Back Street Heroes November 2024

The last few weeks here out in the east where the crops grow have been very pleasant – yes, the Septics from the airbases still fly their huge and noisy planes round and round in circles all day, and often into the night, too, so low they rattle the windows of the BSH Editorial Hovel, but the road a few feet from my window’s been wonderfully quiet and traffic-free as, for nearly a month, the road between where I live and the next, larger, village’s been closed to through-traffic. The reason, I’m told, was to allow a water company to dig up the verges of said road to put new water pipes in to supply practically a whole township of new houses on the outskirts of that larger village (just…

The Farmyard Party has so much to offer; there were dozens of stalls run by genuinely friendly traders, and a good variety of food tastes from around the globe. You can have your wedding blessed while you grab a coffee in Holy Joe’s; or mocktails with your handfasting by Moonflower Ceremonies; buy things to wear, or objet d’art to adorn your home (or tent); get your forgotten camping essentials; or a five-foot-tall eagle for your man-cave – all tastes are catered for. There’s a choice of camping, with or without fires to sit around with friends and family, and sixteen pre-booked glamping tents from Great British Glamping for indulging in some creature comforts without missing out on the atmosphere. It’s about more than just the bikes and the fundraising for…

KMZ, who made flat-twins based on the BMWs left behind by the Germans at the end of the Second World War, set up a factory in Kiev in the latter part of 1945. Their first model, the Wanderer 1-SP, was built in conjunction with the Germans as part of their reparations, but by 1947 they were producing bikes independently. Most of the machines they built over the next nearly fifty years were sidecar outfits including, from 1964, ones with differential two-wheel drive to the sidecar wheel, and during their heyday (the late ’50s to the 1970s) they produced 45-50,000 per year. In 1967 they created the 650cc Dnepr (both a model and, later, a brand), which was marketed in the UK under the name Cossack, and in the ’80s they…

It started at the TT Grandstand in Douglas with Rumblin’ Tum Catering providing some splendid refreshment, and setting everyone up for a distinguished day in the saddle. People started drifting in from around 9.45 with the Manx weather providing some uncharacteristically beautiful hot weather that set the scene for the first item on the day’s agenda – the safety announcement. Once that was out of the way, riders mounted up and were flagged off from the Grandstand by the Deputy Mayor of Douglas Borough Council. The first half of the route saw us heading off along Glencrutchery Road, following the TT course down Bray Hill, then turning right at Quarter Bridge west along the course to Ballacraine traffic lights. From here we diverted from the hallowed route and continued into…

For one reason or another the chop project didn’t happen and, subsequently, some parts were sold and some ended up in the attic of his parents’ house for ‘safe keeping’, where they were almost immediately forgotten about from the late 1980s until fairly recently when he was clearing the house after his mother’d passed away. After climbing into the attic and doing battle with the fledgling spider civilisation that’d evolved up there, he found a smallish wooden box which, when opened, was found to contain some (as in not very many) BSA engine parts… not very many at all, in fact. To say there weren’t enough to build an engine’s something of an understatement and, at this point, any sensible person would’ve shrugged and advertised what there was on any…

“I suppose this started in 2016 when three of my friends with ‘proper’ old Harleys let me follow them to the Linkert Attacks event in Holland on my ’75 Electra Glide. I saw several hundred of the best vintage Harleys in Europe, but the one that stood out for me was a Genny Shovel chopper – one with an early-style bottom end and Shovel tops, the best-looking engine in my opinion. Four years later, bored at work during lockdown, I saw a bike on eBay in the US, and just knew it was the one. It was a ’66 swingarm Genny, bought from a guy in Boston named Travis, who’d done an amazing job finding all the period parts (the classic Hap Jones tank, the ZEL headlight, the AAE Choppers Cheat'ah…