drag settled down into place now Specialities Legacy Lynx 3.8 gallon that I’ve done some miles tank with Golan fuel tap, one-off seat on it. It’s an absolute blast to (trimmed by Devon Custom Trimming 07813 476493 or Facebook)/rear ride, it’s comfy (honestly!), mudguard/struts/battery box/’plate and handles like it’s on rails, holder, one-off loom by Roy, Bates and stops really well too headlight with Lucas Fog Ranger lens, Miller replica tail-light (not that much of a surprise, FINISH: given the power of the front Osiris green/gold pin-striping/gold brakes!).

What more could leaf by John Cooper, polishing by Ken I have asked for? Well, a ENGINEERING: bit more power’d be nice Headstock/top yoke/axle blocks

by John Moore at Mooretec CNC – I will most definitely be Engineering (01271 268285 or www. rebuilding the motor with mooreteccnc.co.uk), risers by Lee, a 750cc big-bore kit in the bike built by owner not-too-distant future!

THANKS TO: “Wellsy; John Cooper; Roy; my brother Adam; all the lads at work; John Moore; Lee; Devon Custom Trimming; & Louise, Hayley & Kara…”

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JAMES ANASTASIADES PICS BY NIK

PIC: SIMON EVERETT

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‘THIS BIKE IS THE BIKE I’D’VE BUILT 30 YEARS AGO IF I COULD’VE, BUT IT WAS WELL WORTH THE WAIT…’

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he words of Clive May, the owner and builder of this stunning Swedishstyle Shovelhead. If the name sounds familiar you (a) have a very good memory, and (b) are very old, as the last time he had a bike featured was 1992 – a glorious silver with blue (?) flames hardtail Panhead ’Arley with the lovely Tara Bardot draped artfully over it in that year’s Yearbook. That was, kind o’ obviously, in the pre-internet days, and even before mobile phones became popular, and back then the Zodiac and CCI

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catalogues were the first port of call for custom builders. They’re still with us these days of course, providing good parts and good service, but now there’re also Google and eBay to get bits from from all over the world.

Clive is good mates with the legendary Phooey, a man whose name crops up again and again in bike features from the North Wales/Liverpool area as his skills’ve been utilised for some of the best custom bikes in the region, and Clive’s Shovel is no exception. Phooey made the frame for it from what was, once, a stock 1979 FLH 1340, but now is much longer, slimmer and hardtailyer as that’s what he’s done – raked, stretched and hardtailed it. Why it was hardtailed is kind o’ obvious (it’s a chopper, innit?), and it’s been stretched, as choppers often are, to get the proportions right, but the raking was done for a specific purpose – to allow the fitting of the long, long (16-inch over!) Ultima forks that give the bike so much of its Scandinavian look. Both Clive and our Gareth have a thing about Swedish-style long-forkers, as you’ll know if you remember Gaz’s trike from years ago, and Clive plans, at some point, to get his hands on a set of Tolle 20-inch overs for the Shovel to make it as Swedish as Abba, Ikea, and ice hotels.

Phooey also made the stainless rabbit-ear ’bars that top them, and also took a tank from a Gilera Cougar 125 cruiser (yeah, I had no idea what one was either and had to look it up) and, basically, cut the living hell out of it before re-shaping it and welding it back together in the form you see here. Yeah, Clive could’ve used a Sportster tank, as is used on many Swedes, and it’d’ve looked great, but

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where’s the uniqueness of doing what everyone’s doing, eh? Oh, and that very neat flush-fitting fuel cap’s a Tolle item – nice, isn’t it?

As well as that, Phooey also made the seat (covered by Will the Cake King apparently), the rear muddie, the stainless battery/electrics box, the oil tank with its integral Trident oil-filter, and the million-and-one little brackets an’ spacers an’ that, that a custom bike needs. He also laid down the deep, deep black’’flake paint, while Clive hisself did all the polishing (of which, as you can see, there is much!) including all that on the engine. It is, as I’m sure you know, an 80 cube (1340cc) Shovel (prior to 1977/78 all Shovelhead motors were 74 cubers, 1200cc), and it’s been carefully rebuilt, and fitted with old STF rocker-box oil feed lines; an Andrews J-grind cam; a CV carb from a later Evo’ with a Lowbrow Customs aircleaner; that beautiful Milwaukee Iron primary cover; a four-speed rotary top ENGINE: 1979 H-D FLH Shovelhead 1340 engine (stock heads with old STF rocker-box oil feed lines, Andrews J-grind cam, Evo’ CV carb, Lowbrow Customs air-cleaner, Milwaukee Iron primary cover, 4-speed rotary top gearbox, points ignition, Andrews coil, Paughco shotgun 1.75” drag exhausts)/frame (hardtailed/stretched/ raked), Pangea Speed forwards, Shinko tyres (21” front/16” rear), 60 spoke H-D wheels (rear with Doss spindle), H-D front

disc/caliper, Ultima 16” over forks/5-degree rake yokes with hidden fork stops, braided brake lines, one-off stainless rabbit ear ‘bars, Kustom Tech master-cylinder, minimal switchgear, Motogadget digital speedo with GPS sender, Pangea Speed grips, modified Gilera Cougar petrol tank with Tolle flush-fitting cap, oneoff seat (base by Phooey)/ rear mudguard/oil tank (Trident oil filter)/stainless battery box, DNA sprocket brake, Tolle mastercylinder, one-off loom by

owner, W&W Cycles keystart with horn button on key, Bates headlight, Prism Supply Co tail-light FINISH: Metalflake black by Phooey, polishing by owner ENGINEERING: Fabrication by Phooey, bike built by owner THANKS TO: “The wife for putting up with it; Phooey for all his hard work; Gaz for taking the photos; & the internet for making it easy to source the bits…”

gearbox; points ignition (no fancy electronics here); an Andrews coil; and a set of classic Paughco shotgun 1.75-inch exhausts.

For a bike that’s nine-and-a-half foot long, Clive says, it handles well enough, and goes around corners happily. Given that it’s a hardtail, it’s less punishing, he says, on his back than the H-D Breakout he had before that he’d spent £1.8k on for air suspension! Hmm, people reckon choppers are a bit Marmite, don’t they (you either love them or hate them), but Breakouts, with their hooge back wheels and lazy front ends, are equally a yeast-based by-product of the brewing industry, I reckon.

So there you have it, Clive’s long, long Shovel – a Swede with a Celtic heart, if you like; the sort of bike that’d be equally at home cruising the Blue Road from Norway across Sweden into Finland, as it is blarting along the A5 from Llangollen to Holyhead. Cool, or cwl, as they say in the valleys, or häftigt as it is in the land of the Vikings.

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PHOOEY’S BIKE – WATCH FOR THAT!

STARTING MILEAGE:

DESPITE THE FACT THAT MANY OF US STILL RIDE AND LOVE THEM, AND THE UNDOUBTED SUCCESS OF INDIAN AND HARLEYDAVIDSON, THE FOUR BIG JAPANESE MANUFACTURERS HAVE, IT SEEMS, BEEN WINDING DOWN THEIR CRUISER FLEETS… ll of them – Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha – used to offer a range of cruisers but, these days, the choices for anyone wanting a feet-forward mo’cycle of Japanese origin is somewhat limited. Suzuki doesn’t offer one at all, Kawasaki just the Vulcan 650, Yamaha don’t have any either (the XV950 appears to’ve been dropped from the line-up), and that just leaves Honda.

For a long time they only had the CMX500 Rebel, launched in 2017, a neat little cruiser with a 500cc (naa, really?) parallel twin motor that, despite the diminutive size of its engine, is actually a cracking little bike (I went to pick up the one I had to test on the Hayabusa I had at the time, and was expecting it to be a little underwhelming, but was pleasantly surprised how well it

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went). As well as being of a small capacity, it’s also of a small size one too, and immediately won a lot of friends among the not-so-long-legged among us, especially those of a non-male gender. I personally know of five ladies who bought Rebels after reading the BSH review of it (including one who’s a wee bit famous – her’s is actually for

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sale at the back of the magazine), and at bike nights and meets the length and breadth of the land it’s rare not see one parked up somewhere.

As I say, the 500 soon made a lot of friends but, as people got used to it, more than a few of them felt they’d like a little more power. Honda’ve listened, and for 2021 they’re offering a new, bigger version – the CMX1100 Rebel, an uprated version of the bike with a reworked engine from the same firm’s respected Africa Twin adventure bike as, they say, the same attributes that make it a good adventure motor serve it well in cruiser guise as well. The Unicam head

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LEFT: Urrgh, kill it!

Kill it with fire!

keeps the weight low, and a new heavier flywheel mass (20% heavier to give 32% more inertia) adds to that.

The cam timing and lift’ve been revised too, and there’re changes to the engine’s electronics, and the 1100 Rebel’s engine now produces 87hp at 7,000rpm, and 72ft-lb torque at 4,750rpm – a wee bit down on the Africa Twin’s 102hp at 7,500rpm and 77ft-lb at 6,250rpm, but nearly double the power of its 45hp 500cc baby brother (Sister? Sibling? Whatever…).

Impressively, despite doubling the bike’s capacity, they’ve only increased its weight fractionally (487lb, 220kg, as opposed to 419lb, 190kg). The seat height’s marginally higher (0.4 of an inch) at 27.5 rather than the 27.1 of the 500; the rear hoop’s fatter (a 180/16 rather than a 150); the front wheel’s taller (an 18-inch instead of the 500’s 16-incher); the wheelbase’s slightly longer (59.8 inches versus 58.6 inches); and the fuel tank’s slightly larger (3.6 gallons v. 2.9). Impressive really then, that the bike’s pretty much the same size, isn’t it?

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THE HONDA CMX1100 REBEL COSTS FROM £8,999, AND YOU CAN GET MORE INFO’ FROM YOUR LOCAL HONDA DEALER OR WWW.HONDA.CO.UK/MOTORCYCLES

And it really is tiny – I am, depending on what time of day it is, somewhere between 5’9” and 5’7” (I used to be taller but age, and repeatedly being pile-driven into tarmac by myopic car drivers, has shrunk me), and the Rebel feels little to me. The seat height is reassuringly low (it almost feels like riding a chop, but without the spine relocation), and the quite high forwards are a tad close (using the rear brake for cornering’s going to require a little brain re-adjusting), but in the few miles I’ve done so far the bike feels comfortable, and easy to handle. As I picked it up in the van the Friday before deadline week (it’s now some four days later), and it’s pretty much howled it down ever since, I’ve only done nineteen

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miles so far so can’t say too much about how it rides/goes. What I can say is that it feels punchy enough, it’s easy to ride in 30mph limits in second, the front brake’s effective enough, and the colour (Bordeaux Red Metallic – any bike named after wine’s good for me) is rather nice.

Oh, and the exhaust’s too fackin’ quiet, but they all are these days, aren’t they? Bloody bureaucrats…

GETTING SOME MILES ON IT!

IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO HAPPEN, WASN’T IT? AT SOME POINT WE WERE GOING TO HAVE A LOOK AT (WHISPER IT) ELECTRIC BIKES… 62

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en plus years ago, while working for another magazine, I rode an electric bike, which I won’t name, that was lightning fast, but had a range of barely 35 miles, carried its batteries high up above the motor and so was frighteningly top-heavy, and cost a fairly staggering amount (more than £5,000 more than the equivalent sports bike of the day. It was fun, but not really a practical solution to the problems of internal combustion engines adding to the greenhouse effect.

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Fast forward to 2021, and an electric bike at the other end of the scale; the Super Soco TC Max. This isn’t a sports bike – it’s a 125cc (equivalent) learner/ commuter. Its electric motor makes just 6.7bhp which is, yes, less than a petrol-powered 125cc (12bhp), but because it’s electric all of the claimed 180Nm of torque (a Ducati Panigale V4 makes 124Nm) is available instantly, meaning that away from the lights in town (this bike’s natural habitat) this thing’s a veritable little rocket-ship! Top whack is a claimed 60mph, but it feels happier about 55, which’s enough for a first bike or for jinxing ‘cross town on your way to work through the traffic.

And it is a bit good through town traffic – it’s really skinny, ideal for squeezing through gaps between stationary cars, and weighs just 100 kilos (I saw a review by a bloke who weighed five kilos more than the bike who wasn’t impressed with the performance… no shit, fat boy) making it light enough to not get you into trouble if you get caught off-balance while filtering.

Range is a claimed 60 miles but, I suspect, in the real world that’s going to be closer to 45 which may not sound much, but how long’s your commute to work? Three miles? Five? Ten? Any more than that, and perhaps a 125 (petrol or electric) isn’t the ideal bike for such a journey, eh?

Once you’ve arrived at work, or back at home, charging’s either done on the bike via a handy port on the side or, if access to power’s a problem, the quick-release battery (quite heavy at 20kgs) has a carrying handle and can be plugged in indoors. It uses just a normal three-pin plug, takes about five hours from empty, and'll cost you about 50p a charge (or free if you plug it in under your desk or tea-room at work, wink wink). That’s right – if you’re clever, you could have absolutely no going-to-work costs (for at least the first year of ownership before the tyres, brake pads, drive belt, etc., start to wear, just as they would on a ‘normal’ bike). Compare that with even a frugal petrol 125 – most of them have a tank of about eleven litres which, at average fuel prices, would be between £13 and £14 a fill.

So that’s the practicality looked at, so what’s it like as a bike?

Well, as I said, it’s the equivalent of a 125 so if you’re expecting it to be anything else then you’ve perhaps got the wrong idea.

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wheeled) traffic standing, and zips along at that quite nicely, feeling more planted than such a light bike should. There is, of course, no clutch lever (the rear brake’s operated by the left ‘bar lever, like a pushbike) – all you do to go is open the throttle. There is, thankfully, a very slight lag (very slight) between you twisting the grip and moving – this is A Good Thing because electric power’s instant and that meant that, on the aforementioned ‘leccy sportsbike, you had to take your right hand completely off the ‘bars at lights in case you accidentally leant on the throttle and the bike leapt forward into traffic. The TC Max’ll still leap forward if you give it the beans, but it won’t do it when you’re not expecting it to – as I said, A Good Thing.

Once moving, it’s fun. It’s weird, the first few times out, but it’s fun. It’s weird because of the lack of engine noise – all you can hear at 55mph is the wind noise in your lid, and the tyres on the road, nothing else. It is, to us lot brought up wi’ noisy zorsts, a bit odd, but I found I quite liked it (and, actually, so

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quickly got used to it that when I first started the Future Bike the following week, it made me jump). That there’s no exhaust note’s always going to be a bone of contention with older, more blinkered folk, but may I advance an idea that they may not’ve thought of?

These are, you see, early days for electric bikes, and the main market for them’s going to be in the years ahead – the powers-thatbe’ve announced that there’ll be no more new petrol or diesel vehicles after 2030, just nine years away, so all new bikes, cars, vans, etc., from that point’ll have to be electric.

Now, given that the average age of a BSH reader’s 57, nine years from now we’ll be in our mid-to-late sixties and, most probably, coming towards the end of our riding careers. Bikes like this, electric and, I’m sure, the hydrogen fuel cell bikes to come, aren’t aimed at us – they’re aimed at our grandkids.

They’ll not’ve grown up with noisy exhausts, the dink-dink-dink of twostrokes, the potato-potato of big vee-twins, the howl of a Jap four, so they won’t miss them – really it’s just us old gits (of which I proudly class myself) who’ll have a problem with them, and we’re not their target audience, so…

So, as a first bike for a young ‘un, or as a commuter for going to work, the Super Soco TC Max is hard to beat – yes, it costs about the same as latest gen’ Japanese 125 at £4349 for the top spec option, but that’s balanced by the fact that, as I said, if you’re clever you could have, pretty much, no running costs whatsoever. That’s quite an argument for, don’t you think?

NIK RIDING: PAM

VOL. IV, PART VI

LAST TIME I WAS REVIVING THE REAR CALIPER, WHICH GOT AS FAR AS BEING REBUILT AND LYING ON THE BENCH.

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here wasn’t much point in refitting it as, rather like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, the master-cylinder was deceased, defunct, no more – it was, in fact, an ex-master-cylinder. This wasn’t too much of a problem as Wemoto’d supplied me with a TRK rebuild kit for that too (although my deciding to leave the brand new master-cylinder reservoir in place,

T

and just pull the hose off, didn’t go as well because I managed to break the neck off the brand new reservoir – the cause of a certain amount of swearing).

Once I’d got over that, I removed the split-pin from the clevis pin that was attaching the master-cylinder to the brake pedal, undid the two Allen bolts that held it to the frame, and took it over to the bench. For some reason, one side of the cylinder was quite clean, and even vaguely shiny,

5 but the other was caked in crud (Fig.1), so the first thing to do was to get the worst of that off.

With the cylinder looking a bit more presentable I cracked off the adjusting locknut for the clevis, and wound it and the locknut off the operating rod (Fig.2). That let me pull the rubber boot off, and see what was going on behind it, which turned out to be a bit of a disaster zone as, aside from the expected accumulation of more crud, it was

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VOL.IV PART VI

apparent that this wasn’t the mastercylinder’s first rodeo – the retaining circlip and washer for the operating rod were jammed in at something of an angle (Fig.3). Arguably there isn’t a problem with this as the body of the cylinder’s bolted to the frame, and the operating rod’s attached to

visible (under another layer of crud) (Fig.5). Unsurprisingly it didn’t want to move. Since the cylinder had the banjo bolt in line with the bore of the cylinder, the easiest way to get it out was to put something in the banjo bolt hole, and apply a little pressure (Fig.6). This approach has

went together or, indeed, find them if you’ve just fired the lot over the fence into the neighbour’s garden.

The kit came with a new circlip for the fitting for the hose from the reservoir (Fig.7), but I tend to find that those aren’t that keen on coming out of the body, and manage

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the brake pedal, which means there’s practically no chance of it all flying apart while it’s being used. You have to ask yourself, though, if you’d be happy riding around with brakes assembled by someone with that level of incompetence?

Using a pair of circlip pliers, I removed the circlip (Fig.4), although I was slightly surprised that it hadn’t fallen out under the hard stare I’d given it first. With the rod out of the way, the end of the piston was

the potential to damage the seal and the piston spring, but that wasn’t a worry here as I was fitting a kit which included new seals and a new spring, but it’s something to watch out for if you’re just stripping a cylinder to paint it or polish it. Compressed air is an alternative, or just boiling the thing in water to dissolve some of the crud and expand the aluminium body. A certain amount of care in disassembling it’s sensible because it’s rather hard to tell how all the bits

to break them more often than not.

Since it was already pointing in the right direction, I elected to leave it in place. The other thing to note is that the hose fitting is made of plastic, hence the suggestion of boiling the body in water to heat it up (as opposed to waving a blow-torch at it).

With the cylinder stripped out, I gave it a proper clean on the wire wheel, along with the operating rod and the rest of the bits that were getting reused (Fig.8), before inspecting the

state of the inside. The groove for the retaining circlip of the operating rod was full of crud, and there was a certain amount of staining around the counter-bore where it sat, which wasn’t really causing any problems, but I jammed some Scotch-Brite (Fig.9) in there, and gave it a scuff

fitted to the piston and move along the bore, which therefore has to be free of pits too. Mine had some slight scratches, probably caused by getting the piston out, and some very slight corrosion where the piston’d been sitting. You can buy master-cylinder hones, but a 14mm one is going

in the drill, I worked it backwards and forwards in the bore of the cylinder, with plenty of WD-40 to keep the paper from clogging and making more scratches. That made the cylinder’s bore look all shiny and new in very short order as the damage to the bore was minimal. This

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to remove the loose stuff, mainly to prevent it falling into the internal bore (Fig.10). There were a few scuff marks in the internal bore that defied my best efforts to photograph them, and some light surface corrosion in a few places. If the bore of the cylinder’s pitted, it’s basically scrap – unlike calipers, where the seal’s fitted into the body, and the piston moves past the seal, you need a surface free of pits on the piston.

In the master cylinder, the seals are

to cost you something in excess of £20, and they might be fine in a cast iron brake cylinder from a Morris 1000, but they strike me as being more likely to resize the bore of your aluminium motorcycle master-cylinder than refinish it.

I took some ¼” steel rod, cut it down to a suitable length, and then cut a slot in one end (Fig.11) to accept a strip of 800 grit wet-and-dry sandpaper to make a much gentler hone (Fig.12). With that mounted

is NOT going to work if there’s any substantial pitting in the working part of the bore though – basically if you can’t remove the marks with 400-grit sandpaper in a very short period of time, then the cylinder’s unlikely to be serviceable.

Occasionally you’ll find specs for the bore diameter in the workshop manual, but good luck measuring the diameter of a 14mm hole to within a few microns. I was lucky, and about 30 seconds of honing cleaned

VOL.IV PART VI

my cylinder up. Honing leaves a fine residue so that was washed off with WD-40, then the cylinder was washed in hot, soapy water to remove the residue of the WD-40 (mineral oil-based substances attack the rubbers), allowed to dry, and the bore lubricated with brake fluid.

first, followed by the ‘loose’ rubber (Fig.14), and finally the new piston with its seal (Fig.15). None of them required more than light finger pressure to do. Next the rubber boot needed to be fitted to the operating rod, which is a bit of a fiddle – shoving the rod into the boot causes

probably easiest to hold the body in a vice, depress the operating rod with one hand, and manipulate the circlip pliers with the other (Fig.20).

With the rod seated, the fat end of the rubber boot is a push fit into the counter bore, and the clevis and its lock-nut can be refitted (Fig.21).

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I find it helps to soak the rubbers in brake fluid for a few minutes too (Fig.13) – if it isn’t actually helping, it isn’t doing any harm, but it does seem to make assembling things easier, and reduces the chances of shaving part of the seal away.

I took care to fit everything the way it came apart (although in my case I checked in the manual as someone had already been there) which, in my case, meant fitting the spring with the wide end going in

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the neck of the boot to turn inside out (Fig.16). Gently pushing it into the groove with a blunt-nosed screwdriver gets it seated (Fig.17), then the boot needs to be turned inside out, and the fat end drawn back about halfway (Fig.18).

Getting the operating rod circlip seated’s probably the trickiest part of the entire operation, but don’t forget to put some red rubber grease between the ball of the rod and the cup of the piston (Fig.19). It’s

Once the cylinder’s mounted to the motorcycle, the clevis can be adjusted so that its hole lines up with the brake pedal’s hole (Fig.22).

The clevis pin installed with a new split-pin and the lock-nut tightened (Fig.23). At this point you can reconnect the hoses and bleed the brake but I, of course, have to wait for a new reservoir to arrive from China...

MR. BRIDGES

A FOUR-PART SERIAL BY JIM FOGG

I DIDN’T ENJOY THE RACING AT SILVERSTONE (ALL JAP TWO-STROKES WITH SQUARE FOUR MOTORS SOUND AND LOOK ALIKE TO ME) SO IT WAS SOMETHING OF A RELIEF (OF SORTS, ANYWAY) WHEN I HEARD MY NAME ANNOUNCED OVER THE PA SYSTEM, TELLING ME TO GO TO RECEIVE A PHONE CALL. ldbear went with me, and stood beside me while I listened to Slattery’s message. “I think you will know High Beach in Epping Forest, Mr Dawson,” Slattery said. “Go there now.

You and Commander Oldbear will park your bikes near the mobile café by the roadside, at the place where all the bikers usually congregate. You will be contacted there. That is all, Mr Dawson.”

Oldbear didn’t know the place Slattery meant, but I did – it’s a favourite spot with bikers intent on meeting up, and showing off to each other by popping the odd wheelie. When I was taken there by a despatch rider mate of mine way back, I wondered why the hell it was called High Beach – an unlikely name, considering it’s nowhere near any sea. He explained to me that it’d been a beach, way back in prehistoric times, and he’s right, I guess, because the soil’s still sandy, and you can turn up sea shells in it too. And there's a mobile café there

O

that does good hot meat pies, and I’ve eaten quite a few of them in my time.

When Oldbear and I reached High Beach on the Trident and BMW, I was surprised to see so few bikers there, but then I realised a hell of a lot’d probably gone to Silverstone for the racing, and maybe to Santa Pod for the weekend’s sprinting too. There was still the odd LC350 and Gamma pulling wheelies, watched by two coppers in a Ford … just like there always is, come to think of it.

We parked the bikes, and I decided to have a meat pie and a cup of coffee, while Oldbear settled for a sausage roll and a cup of tea.

“You ought to try these pies,” I told him, wiping the juice off my chin.

“They’re great. Well, what’s going to happen now, do you reckon? Think Slattery will turn up, huh?”

“No,” Oldbear said with an infuriating equanimity. “No, he said we’d be contacted, which doesn’t indicate to me that he’s intending to make a personal appearance, Mike.”

“And you haven’t got someone keeping an eye on us?” I asked him, wanting to make sure. “You’re sure about that, Oldbear?”

“Of course,” he answered. “I told you we wouldn’t be under surveillance, didn’t I? I prefer sausage rolls, you know – much tidier to eat with one’s fingers, aren’t they?”

I was about to answer that when the whining and screaming of the posing strokers was suddenly cut into by a deeper, more mellow note – the sound of a big four-stroke, not too refined, and probably a vee-twin, judging from the off-beat boom of the exhausts. A black Sportster came into sight, ridden by someone in a cracked leather jacket and faded Levis, and wearing a black full-face with a tinted visor.

“You’re wrong,” I told Oldbear. “Here’s Slattery now, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I think you are,” Oldbear answered.

“If you remember, you took photographs of Herr Schlachter’s face – he was wearing an open-face helmet. And that

rider strikes me as being a little too young to be him, and not quite heavy enough.”

He was right, of course. The rider of the Harley drew in next to us, cut his engine, and parked the bike on the prop-stand.

He took his helmet off, revealing a young face with a few spots, and a straggly blond beard, and then he looked across at us, and spoke to me.

“You Mike Dawson, mate?”

I told him I was.

“Got any ID, like?”

I passed him my wallet, with its press card, my driving licence, and my union card. He studied a photograph, and then nodded towards Oldbear.

“This a geezer called Oldbear?” he asked, and Oldbear confirmed it.

“Yeah, okay,” the kid went on, “well, I was told to give you an envelope.” He passed me a brown envelope, and I started to open it.

“I was told to say you’d got to go where you’re going on this Harley here,” he went on, “you and the old guy together - leave your bikes here.”

He handed me the ignition key of the Sportster, as I quickly scanned the letter.

It read: ‘You will ride to Waltham Abbey on the Harley-Davidson, leaving your bikes at High Beach. You will attend the performance there, and I will meet you afterwards. Schlachter.’

‘Performance?’ I said to myself, and then saw that there were two tickets inside the envelope. They were for a Requiem For King Harold, by a new British composer I’d heard a little of around the telly studios. Quite an outstanding talent, I’d been told. The tickets announced that it was the first public recital of the work, and it was to be performed by musicians from Middlesex Polytechnic, and senior pupils from a number of local North London schools.

“Did you know the man who gave you the message?” I asked the biker, and he grinned lopsidedly.

“Friend of a friend, know what I mean, squire?” he answered. “Nah, not really, but the fifty quid’ll come in handy, no bother.”

A 550 Kawasaki drew up, and he got on to the back of it, giving us a cheeky grin before he put his helmet on, and the bike blasted away from High Beach, attracting only the momentary attention of the two coppers in their car. They seemed to be more interested in the fact that Oldbear and I were getting ready to leave on a bike

we hadn’t arrived on, and got out of their car and ambled over to us.

“Hang on, mate,” the bigger of the two said to me, “we’d like a word with you.”

“Funny old carry-on, innit, squire,” the other one added, “swapping bikes around like this? What’s the game, eh?”

“The game, as you put it, has nothing at all to do with you, officer,” Oldbear said impatiently, and fished around in the pockets of his waxed cotton jacket.

“Perhaps this might make things clearer to you? We have an appointment at 4pm, and we have twenty minutes to get to it, and I suggest that it’s in your own interests, as well as those of your country, not to delay us further.”

The two coppers looked at the card he’d given them, and stiffened up perceptibly, as if the printed word had the power to put an iron rod in each of their spines.

“Sorry, sir,” the big one said. “We’d no idea… err, would you like an escort to where you’re going?”

“I would not,” Oldbear snapped, and then relented. “Thank you for your offer though, it’s appreciated, but not needed in the circumstances. I think we ought to be going, Mike,” he added to me, doing up the buckle of his helmet, “time’s a bit short, you know.”

We got to Waltham Abbey just in time.

Under different circumstances, I might’ve enjoyed hustling the Harley along the country lanes, and around the narrow streets of Waltham, and joined the people going into the Abbey after I’d parked the Harley outside the church in the small parking area, sandwiching it between a Volvo Estate and a Polo. It took a while for the queue to move into the Abbey, past the smiling elderly verger who was collecting the tickets, and I muttered nervously to Oldbear as we went.

“Why bring us here on the Harley?

What’s the reason, Oldbear?”

“I presume he’ll be leaving on it, if matters don’t turn out satisfactorily,” Oldbear answered. “And we won’t have transport to follow him, of course.”

“Unless you commandeer a car, of course,” I said. “I suppose you could do, couldn’t you?”

Oldbear looked pained. “We don’t do things like that in this country,” he told me. “Perhaps you’ve spent too much time abroad, Mike.”

We finally got inside, and sat down in the pew we were directed to by a polite

schoolboy in a grey blazer. I looked around the audience, searching for Slattery, but I didn’t think I could see him anywhere; it wasn’t a particularly remarkable audience – just the sort of people who’d be likely to enjoy a new piece of music by a promising composer, and the proud parents of the participants, all ages, all neat and tidy.

I remarked that there was no sign of Slattery to Oldbear, who was looking up at the carved beams and colourfully painted panelling of the high ceiling, and he pointed up to the heavens.

“The signs of the Zodiac,” he remarked, “odd thing to have in a Christian church, isn’t it? Beautifully done, though. No,” he went on, “I can’t see him either. Never mind, listen to the music.”

“What music?” I asked him.

“The organ music,” he told me, and until he mentioned it I hadn’t even been aware that the organ was playing, so intent was I on spotting Slattery. “I hope the Requiem is going to be as good as the Vivaldi.”

It could well have been but, believe it or not, right from the moment the orchestra and choirs took their places in front of and to the sides of the High Altar, Oldbear insisted on giving me a not-so-potted history of Waltham Abbey and the final years of Anglo-Saxon England. It didn’t seem to disturb anyone else but me, but then I probably wasn’t in any sort of frame of mind to listen to sacred music or history.

“Harold Godwineson, before he became Harold II, and long before the Battle of Hastings, started the building of Waltham Abbey,” Oldbear told me. “He’d been struck down by a mysterious paralysis, probably a mild coronary, because he’d led a hard life, and'd be in his mid 30s, and recovered after a pilgrimage and a promise to mend his evil ways. He chose Waltham as the site, and called it the Church the Abbey of the Holy Cross.”

“Look, I’m not too interested in all this…” I tried to interrupt, but Oldbear carried on regardless.

“After the Battle of Hastings, where his body was horribly mutilated by the Norman knights incidentally, William the Conqueror wasn’t too keen on having Harold buried in style – a possible focus of Anglo-Saxon discontent, you see. He said that Harold should be buried by the sea at Pevensey, but Harold’s mother, Gytha, his mistress, Edith Swan’s-Neck, and his wife,

Aelgifu – he must’ve been a real charmer, when you think about it – interceded with William, and the King allowed Harold’s body to be brought back to Waltham.”

“For God’s sake, Oldbear,” I tried again, but he told me to be quiet for a moment, because he wanted to listen to the Dies Irae. When that powerful, moving, and disturbing piece of music had ended, he carried on where he’d left off.

“The body was probably buried beneath what is now the High Altar,” he added.

“Just think; some young schoolgirl or boy may be standing over the bones of the last Saxon King, singing his or her heart out – remarkable, isn’t it? Some people favour the crypt as Harold’s resting place, but I doubt it – that seems to be where the bones of those who died in the Black Death were placed, three hundred years later, but everything was disturbed by Henry VIII in any case, so we’ll probably never know.”

The music seemed to be coming to its climax, and Oldbear at last gave his attention to it, as the Nunc Dimittis Domine – ‘Now, O Lord, let They servant depart in peace’ – swelled forth, and died away, to be embellished and elaborated by the longest, and most beautiful I have to say, sung ‘Amen’ I’d ever heard.

I was surprised when the audience applauded. Sammy tells me it’s quite customary for church-goers to applaud now, but it’s been a hell of a long time since I went to church, so it took me by surprise. The composer came to the front of the choirs and the orchestra, and made a speech thanking everyone concerned – choirs, orchestra, Abbey clerics and officials, and then everyone applauded again. Oldbear joined in, with a pleased smile on his face.

“A remarkable work,” he commented, “really remarkable, I’m sure that young man has a golden career ahead of him as a composer.”

“How the hell would you know?” I asked him. “You were talking all the way through most of it. Listen, Oldbear, have you seen Slattery yet?”

“He’s sitting behind us, three rows of pews back, and a little to your right,” Oldbear remarked casually. “Well, everyone else seems to be leaving now, so I think we should too, don’t you, Mike?”

We filed out with the rest of the audience, everyone was moving from the front, and I saw Oldbear nod in

recognition to Slattery as we moved down the aisle together towards the great main door. I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t recognised him (although, seeing him now through Oldbear’s more trained eyes, I realised it was him); he was completely shaved, with no trace of the scrubby blond beard, his hair was tidily cut and, like his eyebrows, was an indeterminate sort of brown shade. He wore goldrimmed glasses, which gave him an older, more studious appearance, and a faint Scandinavian air. He wore brown cord trousers, a blue vee-necked sweater, and an Irish tweed jacket in a shade of grey, and he was sitting there with a music case (well, that’s what it looked like, it was a bit too slim for any sort of briefcase) on his knees – he looked exactly the sort of person who’d go to listen to a Requiem, particularly if it was a work by a new and promising composer.

As Oldbear and I got up to the main door, some sort of ecclesiastic greeted us, an archdeacon or a dean, or something similar, and asked us how we’d liked the performance. “Oh, excellent, excellent,” Oldbear answered, and I agreed with him. “A work of remarkable power and delicacy – we were both saying so, weren’t we, Mike? And I’m sure Hans agrees with us too, don’t you Hans?”

I hadn’t noticed that Slattery had come up behind us, but Oldbear obviously had, and the cleric decided to speak to him too.

“Oh, did you really like it?” he asked Slattery. “I’m so glad. Of course, we get a lot of foreign visitors here, but today’s been a bit of a special occasion. Hans?” he enquired smiling, “That’d mean you were German, wouldn’t it? Do you have anything to do with music?”

“No, Father, I’m afraid not,” Slattery replied, in answer to his last question. “But of course many of my countrymen were great musicians, and I have enjoyed the performance here immensely. And now, I think I shall take a turn, is that correct, around the Abbey garden, and discuss it with my two friends.”

It was a good performance, almost a caricature of the formal middle-class German speaking English with conscious care and politeness, but it was convincing, and it was nothing at all like the accentless casual English I’d heard him use in his other persona as an outlaw biker.

“Ah, there’s a sort of bean-feast in the grounds,” the priest told him. “A bit of

food and drink laid on for the girls and boys and the students by the Abbey Committee, things to nibble on trestle tables and all that, while they unwind.

Still,” he went on, “I’m sure nobody would object if you helped yourselves – there’s enough for all, and there’ll be a few other grown-ups there too, of course.”

Oldbear thanked him, and we walked round to the back of the Abbey where the gardens were. I suppose the site’d been part of the Abbey itself, in the days before the Reformation, where the monks lived, or studied maybe, but now it was all a grassy space broken up by trees in regular lines, and by trestles covered in neat white tablecloths, round which were clustered schoolkids, students, and a few adults, as the cleric had said – all intent on getting their hands on egg and cress muffins, sausage rolls, crisps, and slices of pizza, and plastic cups of limeade, orange juice, or tea and coffee.

“Not a bad place for a meeting, Herr Schlachter,” Oldbear remarked, as we strolled into the gathering of people. “And, as I’m sure you can see, there isn’t any surveillance, just as you requested.”

Schlachter nodded, and seemed satisfied – a mild-looking studious foreigner, walking in the grounds of Waltham Abbey, talking with two friends. We continued walking, until we’d reached the far end of the gardens and, bugger me I thought, Oldbear and Slattery’d started talking about the bloody Requiem – quite scientifically, and in a well-informed way as it happens, but that was the last thing I wanted to hear.

“Look,” I said, because my nerves were strung out, and I’d had about as much as I could take, “for God’s sake, could we get to the point of the meeting, please?

Oldbear’s here, and so am I, just as you wanted, so what do you want, and why did you want me here? It’s obviously as some sort of witness to what’s going to go on between you and Oldbear so…”

Oldbear interrupted me, holding up one pudgy hand, a frown on that cherubic Roman Emperor’s face.

“I’m afraid it isn’t, Mike,” he said quietly. “I’m very much afraid that you and I're here as some sort of hostage. Isn’t that so, Herr Schlachter?”

Slattery smiled, and it was the most unpleasant smile I’d ever seen in my life – the studious middle-class German’d suddenly become a figure of terrifying

power. “Everyone here is a hostage,” he remarked casually, and my blood ran cold in my veins. “If I walk into the middle of the people here and activate this case I am carrying, in five seconds there will happen something that will make your IRA bombings look like a firework display.”

“Unless you’re bluffing,” I said, hoping to God that he was. “There’s nothing small enough to pack into a leather case that’d do that much damage.”

“Oh, yes, there is, Mike,” Oldbear told me. “Herr Schlachter isn’t bluffing, believe me….

I looked around at everybody grouped around the trestles, chatting animatedly and laughing in the still, warm, early evening air – young boys in blazers and what were probably their first pairs of long trousers; young girls in crisp white blouses and pleated skirts; teenagers in older versions of the same uniforms, talking self-consciously; slim girls; gawky boys with shaving rashes; students from the Poly in jeans and cords, sloppy sweaters and peasant-print dresses; and here and there an older man in a suit or a cassock; middle-aged and old ladies in twin-sets or flowery frocks and wide-brimmed hats.

I wondered what would happen to them if Slattery walked into the middle of them, carrying the leather case that would blow them all, and himself, and us, I thought, with an ice-cold shock of fear, into bloody and unrecognisable fragments under the walls of an Abbey founded by a Saxon King who’d been hacked to pieces on a battlefield.

“For Christ’s sake, Oldbear,” I muttered, and I could feel the sweat pricking on my forehead and sticking my receding hair to my brown, “I think it’s time you started talking.”

“Listening, I think, Mike,” Oldbear said gently. “I rather think that’s what Herr Schlachter has in mind? Isn’t that so, Herr Schlachter?”

Slattery nodded, and there was amusement in his eyes, an unholy, terrible amusement, but it was amusement, and when you’re in the hands of someone as dangerous as that, even a brief glimpse of humanity can be momentarily reassuring.

“It will be a novel experience for the bureaucrats to listen to the soldiers, and perhaps an instructive one,” he remarked, and I was reminded what Oldbear had said about the difference between the administrative and executive branches of

the secret serrvices.

He turned to o me, and spoke diirectly to me. nder “Comman Oldbear is not n entirely righ ht, Mr Dawson,, you are not totally a hostage – yo ou are needed to relay one last messagee for me, but remeember that he remains so, s and everyone else in the A Abbey garden also.”

He opened the leather music case and, if I hadn’t been rooted to the spot witth blind, paralysing fear, I’d’ve thrown t myself on the ground, beccause I was convinced at that partiicular moment that he’d made his m mind up to activate the case. He shrrugged, smiled that terrible smile, and ttook out a note-pad from it. He took a biro from the top pocket of the Doneegal tweed coat, and wrote playing with the twist-grip and brakebriefly on th he top sheet of the pad. lever like kids always do. “Ere, mate, Then, surprisingly, he passed the pad to this your bike?” a scrawny kid in Oldbear, who nodded. dungarees asked, as I drew level. “It’s “Yes,” Oldbear said, “that will do, like Street Hawk’s, innit?” probably, but I thought they would be “Yeah, it’s mine,” I answered, not the last people you would wish to see, wanting to waste any time explaining Herr Schlachter.” the complexities to them. “Look, I’m “You will phone this number,” trying to find a phone box – I’ve got Slattery told me. “It isn’t listed in any to make an important call, do you phone book. You will explain the know where it is?” They told me, and I situation to the people listening to you, walked the three hundred yards or so and if they are not receptive you will to the phone box, entered it, and started use the word written on this paper. sorting out the change in my pockets. I They will listen then, I assure you. Tell laid the change out on top of the phone, them that there must be no attempt so it’d be ready to hand, and finally got at interference – only the two people around to unfolding the piece of paper, whose names are written here must slightly crumpled now, that I’d been attend. There is a phone box just outside carrying in my hand all that time. I the Abbey, use that, and then return looked at it. I didn’t recognise the phone here until the other two people arrive, number, but it was a London number, and then you may leave, Mr Dawson, that was clear, and I didn’t have any and go wherever you wish.” He handed idea what the hell ‘Rheingold’ might me the paper, and I folded it without mean either, but I recognised the two looking at it, and walked along the path names. And my hand was shaking, as I that led around the Abbey and back to started to make the call. the main entrance.

The black Sportster was still parked just outside the Abbey, and a group of kids, all of them between seven and JIM FOGG RIP ten I suppose, were clustered around ILLUSTRATIONS: LOUISE LIMB it, giving it a lengthy appraisal, and

In 2017, just as the finishing touches were being put to ‘Now to Make my Getaway – The Complete Compendium of Ogri Strip Cartoons’, Paul Sample stubbed his toe on a pile of fat portfolios, hidden away in his rarely-visited spare room, within which 102 original artworks that he’d carefully parked in there and completely forgotten. It was previously thought that the last of the originals’d either been sold at auction or given away, and among the works he rediscovered (just in time for their inclusion in the big book) were the last two he ever created – neither of which ever made it into a magazine.

Team Ogri and The BlackShed Gallery, in Robertsbridge in East Sussex (TN32 5NG – just off the A21 near the Route 1066 Café), have set up an exhibition of these works, all (but one) never shown before, and all available for sale. Additional attractions include a display of Paul’s sketchbooks and art equipment, and his trusty Sunbeam, now owned by his son the artist Robert Sample and kindly loaned for the duration of the exhibition.

It’s open Tuesday to Friday 10am-4pm, and Saturday 10am-4.30pm, and admission is free. For more info please call the gallery on 01580 881247, or email mail@theblackshedgallery.org.uk

Ah, the joys of Covid… the Blackpool Tattoo Convention, Tatcon Blackpool, has had to have its date changed again, and it’ll now be held over the weekend of 2-3rd October.

There’ll be international tattoo artists and body piercers, live music, trade stalls, good food and drink, and much more at the Norbreck Castle Hotel, Blackpool, and you can get more info at www.tatconblackpool.co.uk

Motorcycles Forever is a book by Ian Mutch, the legendary Mutchie, life president of MAG and motorcycle adventurer with, famously, no sense of direction, that’s one of those great books full of pictures from days gone by that you’ll never tire of picking up and having a browse through (especially if you’re of a certain age as most of us are).

A chronicle of the great biker events of the 1980s and 1990s, it’s crammed full of great photos (are you in any of them?), and the famous Mutch wit, and is a great coffee table/’ere d’you remember book.

It costs just £12.99 (plus £2 p&p) from Ian himself at theroad@ mag-uk.org, but if you’re a MAG member you can buy it and his four other adventure travel books for just £15!

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Vapour blasting is a metal-cleaning process, similar to the more common sand-blasting, but which uses a mixture of water and blasting media to give a much less abrasive process, which makes it ideal for softer metals such as those used on carburettors, inlet manifolds, engine cases, etc. (as well as mild and stainless steel parts, and cast items). By using a combination of surgical grade glass beads, and regular grit, a semi-polished finish can be achieved on soft metals which can then be painted, fully polished or left as is for a betterthan-new appearance. A new company, JB Vapour Blasting, has recently set up in Lincoln, specialising in the process. Familiar with all types of motorcycle components, they’re the perfect team to take care of your cleaning needs. Personal callers, and mail order services, are offered, with prices starting at just £25.

For more information call 07810 652929 or email JBVapourBlasting@gmail.com

The new Machine Mart catalogue’s packed full of all the tools and equipment you need whether you’re a hobbyist, DIY enthusiast, or professional.

Featuring over 400 price cuts and new products, the new 500-page catalogue is a ‘must have’ for anyone seeking a huge choice of tools and equipment at unbeatable value.

With over 6,000 items of tools and machinery, and over 15,000 extra products online, you’ll be sure to find the tools you need!

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

Kavern Fest is a joint motorcycle and VW rally/festival/whatever you want to call it that’s being held at Trysull Holloway in Wolverhampton (WV5 7JA) that’s going to have live music all weekend, a show (for bikes and VeeDubs), and loads more too.

Tickets cost £35 for the weekend, £15 for just Saturday, and you can get more info from 07342 784605 or Facebook.

The nation’s favourite shed supremos Henry Cole and Sam Lovegrove are back on TV, searching for yet more automotive treasure lying dead in the nation’s sheds, outbuildings and garages.

In ten brand new thirty-minute episodes, they travel across the country on their quest to find neglected motoring gems on two, three and four wheels, as well as automotive memorabilia, which they hope to fix up and sell for a tidy profit. Expect plenty of rummaging, restoring, and reckless tea drinking.

Shed & Buried series 3 will be on screen from Tuesday 8th June, and there are two ways to enjoy it – binge watch all ten episodes on discovery+ from Tuesday 8th June or watch episodes 1&2 on Quest (Freeview channel 12) at 9pm on Tuesday 8th June, followed by the rest of the series weekly in double bills.

OUR REGULAR, NOT TOO SERIOUS, LOOK AT SOME OF THE MORE POPULAR TERMS USED IN THE MAGAZINE – THIS ISSUE, THE SECOND PART OF THE LETTER ‘T’…

TOP-BOX – posteriorlymounted luggage item favoured by despatch riders, pizza delivery boys, and Derri Boot-wearers; also a superior lady garden TORQUE – term for an engine’s twisting force (or low-down grunt, rather than outright power), measured in Nm or ft-lb (note NOT feet PER pound); also dreadful 2004 biker film featuring motorcycles with fiftyplus gears….

TORQUE WRENCH – type of spanner, or ratchet, that indicates the amount of turning force (i.e. ‘torque’) being applied to a fastener TRAIL - the distance between where the projected line of the steering axis hits the ground, and the point directly below the centre of the front wheel spindle, in side view. Too much makes the bike difficult to turn, too little and it’s unstable. Anywhere between 80-100mm is best TREFFEN – German word for a gathering, often relating to Gold Wing owners, it means either ‘to meet’, or ‘to hit’, which perhaps says a lot about ‘Wing owners!

TRIKE - motorcycle ruined by the application of an extra wheel… or a car ruined by the removal of a wheel (this is a joke, obviously, don’t freak)

TRIPLE TREES – ash, oak and birch… also an Americanism for yokes, the two components that hold the upper fork legs TT – Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races; also a form of flat-track that involves jumps and right-hand bends as well as lefts TWINCAM – 88 cubic inch engine released by the MoCo in 1998 to replace the Evolution TULIP – exhaust silencer often fitted to old British bikes, also known as ‘chopper pots’… looks absolutely nothing like a tulip, and if planted in your garden, no matter how much compost/Baby Bio you use, will not flower in the spring TURBOCHARGER – strictly speaking, ‘exhaust-driven supercharger’, compressing air for the inlet charge using a turbine spun by the energy of the exhaust gases to produce extra power, available in draw-through (single carb, LHS ‘banana’ exhaust) and drawthrough (as many carbs as the vehicle has cylinders, little short/not terribly noisy exhaust) forms TWO-PACK – term used for paint that has two components that’re mixed before use, consisting of a resin and a hardener TWO-STROKE – onanist with very short trigger… also an internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during only one crankshaft revolution, also known as ‘stinkwheels’ cos o’ the smell o’ their oil…

The X101 is a brand new full-face helmet fro om hey AGV, inspired by historic motocross (well, th were called ‘scrambles’ back then) helmets, but made to modern specs. Made from a fibreglass shell, it features a chin-guard air vent with a metal grill underneath to protectt against dirt and debris, a detachable peak that can easily be removed/attached via press studs, and a leather interior with a double-D retention system.

Available in a range of solid colours, and in all the usual sizes, it costs £269.99 from anywhere that stocks the AGV range or www.agv.co.uk

If you’re into the 2% (only two per cent of bikers build and ride choppers) retro’ chopper scene then youll know about Chop, Ride & Party – the yearly annual bible of the retro chopper world. If you don’t know about it, you’re missing out!

CRP, now in its fifth edition, is a hardback coffee table book crammed full of the best of the scene from the last year or so – it’s 200 pages of properly groovy bikes, events, artwork, people, tips, and other cool stuff, and, and if it doesn’t make you look forward to the end of lockdown... well, have you checked you still have a pulse?

Get yours from www.choprideandparty.com immediately, if not sooner!

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These rather splendid E-approved billet aluminium indicators, with amber LEDs, are mounted using the mirrors for Harleys (and other customs) as hold-down bolts.

They’re available from your local Zodiac dealer or www.zodiac.nl

The new Ring RTC2000 tyre inflator doesn’t need a 12V socket – it operates from a rechargeable lithium battery, making it useful for checking/topping up your tyres anywhere. It has a builtin LED light, a digital display with four programmable settings, will inflate a bike tyre in just two minutes, and being rechargeable it can be used as a portable powerbank for charging mobile devices too. Compact and lightweight, it can be stored under a seat or in a bag easily.

They’re available from anywhere that stocks the Ring range or www. ringautomotive.com

Since the demise of the late, lamented Richa Hunter, H there’s been a gap in the market for a traditio onal, wax cotton-style bike jacket made from the latest materials, W but with that essential style. The new Segura Woodstock looks to be a suitable replacement.

Made from tough, hard-wearing, and lighttweight Serica material, it has a waterproof and breaathable membrane; an aluminium 90g thermal lining g for those colder days; a fixed mesh lining; CE-ap pproved shoulder protectors and adjustable CE-apprroved elbow protectors (and a pocket for a back protector); five useful external pockets; two inner ones for your precious items; an in-style belt; and epaulet tes.

S and Available in a subtle grey, it comes in sizes S-3XL, costs £299.99 from anywhere that stocks the Segura S range or you can get one online from www.bikerhe eadz.co.uk

Oxford Products’ best-selling approved chain lock has received a major re-vamp, including a new shock-resistant rubberised padlock.

It has a multi-disc key system operating a double-locking mechanism, all of it made from hardened steel, and a toughened 13mm link chain (available in sizes 1.2m, 1.5m and 2.0m) that’s been zinc-coated to prevent corrosion, and comes with a cloth sleeve to protect paintwork. It passes the Sold Secure Gold tests, and also the Secured by Design ones (the official police security initiative).

Prices start at £89.99, and you can get one from anywhere that stocks the Oxford Products range or www.oxfordproducts.com

The new ladies’ jeggings are made from Armourlite Super Stretch (Oxford’s lightweight bi-composite denim), reinforced around the hips and knees, and with flexible removable armour there too, a two-way stretch for a perfect fit and comfort, and quick-dry technology which draws sweat away and increases water repellency.

Available in black or blue, in sizes 8-20, and with three leg lengths (short/regular/ long), they cost £119.99 from anywhere that stocks the Oxford Product range or www. oxfordproducts.com

A game-changer for larger riders, the new Weise Core Plus is an AA-rated textile jacket tailored for plus sizes up to 5XL. For example, whereas a ‘regular’ L would be a 44” chest (112cm), in ‘plus’ sizing it’s a much more generous 52.5” (133cm). Big on specification as well as sizing, the Core Plus comes with CE-approved shoulder/elbow/back armour; a breathable, waterproof and windproof drop liner; a removable 120-gram quilted thermal lining; zipped vents at the chest, back and on each arm; adjusters at the biceps and forearms; three external pockets; and four internal pockets.

It costs £169.99 in sizes Large (52.5” chest) to 5XL (60.5” chest), and there’re matching textile trousers in plus sizes Medium-5XL at £149.99. Visit www.weiseclothing.com for full specifications and dealer list.

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!

(To read in the style of Monty Python’s ‘Four Yorkshiremen’).

When I were a lad, we had t' decoke t’exhausts of our bikes, two-stroke bikes, by taking ‘em off, and either fillin’ ‘em full o' petrol an’ setting fire to ‘em, or makin' up a bloody dangerous caustic soda solution an’ pouring ‘tin, an’ then kickin’ ‘em round t’back lawn, hopin’ you didn’ set fire to t' grass or t' caustic soda didn’ spill out an' kill too much of it (otherwise your mum an’ dad’d kill y’ an’ dance about on y’graves singing ‘Hallelujah’).

An’ you try tellin’ the young people of today that… an’ they won’t believe y’.

STEVE, DONCASTER

I read with interest Mr Bridges’ tool article. I reckon he bought the big sockets to undo some very large nuts!

Some very good info in there, and he’s right – you never stop buying tools. My tool chest now stands almost six feet high (if you include the castors), and is pretty damn full… and that doesn’t include the ones still in their plastic cases that’ve been shoved into cupboards or the bigger tools hung on the walls.

It made me laugh as, although I’ve never worked on bikes (mostly cars as a hobby/being skint), it’s so true!

JOHN

some to have the jab, particularly the guys who say things like, ‘Gawd knows what’s in it, it ain’t been tested’, yet’re happy to drink a (legal) poison every Friday and Saturday night, snort dodgy substances obtained from even more dodgy guys, or nosh mushrooms (and not those on a Domino’s pizza either)! Crazy!

I had reservations about the practicality of the vaccination programme but it’s working, and soon we’ll be allowed out to play again, so let’s all get behind it and get jabbed!

CLIVE

It’s been a few weeks now since I’ve had my first jab…. No, I’m not talking about a poke in the eye fr om my old lady – that excellent Astra Zeneca jab!

I’m now thinking that life can resume (though I can’t see my beloved French rallies happening this year), but what makes me laugh is the reticence of

In reference to Sandra from Norwich’s letter in issue #79.

I think she’s wrong, so there!

STRANGELY MADE Wot? Nurse, nurse, this one’s not been taking his tablets again… N.

This month’s Star Letter wins a pair of Weise Airflow Plus Gloves.

RRP £39.99. Cool it this summer with a pair of Weise Airflow Plus gloves. Full grain leather palm, with stretch mesh on the back of the hand and TPU

It was 1969, and for years I’d dutifully adorned my teenage bedroom wall with the yearly bike posters, put out near Christmas each year by MCN. Despite the posters, I could see the writing on the wall for the British bike industry – you really had to look hard to spot the difference most years.

Then along came Honda’s CB750, with its four cylinders, loads of chrome, and gold flake paint (the first one I saw anyway). A dealer about seven miles from my Nan’s house had one mounted on a rotating circular stage – its paintwork glistening in the four coloured spotlights focused on it as it turned. Each weekend saw me setting off on the 14-mile round trip, just to stand and stare at my dream machine. On the third week, the guys in the shop saw me standing outside again, and invited me in. This privileged 14-year-old was allowed to sit on it whilst it continued to spin.

It was to be some years before I could afford my own CB750 (I had to travel the same route as many with various third-hand British offerings).

I’m 65 now, and it’s been 52 years (and numerous bikes) since I swung

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my leg over my first one (started off-road at 13), averaging around 16k miles a year, and I’ve yet to own a car.

Thanks Honda for keeping the dream alive in that young man’s mind. It’s been an excellent journey. I’m hoping to continue on it for a few years yet, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

KEITH BEALE

THE RATAE

Everything must begin at some point in our lives.

As Sal Paradise once said in a very dangerous book, The road’s gotta lead somewhere, right?

And so at age 11 on a fateful journey into school, The die was cast and my route set to a distant horizon.

I was destined to become an outlaw.

One could feel the crashing of chariot wheels, As Marcus Novantico pulled in his reins, With spear held aloft he made his cast, Pierced Chief Corieltavi through the chest, Wrenched at once clean out with evil splinters, Hurled aside as swords met and shields clashed.

Ratae AD106 seemed a long way from here, As my Midland Red bus slowly lumbered to a halt.

Sucking a half-chewed mint I peered through condensation.

Wiping the window with my grubby sleeve, As though through the ancient mists now re-enacted, Came a consort of warriors from far-off times.

Black murderous metal, high ‘bars and oilcaked engines replaced the steed, Chariot gone, now an old iron bathtub with plug and taps, Welded somehow to the frame in which crouched, A group of men with heavy arms and icy stare, Who under steel raised their stubborn rocky heads, Bruised and broken knuckles wielding mighty chains.

These men who pound and batter filled me with awe, They make indestructible, elemental war.

Who stand as one and fight or smash and break.

Only Ancient gods could hold such power.

What men or gods were these? I stared transfixed.

As with seismic roar they were gone… back to their lair.

And so my young imagination stirred, I sat and dreamed, Of those who, like their ancestors, could not be tamed, Branding their mark on the face of eternity.

MARK PINCHIN

I’m a lurker on your Facebook page, and group, and on many others too – I don’t post much, but I like to see what’s happening in the world of custom bikes on t’internet. It’s not a replacement for the magazine (which I’ve bought religiously since issue 2… well, apart from in the late 2000s when it was pants), just something else to look at when I’ve finished devouring my subs copy each issue, y’know?

Much of it is very good; there’re some great pages – the Indonesia and Japanese chopper pages are mental, the old school pages are great, and Nik’s UXB page is always so varied I really like looking at that... oops, did he want it known he does that too? Equally, there are some that’re so far up their own arses they can probably brush their teeth by dropping their trousers, but it takes all sorts, doesn’t it?

There’s something I don’t get though, so perhaps you, or someone else, can explain it to me? Why, when someone doesn’t like a picture of a bike that’s been posted, do they apologise for not liking it? ‘Sorry, not for me’ – that sort of thing?

If you don’t like something, you don’t like something – you don’t need to apologise for it. You’re not offending anyone by not liking it (or not anyone who isn’t completely up themselves anyway), so why apologise? Weird…

Speaking of not liking stuff, I do wonder why so many keyboard warrior types out there feel they have to slag someone’s bike off when they see something that’s not their cup of tea? They wouldn’t do it to the owner’s face, so why hide behind their social media anonymity? There’s loads of stuff on t’net I don’t like, but I was brought up by me mum and dad in the old ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all’ way, and it’s a shame more people weren’t. I dunno, maybe I’m an old fuddy-duddy these days, but I have a thing about respecting others, and that’s not going to change…

Great mag, by the way, keep up the good work!

HUNTER Err, are you me? Did I type this in me sleep or something? You been reading my mind? I’m decidedly worried now… N. JULY 2021

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TING, IT AT THE TIME OF WRI IN MANY THINGS ARE FEELS AS THOUGH S’S ES GR O POLITICAL PR A STATE OF LIMBO: F THE O S LT AIT THE RESU SLOW WHILST WE AW R MULTIPLE ROLES S FO MAY 6TH ELECTION CAL AND NATIONAL LO G INCLUDIN , AND POLICE COUNCILS, MAYORS S; THE LIFTING NER CRIME COMMISSIO F COVID -REL ATED O OF THE MAJORITY FOR 21ST RENTLY SCHEDULED D EVEN UR (C S N IO CT RI ST RE SOME TIME OFF; AN M JUNE) IS STILL QUITE WE’VE MOVED FRO IF AS S EL FE ER TH THE WEA WINTER! SPRING BACK INTO

MAG

remains as busy as ever, however, and eagerly awaits a return to attending and hosting bike events. You may’ve heard about the Police Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which Lembit (MAG’s Director of Communications & Public Affairs) has taken time to read in full.

Whilst the suggestion is that the Bill simply formalises existing measures based on how much disruption society considers tolerable, he found some sections to be of great concern – sections that have the potential to change the way riders can demonstrate and protest are of particular concern to MAG, especially the changes in terms of noise and traffic law. Other concerns include greater police powers, and the scaling up of penalties – laws that other groups also see as draconian. You can find Lembit’s report on our Wiki page.

If you would like to express your views to him, contact him via Lembit@ mag-uk.org and, as always, do get in touch with your MP to voice your concerns regarding this bill.

Another development we’re keeping a very close eye on, and one I’ve written about before, is autonomous vehicles. Lembit’s recently been successful in opening discussions with the Law Commission, providing valuable input for riders as the Commission seeks to create a legal framework relating to autonomous vehicles being granted access to the UK road network. If you’d like to read Lembit’s submission on behalf of MAG it too is on our Wiki page.

There’ll be plenty of political activity once we’ve reviewed the results of the May 6th elections. Centrally, our actions’ll include taking note of any biker-friendly names taking up posts, so if you engaged with anyone in the run-up to the elections, do take the time to go back to them following the outcomes – especially if they wrote something favourable in response to you. Whether a candidate won or not, they could be a useful ally in the future.

As riders it’s down to us to keep bikers’ concerns and needs at the forefront of transport decisions and policy. From MAG Central we keep in touch with as many decision-makers as possible, but these relationships work really well when they’re made and maintained at local level. It’s not only helpful to share the workload in this way, but local knowledge of issues, such as poor road layouts, is what’s needed rather than a one-size fits all approach.

If you want help by engaging directly with your councillors or MP then we’re happy to support you in doing that as more biker-friendly voices in positions of power leads to better outcomes for everyone.

We’re looking forward particularly to working with the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Northumbria, and their office to correct the faux pas made there, which received national coverage when Kim McGuinness proposed the compulsory fitting of trackers to all motorcycles so that illegal riders could be easily traced!

If you follow politics or live in North Herefordshire you may well be aware that Bill Wiggins Chair of2019 the All-Party Parliamentary Group 80 MP was elected to OCTOBER

(APPG) for Motorcycling at the end of April – a position held previously for four years by Chris Law MP. Readers may have heard Bill’s name before, as in 2003 he introduced a bill to allow motorcycle access to bus lanes throughout the UK. His opening line on becoming Chair of the APPG was: “As possibly the only Member of Parliament who motorcycles to work every day, I am one of more than one million motorcyclists in Britain who recognises the pleasure and convenience of filtering past the gridlocked traffic and steering clear of public transport.”

Lembit, himself a former MP and former chair of the Motorcycling APPG, said: “Bill was a very active member of the All-Party Group when I was Chairman, and I emphatically applaud his promotion to the top job in the group. He’s a truly frequent rider, using his machine as a commuting tool.

This means Bill experiences what we all experience in terms of traffic, bad weather and the joy of riding.”

Bill Wiggins commented: “Having been a motorcyclist for more than a quarter of a century, I’ve always seen the importance of motorcycles as a vital part of the mix of travel options in the UK. They’re economical, inexpensive, and have a low carbon footprint. I hope to make sure that the Government takes biking into account as we create a sustainable transport regime. Working with riders and the industry, the future looks brighter for motorbikes and scooters.

I look forward to the APPG integrating political understanding and priorities even more closely with biking.”

One of Bill’s first acts as Chair was to give the APPG’s formal support to the Ride To Work Day campaign. This is a fitting start for an APPG Chair who rides his motorcycle to work. Ride to Work Day 2021 will be Monday June 21st. Whether you are someone who rides to work every day or not, we hope many of you will get behind the message of the day to encourage more riders to take to the road on their bikes for that day. As riders, we know the many benefits riding brings, and part of the purpose of the day is to highlight this to others so this year’s emphasis is ‘fun’. Following the impacts of the pandemic, and with the majority of restrictions due to lift on the same day, there’s rarely been a better time to take two wheels to work.

If you need to drive for whatever reason, you can still support the day by sharing social media posts and purchasing a ‘Filter Friendly’ sticker available from our online shop at www.mag-uk.org/shop

Before we know where we are it’ll be time for the Yorkshire Pudding Rally once more – an event that’s already sold out. Then, swiftly following on from that, it’s Stormin’ the Castle. The tail-end of 2021 could be a busy time for biking events, and I hope you’re all able to get out and about and start a return to something approaching ‘normal’.

Ride free 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?

6th June: MAD Sunday (Motorcycle Awareness Day) at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 6th June: Normous Newark Autojumble at the Newark Showground, Lincoln Rd, Coddington, Newark, Notts (NG24 2NY). More info from www.newarkautojumble.co.uk 10th June: Knoxbridge Bike Night at the Knoxbridge, Cranbrook Road, Frittenden, Kent (TN17 2BT). More info from 01580 895276.

13th June: Triumph Day at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www.london. acecafe.com 13th June: Ripon Classic Car & Bike Show at Ripon Racecourse, Boroughbridge Rd, Ripon, Yorks (HG4 1UG). More info from www. markwoodwardclassic events.com 13th June: Stratford Autojumble at Stratfordupon-Avon Racecourse, Luddington Road, Stratfordupon-Avon, Warks (CV37 9SE). More info from www. stratfordautojumble.co.uk 18-20th June: Balor Demons MCC’s Hole in the Wall Rally at High Nellies, Garry Hill, Carlow, Eire. More info from Facebook.

19th June: Kempton Autojumble at Kempton Park, Staines Road East, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex (TW16 5AQ).

More info from www. kemptonautojumble.co.uk 20th June: Polish Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www.london. acecafe.com

24th June: Bideford Bike Night at Bideford Quay, Bideford, Devon (EX39 2HW).

More info from Facebook.

24th June: Knoxbridge Bike Night at the Knoxbridge, Cranbrook Road, Frittenden, Kent (TN17 2BT). More info from 01580 895276.

25-27th June: Summer Solstice Rock Fest Rally at Southam Rugby Club, Station Road, Southam, Warks. More info from www.ssfr.co.uk 25-27th June: Inner Circle RRC’s Goosin’ the Fox Rally at the Fox & Goose, The Street, Greywell, Hants (RG29 1BY). Tickets £18 prebook. More info from Facebook.

25-27th June: Bracan MCC’s Pistons & Pints Rally at the Breighton Ferry, Breighton, Selby, Yorks (YO8 6DH).

Tickets £15 prebook or £18 on gate. More info from 07912 691682 or www. bracanmcc.co.uk 26th June: Malc’s Motorbikes’ Coffee & Donut Day at Malc’s Motorbikes, Unit 14 Theobalds Grove Railway Station, High St, Waltham Cross, Herts (EN8 7BG). More info from 01992 630279 or www. malcsmotorbikes.com 26th June: Dirt Diggers #4 at the Eddie Wright Raceway, Normansby Road, Scunthorpe, Lincs (DN15 8QZ). More info from www. scunthorpe-speedway.com 26-27th June: Classic Bike Show & Jumble at the South of England Showground, Ardingley, W Sussex (RH17 6TL). More info from 01797 344277 or www.elkpromotions.co.uk 27th June: Triton & Cafe Racer Day at the Ace Cafe,

London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 27th June: Ride of Respect’s Red Road Day. More info from www. rideofrespect.co.uk or Facebook.

27th June: NCC Kent’s Flames & Frames Custom & Classic Show at The Railway, Bow Road, Wateringbury, Kent (ME18 5EB). More info from Facebook.

30th June-4th July: Wheels & Waves in Biarritz, France.

More info from www.wheelsand-waves.com

1st July: Krazy Horse Bike Night at Krazy Horse, Empire House, Lamdin Road, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (IP32 6NU). More info from www. krazyhorse.co.uk 2nd July: Road Reapers MCC’s Rock Night at the Ellesmere Club, Ellesmere Road, Bolton, Lancs (BT3 3JT). More info from Facebook.

2-4th July: Queen’s Regiment Riders’ Association’s One Aim Rally at Homestall Road, Straight Hill, Faversham, Kent.

Tickets £25 weekend or £15 days. More info from www. qrra.co.uk 2-4th July: Ride ‘Til We Rot’s Right Rotten PissUp at the Breighton Ferry, Breighton, Selby, Yorks (YO8 6DH). Tickets £10 prebook.

More info from Facebook.

2-4th July: Future MCC’s Clay Pigeon Rally at South Wingfield Social Club, High Rd, South Wingfield, Alfreton, Derbys (DE55 7LX).

Tickets £15 on gate. More info from 07813 992431 or loopy_lisa100@hotmail.com 3rd July: NCC London’s Diamond Day Custom Bike Show at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 3rd July: Gosport Motorcycle & Scooter Show JULY 2021

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at Stokes Bay Field, Gosport, Hants. Free entry. More info from jeremywebb@ driveandride.org 3rd July: Pyeratz MCC’s 15th Anniversary Party at the Bold Privateer, Wrose Road, Shipley, Yorks (BD18 1HX). More info from Facebook.

3-4th July: 40th International Classic Motorcycle Show at the Stafford Showground, Weston Rd, Stafford (ST18 0BD). More info from www. staffordclassicbikeshows.com 4th July: Honda Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www.london. acecafe.com 4th July: Blackpool MAG’s Stanley Park Bike Show at Stanley Park, West Park Drive, Blackpool, Lancs (FY3 9HQ).

More info from www.northwest-region.mag-uk.org 4th July: Leighton Hall Classic Car & Bike Show at Leighton Hall, Carnforth, Lancs (LA5 9ST). Tickets £7.50. More info from www. markwoodwardclassic events.com 4th July: NCC Suffolk’s Custom & Classic Bike Show at the Five Bells, Rattlesden, Suffolk. Free entry. More info from 07939 511351 or Facebook.

4th July: Harley Club Norfolk’s Sportster Day at The Goat Inn, Long Road, Skeyton, Norwich, Norfolk (NR10 5DH). More info from Facebook.

9-11th July: Dragstalgia at Santa Pod Raceway, Airfield Rd, Podington, Wellingborough Northants (NN29 7XA). More info from www.santapod.co.uk 9-11th July: NOTAS MCC’s Bits & T*ts Bike/Trike Rally at Salhouse Lodge, Vicarage Road, Salhouse Norfolk (NR13 6HD). Tickets £20 prebook or £25 on gate. More info from 07737 602776 or Facebook.

9-11th July: Furness Vale MAG’s Dead End Rally at

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Beckside Road, Dalton-inFurness, Cumbria (LA15 8DP). Tickets £15. More info from 07583 001181 or deadend.rally@gmail.com 9-11th July: Unwanted MCC’s Cock Out Rally at the Rockbar, Shobnall Sports & Social Club, Shobnall Road, Burton-on-Trent, Staffs. Tickets £15. More info from 07988 521400 or 07761 931226 or www. unwantedmcc.co.uk 9-11th July: Southern Comfort V-Max Rally at Lodsworth Village Hall, Lodsworth, Petworth, W Sussex (GU28 9BL. More info from Facebook.

11th July: Indian & Victory Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 11th July: Bikers’ Breakfast at Port Vale FC, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs from 10am, free bacon/sausage baps. More info from www.staffsbiker.co.uk or Facebook.

16-18th July: TWATS Zombie Rally at the Breighton Ferry, Selby, Yorks.

More info from Facebook.

16-18th July: HAMC North Lincs’ Bullfrog Bash at Sleaford Rugby Club, Sleaford Road, Ruskington, Lincs (NG34 8SP). More info from 07921 838694 or bullfrogbash@hellsangelsmc. co.uk 17th July: Kempton Autojumble at Kempton Park, Staines Road East, Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex (TW16 5AQ).

More info from www. kemptonautojumble.co.uk 18th July: ‘70s Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www.london. acecafe.com 18th July: Massive Post Lockdown Bikejumble at Wimborne Minster, Dorset, BH21 1EH. More info from 07767 205198 or 07710 996331.

18th July: Normous Newark Autojumble at the

Newark Showground, Lincoln Rd, Coddington, Newark, Notts (NG24 2NY). More info from www.newarkautojumble.co.uk 20th July: Gambit MCC’s Open Meet at the Rishton Arms, Station Road, Blackburn, Lancs (BB1 4HF).

More info from Facebook.

23-25th July: Halfway Heroes MCC’s Leathered in Lincoln Rally at Cadbourne Parva, Caistor, Lincs (LN7 6DR). Tickets £20 prebook or £25 on gate. More info from 07709 907745 or www. halfway-heroes.co.uk 23-25th July: Malle Mile at Grimsthorpe Castle, Grimsthorpe, Bourne, Lincs (PE10 0LY). More info from www.mallelondon.com 24th July: Southsiders Bike Show at the Houldsworth Arms, Houldsworth Square, Reddish, Stockport, Greater Manchester (SK5 7AL). More info from Facebook.

24th July: NCC Sussex’s In It to Win It Custom Show at the Bull’s Head, Boreham Street, near Herstmonceaux, E. Sussex (BN27 4SG). More info from Facebook.

25th July: Sports Bike Special at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 25th July: Bikers’ Breakfast at Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green Airport, Crab Lane, Stourbridge, Staffs from 10am, free bacon/sausage baps. More info from www.staffsbiker.co.uk or Facebook.

25th July: HAMC Liverpool’s Ride-In Bike Show at the Clubhouse, Cotton Street, Liverpool (L3 7DY). More info from Facebook.

25th July: Ardingley Summer Classic Bike Show & Jumble at the South of England Showground, Ardingley, W Sussex (RH17 6TL). More info from 01797 344277 or www.elkpromotions.co.uk

29th July: Bideford Bike Night at Bideford Quay, Bideford, Devon (EX39 2HW). More info from Facebook.

29th July-1st Aug: Rock & Blues Old School Weekender at the Coneygrey Showground, Pentrich, Derbys. Earlybird tickets £40, £50 prebook.

More info from www. therockandblues.com 30th July-1st Aug: West London Harley Riders’ Burning Budgie Rally at Beaconsfield Town FC, A355 Windsor Road, Beaconsfield, Bucks (HP9 2SE). Tickets £20. More info from 07747 005199 or www. westlondonharleyriders.co.uk 31st July: Medusa MC’s Show Us Your Ride Bike Show at the Halfway House, Canterbury Road, Challock, Ashford, Kent (TN25 4BB).

Tickets £5. More info from ww.medusamotorcycleclub. co.uk or Facebook.

1st Aug: Suzuki Sunday at the Ace Cafe, London.

More info from www.london. acecafe.com 1st Aug: Mono Motorcycles’ Breakfast Meet at Mono Motorcycles, New Barn Office, Row C Unit 4&5, Funtington, Chichester, Hants (PO18 9DA). More info from www.monomotorcycles.co.uk 5-8th Aug: Yorkshire Rock & Bike Show at Squires Café, Newthorpe, Sherburnin-Elmet, Yorks (LS25 5LX).

Tickets £15 prebook or £30 on gate, Saturday £15. More info from www. yorkshirerocknbikeshow.co.uk 6-8th Aug: UXB Rat & Survival Bike & Trike Show at the Ogri Club house, Kemble Airfield, Kemble, Gloucs. Tickets £20 on gate.

More info from Facebook.

6-8th Aug: Chain Wolf MCC’s Pack Rally at Shirebrook Staff & Social Club, Langwith Road, Shirebrook, Mansfield, Notts.

Advertise your events here for free and get them seen by everyone in bikerdom! Email the info to nik@backstreetheroes.com Tickets £15 prebook only.

More info from 07891 204883 or Facebook.

6-8th Aug: Viking Bear Rally at Abbeycwmhir, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, Wales.

Tickets £18. More info from chiseltatto@homail.co.uk or Facebook.

6-8th Aug: Yorkshire MAG’s Yorkshire Pudding Rally at Escrick Park Estate, Escrick,Yorks. More info from www.mapevents.co.uk 6-8th Aug: FUBAR MCC’s Fecked Up Again Rally at Wood Farm, Alton Lane, Great Gate, Staffs (ST10 4HS).

Tickets £20 prebook or £25 on gate. More info from 07455 471781 or mrsknobhead. fubar@yahoo.com 7th Aug: Harley Club Norfolk’s Harley Evening at the Route 11 Café, A11, Attleborough, Norfolk (NR17 2PU). More info from Facebook.

8th Aug: Vintage & Classic & Speedway Bike Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 8th Aug: Bring on the Smiles Post-Covid Coast to Coast Ride from the Pie Stop Café, Pennygillam Way, Pennygillam Industrial Estate, Launceston, Cornwall (PL15 7ED) at 11am.

Tickets £5. More info from Facebook.

12-15th Aug: Gothic Bikers MCC’s Gothic Uprising Rally at Sherbrooke Scout Camp, Mansfield Lane, Calverton, Notts (NG14 6HP). Tickets £22.50 prebook or £25 on gate. More info from 07706 655357 or Facebook.

13-15th Aug: Unwanted MCC’s Bike, Trike & Custom Show at the Rockbar, Shobnall Sports &Social Club, Shobnall Road, Burton-on-Trent, Staffs.

Tickets £10 prebook or £13 on gate, Saturday bike show £3.

More info from 07988 521400 or 07761 931226 or www. unwantedmcc.co.uk 13-15th Aug: Worcester Custom Show at the Stoke Prior Sports & Social Club, Westonhall Road, Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, Worcs (B60 4AL).

More info from 07743 135858 or Facebook.

13-15th Aug: IX Legion’s Rally at the British Steel Club,

South Avenue, Redcar, N.Yorks (TS10 5LZ). Tickets £10. More info from 07500 058320 or ixlegionmcc@ gmail.co.uk 14th Aug: HA Wessex’s Poker Run from The Packhorse, Woodcote Road, Mapledurham, Reading, Berks at noon. Tickets £10. More info from www. hellsangelsmcwessex.com 14-15th Aug: Bridgwater Classic & Vintage Show at Morganians Rugby Club, A39 Chedzoy Rd, Bridgwater, Somerset. Tickets £5. More info from 07919 351867 or Facebook.

15th Aug: Ladies Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 15th Aug: Bikers’ Breakfast at JCB, Rochester, Uttoxeter, Staffs from 10am, free bacon/sausage baps. More info from www.staffsbiker. co.uk or Facebook.

15th Aug: Northumberland Classic Vehicle Gathering at Tynedale Park, Station Rd, Corbridge, Co Durham (NE45 5AY). Tickets £7.50.

More info from www.mark woodwardclassicevents.com 15th Aug: Normous Newark Autojumble at the Newark Showground, Lincoln Rd, Coddington, Newark, Notts (NG24 2NY). More info from www.newarkautojumble. co.uk 15th Aug: Heritage Sprint Summer Bike Show at Betteshanger Park, Sandwich Road, Deal, Kent (CT14 0BF).

Tickets £3. More info from www.heritagesprint.com or Facebook.

20-22nd Aug: Kavern Fest Motorcycle & VW Show at Trysull Holloway, Trysull, Wolverhampton, West Mids (WV5 7JA). Tickets £35. More info from 07342 784605 or Facebook.

20-22nd Aug: Herts Bikers MC’s Armageddon Rally at Letchworth Rugby Club, Legends Lane, Baldock Road, Letchworth, Herts (SG6 2EN).

Tickets £20 prebook or £25 on gate. More info from 07543 524146 or Facebook.

21-22nd Aug: Peterborough Festival of Wheels at Peterborough Lions RFC,

Bretton Park, Peterborough, Cambs (PE3 8DF). More info from Facebook.

22nd Aug: Trike Day in aid of NABD at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe.com 26th Aug: Bideford Bike Night at Bideford Quay, Bideford, Devon (EX39 2HW). More info from Facebook.

27-29th Aug: Tees Riders MCC’s Rusty Nuts Rally at Tunstall Riding Centre, Tunstall Farm, Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough (TS7 0NU).

Tickets £16 prebook or £20 on gate. More info from 01642 644858 or 01642 647568 or Facebook.

27-30th Aug: Avernus MCC’s Back to the Underworld Rally at Park House Barn, Heversham, Milnthorpe, Cumbria. Tickets £20. More info from www. avernusmcc.mozello.com 27-30th Aug: No Bull, Just Beer & Bikes Show at Penmaunau Farm, Builth Wells, Powys. More info from www.nobullbeerandbikes. co.uk 28-30th Aug: World of Wheels at Bentley Motor Museum, Harvey’s Lane, Ringmer, Lewes, E Sussex (BN8 5AF). More info from Facebook.

28th Aug: Bideford Bike Show at Bideford Quay, Bideford, Devon. More info from www.bidefordbikeshow. org 28th Aug: AMOC Charity Bash at the Frankland Arms, London Road, Washington, W Sussex (RH20 4AL). More info from 01903 658634 or amocsussex@gmail.com 29th Aug: Harley Day at the Ace Cafe, London. More info from www.london.acecafe. com 29th Aug: Roughley’s Bike Show at St Peter’s Square, Stockport, Greater Manchester. Tickets £3.

More info from www. roughleysbikeshow.com 29th Aug: Riders in the Sky’s RTS Day at Tor Leisure, Street Road, Glastonbury, Somerset. Tickets £5. More info from www.ritsday.co.uk

29th Aug: Ripon Classic Car & Bike Show at Ripon Racecourse, Boroughbridge Rd, Ripon, Yorks (HG4 1UG). Tickets £7.50. More info from www.mark woodwardclassicevents.com 29th Aug: P&D Custom Bikes’ Bike Show at Slinfold Cricket Club, Lyons Road, Slinfold, W. Sussex (RH13 0RY). More info from 01403 791038 or Facebook.

30th Aug: Yorkshire Classic Vehicle Show at Ripley Castle, Ripley, Harrogate, Yorks (HG3 3EA). Tickets £7.50. More info from www. markwoodwardclassic events.com 30th Aug: Kent Chrome & Cruisers at the Faversham Showground, Staplestreet Road, Faversham, Kent, (ME13 9SP). More info from Facebook.

30th Aug: Warlocks MC Scunthorpe’s Custom & Classic Bike Show at the Clubhouse, Foxhills Road, Scunthorpe, Lincs (DN15 8LH).

Free entry. More info from 07714 001293 or Facebook.

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. netleymarsheurojumble.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 JULY 2021

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LEFT: A rare shot of an uninjured Mr Bridges from years ago – dig those funky slacks, Tim!

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

ABOVE: Craig Hall’s Ms Peaky, built by Jeremy at Peaky Bobbers – cool!

BELOW: Pete’s dad in 1935 on his 250 Sunbeam – the only safety gear you needed in those days was a flat cap and a Woodbine!

ABOVE: Bosun’s mighty Super Dweam from years ago, as mentioned last issue

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BELOW: Bob Lund’s ’78 XS650 has a slightly awkward, but appealing, seat over…

RIGHT: John Langley’s obsessed!

This is his third diesel bike!

Sometimes even the best old custom bikes (and bikers) need a helping hand to get them going!

ABOVE: Helen’s SV1000 streetfighter is as orange as a Jaffa, and just as smashing(ly) to ride!

BELOW: Chloe’s in her summer riding kit. Pic by Dave J, Screaming Images

ABOVE RIGHT: Big Al’s VN 1600 trike, originally built by BB Customs – the engine mods destroyed the Reliant axle with the torque!

LEFT: Roy’s snowmobile!

ABOVE: Chess’ good lady, in suitable dress, with the chariot they use when they’re not out on their ‘Arley

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ABOVE: Hot rods of all wheel kinds by Mark

ABOVE: Steve Barrett’s Uncle Bunt Triumph – not for sale!

ABOVE: Bill, who did the ace pic in Letters last issue, sent it in this amazing envelope – bet the postie loves his letters!

SUZUKI GSX750 HARDTAIL CHOP: 1989, brand new Avon whitewalls, new fork seals/stator/battery, incredible ‘Wild Heart’ Stu Garland tank mural £3,000 ono. Tel 07917 340259 or email drummer1969@hotmail.co.uk (Norfolk).

HONDA SILVER WING/CX500 BOBBER: SORN, easy fix (needs rear mudguard/radiator fitting & rear light wiring - all parts with bike), no time/space to sort so any reasonable offer considered! Tel 07836 650317 or email stevechapelinteriors@gmail. com

US FIGHTER PILOT FLYING JACKET: Coopers of USA, brown, sheepskin lining, brown fur collar, original patina, heavy-duty front zip, H-D patches sewn on by tailor, very rare £375 ono. Tel 07501 084121 or email mattfuneralcare@gmail.com (Hamps).

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FJ 1200 CHOP: originally built by Desperate Dan’s, modifications/ re-spray by Al Smith, lots of nice parts, Brembo 6-pots, stainless straight-through exhausts (very loud!), wide ally slabs, MoT September (no advisories), low mileage, very reliable £4,250 ono. Tel 07971 027472 or email karl66moore@gmail.com (Oxford).

KAWASAKI KZ440 BOBBER: 1981, 1,256 miles since complete engine rebuild, appeared in MCN Feb 2017 as “shed built” by chap who built it, indicators/mirror, MoT Nov (exempt next year) £2995 ono. Tel 07765 576347 or email robertsjas@hotmail. co.uk (Cornwall).

H-D DYNA WIDEGLIDE: 2001, amazing Lord of the Rings paint, excellent condition, garaged, only 10 miles added over last year £6,750 ono.

Tel 07840 936983 or email alisoncritcher@sky.com (Cornwall).

HONDA CMX500 REBEL BOBBER: 2017, MoT Dec, 5k miles, professionally customised, custom paint, one-off seat, sissybar/luggage rack, LED strip tail-light, small indicators, USB socket, heated grips, custom mirrors, tool kit, battery charger, waterproof cover, fabric panniers, phone holder, phone case, new battery, fully serviced, one lady owner £5,700 ono. Email bijoulatina@ hotmail.co.uk (London).

INDIAN POWERPLUS: full custom, Paughco rigid frame, springers, Ultima 6-speed gearbox/wheels/3.3” open primary, ribbed steel mudguards, custom leather saddle, King Sportster tank, beautiful paintwork, GPS speedo, quick-release luggage rack, new whitewalls, MOT £12,995 ono. Tel 07845 323631 or email j.osborn66@ outlook.com (York).

TRIUMPH T100 BOBBER: 2006, 865cc, 7k miles, 10“ mini apes, quality steel mudguards, Norman Hyde exhaust, lovely custom paint, LED rear light/indicators, Triumph Bobber leather seat, excellent allround condition, MOT’d, luggage rack/pillion pad included £3.950 ono.

Tel 07845 323631 or email j.osborn66@outlook.com (York).

CB750 CHOP: as featured in BSH, 18” over girders, prismic tank, proper old-skool bike, loud, runs well, very cool £4,500 ono. Tel 07724 096137 (Essex).

SUZUKI BANDIT 1200: 1996, GS500 fairing (black screen), Koso speedo, uprated brakes/clutch, ‘Busa forks, CBR600RR rear shock, GSX-R 1100 cams (108bhp), billet engine covers, belly pan, R1 swingarm cross-brace, high-rise stainless exhaust with Black Widow end can, Gulf paint, custom seat £2,250 ono. Tel 07922 584554 or email rwpowelluk@yahoo.co.uk (Milton Keynes).

REVTECH CHOP: Alice, as featured this issue, very high spec’, amazing paint, fast, reliable, in-yer-face, multi show-winner £17,995 ono. Tel 07772 748328 or email indiannablu@ntlworld. com (Notts).

H-D SPORTSTER TRIKE: 883 Sporty, 6k miles, fantastic condition, new build by TrikesbyJPDesign £10,950 ono. Tel 07769 344624 or email pka666@gmail.com

ULTRA GROUNDPOUNDER: 1996, S&S Superstock 1600cc engine, Super E carb, professional build, hardtail, Pageant paint job, nice condition all round, stonking ride, MoT £7,500 ono. Emailjohnburton2009@ hotmail.co.uk (Suffolk) HUC BANDIT CHOP: New build, all parts from 2005 650K5 Bandit, 12 months’ MoT, like new £2,995 ono.

Tel 07474 884538 (Devon).

SUZUKI GSX-R 750 SLABSIDE STREETFIGHTER: B-reg, VFR single-sider, R1 front end, paint by Devilised Paint, new tyres/chain/ sprockets, new MoT £2,500 ono. Tel 07799 668843 (Kent).

BMW1100RS TRIKE: built by Oz (ex-Desperate Dan’s), all major work done, just needs brakes finishing/oil cooler mounting/fuel pump re-located to finish, taking up too much space £4,800 ono. Tel 07949 275781.

H-D IRONHEAD BOBBER: 1970, 900cc, kick-only, S&S Super E carb with teardrop filter, welded-on hardtail, early Panhead forks/Hydra Glide yokes, hamburger drum 16” front wheel, vintage style balloon tyres, one-off flake/pin-stripe paint £6,500 ono. Tel 07480 215301 or email danclarke17@hotmail.co.uk

YAMAHA XJ650 TRIKE: good running order/condition, MoT Oct’, back-rest/sissy-bar, large rear box £3,400 ono. Tel 07790 417768 or email mt242@hotmail.co.uk (Brum).

BLACK LEATHER SPADA JACKET: Brando style, heavy-duty zips, size 44, fully lined, slight patina, great jacket, too small now (Guinness’ fault) £55 (plus post). Tel 07501 084121 or email mattfuneralcare@gmail.com (Hamps).

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CLASSIFIED

ACCESSORIES & PARTS

ELECTRICAL

BATTERIES

CUSTOM FRAMES AND WHEEL BUILDING

PLATES

SEATING

CUSTOMISATION

VAPOUR BLASTING

accessories

CLASSIFIED back INSURANCE

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PREPARING FOR RALLIES FOR MANY OF US, RALLIES MAY SEEM LIKE DIM AND DISTANT MEMORIES, BUT I’M CERTAIN THEY’LL RETURN – INDEED, A FEW’VE ALREADY STARTED POPPING UP ON THE CALENDAR. NOW, THEN, IS A GOOD TIME TO CHECK OVER YOUR RALLY GEAR THAT’S BEEN FESTERING IN THE BACK OF THE GARAGE FOR THE LAST EIGHTEEN MONTHS AS, FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, I KNOW THE PITFALLS OF JUST THROWING GEAR ON TO THE BACK OF THE BIKE IN A HURRY, AND THEN FINDING IT’S SCARIER THAN FINDING A PAIR OF OLD UNDERPANTS IN YOUR TENT (EVEN MORE SO IF THEY’RE NOT YOURS). or a start there’s nothing worse than the aroma of a mouldy tent – right up there with that fresh dog turd you just trod in, or your bike boots after the cat’s relieved itself in them some time ago. Get it aired or, if it’s particularly bad, replace it. It’s always worth putting it up too to check for missing poles and broken zips; those rips and tears that you promised yourself you’d repair last year. Can you still remember how to put it up? Are there enough pegs? Is it still the right size for your needs? Tents, it seems, like jeans and jackets, have shrunk over lockdown…

Next up, your sleeping bag – does it need airing?

Has that too shrunk over Covid? Your air bed, does it still inflate? Could you do with a new one? A lighter one that packs down smaller perhaps? And the bag that you carry stuff in? How bad does that smell?

What was that left in the bottom? May it’ve been a sausage roll? You hope it’s just a sausage roll…

If you’ve changed bikes since last time, does the bag still fit on the bike? Are the straps okay? Have you got enough bungies? And are the hooks still the right shape? You don’t want them flying off as you’re strapping your kit down and whacking you painfully in the knackers, do you?

Your cooking gear, is that okay? Are the gas canisters okay? Do you need new ones? What’s that furry thing at the bottom of your mug? Is your coffee still coffee or is it now a large brown lump you could throw at a window and break it? Same question for the sugar? And are tea bags s’posed to be green?

Other stuff – your torch, is that still good? Does it need batteries? Check they’re not the same shade

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of green as the tea bags. That emergency bog roll – take a good look at it, do you really want that anywhere near your rusty sheriff’s badge? Your towel for showering (if you’re posh), is it still a towel or has it gone so crusty you could use it as a windbreak?

Okay, so now you’ve checked/washed/replaced everything, do you remember how to pack the bike?

Again, if it’s a new bike, have you tried packing it? If you’ve updated your ride, it may not have as many good bungie mounts – modern bikes can be a bloody nightmare to load, especially modern Harleys. My current bike has few mounting points, and by making loops of rope I make places to secure straps.

As we’re all getting older, it’s now probably a good idea to get a little bag to go in your kit that’s especially for any medication you may need (as well as paracetamol and/or ibuprofen for the inevitable hangover). It’s funny, isn’t it, how often conversations between old bikers tend to end up as lists of what tablets we have to take these days? It wasn’t like that back in the day, eh?

You’ve prepared your kit for the bike, what about your jacket? The old saying ‘Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and watch’ is way out of date now. These days it’s more ‘Spectacles, testicles, wallet, and… phone, phone charger, house keys, recovery service card, hand sanitiser, face mask, etc., etc. Again, it’s not like the carefree days of old, is it?

Now you can head off, happily prepared, to your event (having double-checked you’re got the right weekend… we’ve all done that, haven’t we?

Especially when it comes to going to Faro…), only to remember, 150 miles from home, that your rally ticket’s still on the table at home.

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IN MY COLUMN LAST MONTH, I OFFERED SOME ADVICE TO THOSE PLANNING HOLIDAYS, PARTICULARLY MOTORCYCLING HOLIDAYS, IN THE EU OR EVEN FURTHER AFIELD, AND SO I THOUGHT IT WORTH DEDICATING THIS MONTH’S TO A FEW MORE OF THE ISSUES I’VE ENCOUNTERED IN MORE THAN 40 YEARS OF MEANDERING AROUND EUROPE.

ne aspect of motorcycle abroad that catches many people out is how certain places can affect motorcycle security systems. When you have an alarm/immobiliser system fitted to your bike, or if you buy a bike with such a system fitted as standard, they’re usually immune to interference from radio frequencies used in the UK – they may not be to frequencies used in other countries though, particularly frequencies used by the emergency services.

In the early years of the ‘Run to the Sun’, where each year we took 100+ bikers through France, Spain and Portugal to the magnificent Moto Clube Faro rally, we had several occasions where people’d stopped for lunch in Segovia (a small industrial town about 70km north of Madrid), then couldn’t get their bikes started again. In some cases the ever-helpful mechanic in the local bike shop happily butchered their security system, and charged them silly money to do a cowboy installation of another, proving that greedy, unscrupulous people can be found in all countries. Those who had the sense to phone me in the BSH back-up truck were told to scan the local horizon for a large radio mast, at the bottom of which is a police station – the carrier signal from this mast stops the immobiliser system on many bikes, particularly on HarleyDavidsons, from deactivating. Simply walking into the police station, and

O

waving motorcycle keys at them’s usually enough for them to turn off the signal for a few minutes so that bike and rider can escape from the immediate vicinity.

(Pushing the bike a couple of hundred yards away from the mast’d also solve the problem.) So, if you suddenly have a problem with your alarm or immobiliser when travelling abroad, take a good look around for a radio mast before handing over a lot of Euros to a smiling bandit in a bike shop! Of course, avoiding these problems altogether by contacting a main dealer, or the supplier of the security system, for fixes prior to travelling is by far the simpler option.

Another common problem with motorcycle alarms often reveals itself on ferries. Though your bike’s usually firmly strapped down to prevent it moving during the voyage, the movement of the ferry can often be enough to activate them numerous times during the crossing, and this can lead to a depressingly flat battery on your arrival in foreign climes.

If you’re unsure how to disable your alarm for a ferry crossing, contact your main dealership, or the alarm manufacturer, for more information.

Suffering a vehicle breakdown abroad can really put the mockers on your trip, but this can be greatly exacerbated if you then find that your European Cover only extends to your bike being taken to the nearest motorcycle repair shop.

Always ensure that your European Breakdown cover includes the full repatriation of the bike (and yourselves)

when necessary – arranging privately for your bike to be put in a container and shipped home can cost a fortune and take weeks. Where your breakdown cover’s part of your insurance package, make sure you get written confirmation of the comprehensive European Breakdown Cover before you travel.

This’ll often incur a cost, but can avoid far greater costs further down the line.

It’s also worth checking that your insurance covers the repatriation of your bike if you’re injured or fall ill.

Breakdown insurance’ll rarely cover your vehicle if you’re injured or fall ill, and motorcycle insurance companies’ll often say that they will not recover a bike if it’s still rideable (even if the rider’s no longer fit to ride it). This is often the case within the UK too!

It’s also worth noting that, when biking in Europe, it’s mandatory that you carry a red warning triangle, a high-vis tabard/ waistcoat for both rider and passenger (in case of breakdown), a First Aid kit, and spare bulbs for each light on the machine, and you can incur fairly heavy on-the-spot fines for not carrying these items.

The laws on wearing helmets in Europe are a very grey area, with no-one entirely sure whether they’re mandatory or not, and in some parts of Spain and Portugal trike riders may get stopped by police if they’re not wearing them, and trying to argue the fact with a foreign copper with a gun’ll rarely prove successful for the rider. You’re far better just putting your helmet on until you’re out of their way, and then get on with enjoying your holiday.

One mistake I saw far too often on the Run to the Sun was people who thought, ‘I won’t need waterproofs – it’s sunny and hot in Spain and Portugal…’. Sunny and hot it may be, but that doesn’t necessarily mean ‘always dry’! Northern Spain can, and often does, suffer truly monumental summer rainstorms that can drench you to the skin in minutes, and go on for hours. Obviously, you won’t want to take up too much of your limited luggage space with heavy-duty wet weather gear, so it’s well worth investing in some lightweight ‘proofs that roll up nice and small for packing.

Just remember to have them at the top of your luggage so you don’t have to empty your panniers in the rain while looking for them, eh?

These two articles are by no means meant to be an exhaustive guide to motorcycle touring pitfalls in Europe but, hopefully, they’ll help some folk to avoid some of the common problems faced by UK bikers seeking the sun!

RICK HULSE 98

JULY 2021

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