Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Back Street Heroes

It’s Spring, or very nearly, and the sap rising in me (steady…) has brought out me inner poet but, as my poetry’s on a par with yer average Vogon (and very nearly as bad as that of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings*), I’ll let a profeshneul do it ‘cos… well, he’s better at it than me. ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils…’ Like the esteemed Mr WW, I, too, love the Spring; the weather gets warmer, the roads get drier, and the need for umpteen layers of clothing, or the donning of ‘lectric garments, lessens. All around us old Ma Nature’s showing her face with flowers starting to appear, lambs…

WE were all pretty clueless when it came to putting on a show like this but, luckily, my better half Sharron took the helm, and organised the appropriate details. Over numerous weeks we spread the word at local bike nights, and Carl created a Facebook page to promote it. With a bar, catering and music sorted, the day came, and we just hoped a few’d turn up. The endless summer of 2022 gave us its best, and by noon (when it officially opened) the field was starting to fill. The turn-out was bloody amazing, far surpassing our expectations with upwards of 300 bikes and trikes arriving, and the atmosphere was awesome. The awards, which were courtesy of Framlingham Motorcycles, were decided by Keith, who’s been in the motorcycle trade since…

Yes, there are of course those painted in classic bike shades (creams and whites, panelled with dark blues and greens), but most have fairly restrained colour schemes – very few of them feature the work of the finest airbrushers (some do have pin-striping, granted), but very few are as lairy, as in-yer-face, as Jerry Weare’s gorgeous lil’ Bonnie that you see here. Jerry’s a (Meriden) Triumph man through and through; he has the modernised (USD forks, three spokes, monoshock rear) Slippery Sam replica Trident that we featured a few years ago, and a very nice trad’ custom Trident, too, which I’m hoping to get down to photograph when the weather gets a little less… well, February really. Having finished putting together both the Tridents, he was on the lookout for…

However, there’s always room for the occasional act of defiance, and there’s no better example than the hillclimb course situated at the home of the Bugatti Owners’ Club at Prescott in Gloucs – an institution which’s no stranger to the clink of crystal, and the whiff of damp Harris Tweed but, scratch the surface, though, and what you actually get is a collective of dyed-in-the-wool petrolheads dedicated to the thrashing of vehicles, some ancient and priceless, up their purpose-built course. The best bit? They like to have the bikes along to play as well. As a competitor, it’s long been one of my favourite tracks, but over the past few years I’ve also been involved in running our club (National Hill Climb Association) stand at the Prescott Bike Festival. Originally…

The main benefit in doing that is the frame isn’t a mirror image, so replacing them means bending another tube that’s different from the first, but has to end up in the same place. That’s quite a tricky task, and I was expecting to have to fill part of this article with the approach to making that work and, perhaps, acceding to the fact that you’ve cocked it up and starting again if necessary, so you can imagine my disappointment when the tube I bent was perfectly fine for the job. Before I got there though, I had to grind away the welds on the pressings at the swingarm pivot, and lever out the remains of the old tube, which was a tad inconvenient as the shock mount on that…

WE had, of course, no idea if anyone’d turn up, being our first foray into anything like this, and were made up when a whole host of folk did. Among them were two trikes: a Z1300 belonging to the late and much missed Pete Hicks, all the way from Wales (incidentally, later, the very first bike I ever wrote up for BSH), and a lovely purple Shovelhead Harley owned by Mick Howard (who, for some reason, I was convinced was called Bear…). The pair of them won, if I remember rightly, Best in Show and Best Trike respectively, and I later photographed Mick (not Bear…) and his trike as one of my first freelance jobs for BSH, and it appeared, I think, in the mag’ in 1994. Fast forward… umm, nearly…

There’re very definite styles of bike building, I’m sure you’ll agree, and bikes built in these styles, when done well, are very nice indeed, but for some folk just having a bike that looks a little like other people’s isn’t the way they want to go. No, they want to be a little different. Rusty, who designed and built this’ ard-as-nails Sporty, when he started it, very consciously had no plans or drawings or owt – he wanted to ‘freestyle’ the build, and see what he came out with. Now, as I’m sure you’re only too aware, this approach can end up with something resembling a mechanised dog’s breakfast, but not this time as you can see. He is, by trade, a commercial fabricator, and this isn’t his first build,…

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Around the same time, Jones’ ‘security’ details murdered visiting US Congressman Leo Ryan, along with cult members who’d realised Jones was a false prophet and wanted out. I seriously recommend you read up on Jim Jones, especially if you’ve bought into the new religion propagated by the likes of Extinction Rebellion (XR), Just Stop Oil (JSO), and Greta Thunberg. Jones was the leader of The People’s Temple religious cult. On November 18th, 1978, the 47-year-old Jones and his closest collaborators convinced their followers, 304 of them children, to drink cyanide. He didn’t start out as a mass murderer though – in his youth he was religious, and largely self-educated, and by his early 20s, inspired by a speech Eleanor Roosevelt made about the plight of black people in the US,…

IT was held in the Pallant Centre in Havant (basically a large church hall), and the invited competition bikes were all set up inside, alongside a few Daniel pulled in from the car park (including one which’d be an eventual winner). Many of them he’d had a hand in tweaking or working on as well. With over nine months of planning, I knew it’d be good. There was serious sponsorship from Dunlop, and several local stalls, too, including the rather good food van it has at its monthly meets, and JAA Paints also was doing an exhibition of his airbrush skills. Arriving at what I thought was early, I found Daniel putting out (very useful) signs, and managed to find a space in a rapidly filling bike park. In the hall…

I’ve been, one way or another, to almost all of their soirees over the I years, and I really liked the new location for this event – the Queens Regiment Riders Association (QRRA) clubhouse. It’s hoped it’s found a new spiritual home at last, as I know the ladies of Medusa were desperately trying to find one. Camping was available (including a free breakfast), and lots of loos, so some folk’d already got seriously into chill-out mode, and it was almost a mini rally rather than a one-day show. Down the dusty track more and more bikes and trikes appeared, reminiscent of an old Western movie’s cavalry coming over the hill. The hill did bring its own parking challenges, it has to be said, as a hell of a lot…

The Z1300, built from 1979 to 1989, was, I don’t know if you know, the bike that instigated France’s ill-fated (thankfully) 100 horsepower limit back in 1984. When it was launched, the Thirteen, as it was known, was the largest capacity motorcycle available (outside of 80 cubic inch, 1340cc Harleys… oh, and the 1600cc Brazilian-made, VW-engined Amazonas), and made a claimed 120hp at 8,000rpm (although that was at the crank, and it’s a shaftie, so that’s probably about 100-ish in rear-wheel terms), and some nail-eating snowflake was so incensed by the thought of this that, in 1984, they proposed limiting all motorcycle engines to 100 horsepower. This was, unbelievably, accepted by the French powers-that-be, and wasn’t actually lifted until 2016, so if you’re offered a big-engine French-registered bike from that…

Bootneck, a custom-built Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 by Saltire Motorcycles, was auctioned at the Royal Marines Charity Gala dinner in November for an astonishing £60,000, the money going to the Royal Marines’ official charity, the RMA. The bike was built to celebrate the Marines’ Commando 80 campaign, and to commemorate the Falkland 40, whilst honouring those who’ve served and continue to. Central to the design was a one-of-a-kind Commando dagger commissioned especially for the build – a replica of the original Fairbairn/Sykes fighting knife, with a handle hewn from Achnacarry Oak (sourced from the very location in the Highlands Commandos were sent to complete their basic training), encased in the fuel tank, itself painted in the Royal Marine Corps colours. The name ‘Bootneck’ is the nickname given to the Marines…

BELL CUSTOM 500 SIX DAY MCQUEEN HELMET Steve McQueen was the original King of Cool, and you can now buy a Custom 500 Six Day McQueen helmet – a period-correct replica of the helmet he wore while competing in the 1964 International Six Day Trial off-road race. The helmet comes in a beautiful blue and white paint scheme, with subtle red accents, and ‘Steve’ is written in a playful font on the back; a period-correct 510 visor; a special 278 decal featuring his name and the 1964 ISDT details; and a special keychain’ll also come with the helmet, shipped in a beautiful black leather helmet bag. Available online from www.bellhelmets.co.uk or Bell stockists, it’s available in sizes S through XL, and retails at £199.99. Along with the helmet, a limited…

Unusually for a Bank Holiday in the UK, the sun was out and, as we arrived, was sparkling off the paint and chrome of our rides. The pub was heaving, and the warm weather’d brought all the short summer dresses and skimpy tops the assembled riders took great pleasure in appreciating. Before long, as we all stood around with a cold refreshment in hand, people started to come over and talk about the bikes. I felt a tap on my shoulder and, as I turned, I looked into the most intense eyes as they fixed mine and, without blinking, I heard a voice ask: “Is this your monster?” For a moment I lost the power of speech. “Umm, yeah,” was the most I could manage. “Can I sit on it?”…