Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2024 i Back Street Heroes

Y’see, of the ten winners of the rounds, Jonny Edds of NCC Gloucs’ Hayabusa was the one that caught my eye because, well, you know me, I like scruffy stuff, but it was up against the Destiny Cycles-built H-D that won the Rock & Blues in 2004 (I think), and again twenty years later in 2024, and Foo Oliver’s glorious orange Z750T (which won the July online round), and judges normally pick pretty bikes over scruffy ’uns, no matter how trick, and so when the judges of this year’s competition (Vic n’ Lin Jefford, Odgie, Larry from Lamb Engineering, and NCC Pres’Houdi)almost unanimously plumped for the ’Busa I was pleasantly surprised. Jonny’s bike, known as ‘Eddie’ in memory of his brother Garry Edmonds, who sparked his love of chops, is…

“The idea for the bike came while I was building a 1937 OK Supreme in the style of a ’20s/’30s flat-tracker. While I was researching ’20s speedway bikes, I came across a picture of a that-era BSA factory racer and instantly knew a track racer-looking Sloper, but for the road, would be the next project. The thing is, apart from not being able to afford a Sloper to start with, I didn’t want to strip and modify a complete original bike as I think they should be left for collectors, but I did want to use as many BSA parts as was suitable, as the factory would’ve done. I go to countless shows and autojumbles throughout the year so thought collecting parts wouldn’t take long – how wrong I was!…

This year was the second time we’ve held the BSH Custom Champs winners’ presentation at the Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show, on the BSH stand, and although I do say so meself, it looked killer. We had 10 bikes in all; the five Championship winners, and five others representing the best, and most diverse, in the British custom scene. The winning bikes were, as I’m sure you already know if you started at the front of this issue, Jonny Edds’ Hayabusa chop (Best Chopper), Legacy Motorcycles’ T100 Triumph chop (Best Custom), Sam Carlton/Swamp Ape Motorcycles’ triple-engine J.A.P sand-dragger (Best Engineering), Jem Wheelwright’s BSA Sloper (Best New Skool), and Chris Nichols/P&D Customs’ Ironhead digger (Best Paint). The other five were Steve Dobbie’s brilliant YamVincent from the last issue (and his Vincent-badged Monkey…

Hopefully it lights a bulb, wakes up some electronics, or possibly even operates a motor, but the other thing it does is create a magnetic field around the wire. It’s a very small magnetic field, and most of the time we hardly notice it, but the opposite’s also true – if you move a wire through a magnetic field, you generate an electrical current; again a very small current, but it’s definitely there. This effect, or pair of effects if you prefer, are governed by various laws, and can be illustrated by pointing the thumb, index, and middle finger of your right or left hand at 90 degrees to each other depending what you’re trying to work out. It’s rude to point though, so if you really want to know…

Gibby Readers’ Live WE’RE STILL BACK IN THE PAST THIS ISSUE – OLD PICS FROM THE WIMBOTSHAM SHOW AND, HE THINKS, WHEELS & WINGS AT HENHAM…

“As part of our restoration business, me and my Dad Allen fancied building a 1970s period custom show bike with no limits. Heading up to the Stafford Show a few years back, we drilled the word ‘potential’ into our heads as we began our search and, not long after arriving, found the perfect bike. There it was at the back of a stall – a ’50s Triumph that’d originally been modified in the ’70s, in ‘as found’ condition, that’d been left out in the elements for the best part of 20 years; just what we were looking for as an authentic base. The plan was to restore and rebuild the bike, loosely based on a 1957 Speed Twin 500, using original period Triumph parts and period accessories where possible, replacing…

AS you’ll know if you read that issue, the bike you see here, the Ironhead Sportster that won the Best Paint class overall, belongs to Chris Nichols of P&D Custom Bikes, and was built as the last shop bike to come out of the UK’s oldest custom bike shop. Chris and his oppo Dave (as in Batchelar) are both fans of 1970s digger-style choppers, and turned up, on eBay, an Ironhead-engined digger that needed work. It had nice lines though, and what was needed was nothing they couldn’t do, so Chris bought it. It arrived some time later and, as it was unloaded from the van, Dave thought it looked, well, familiar. A little bit of looking back through his extensive archives revealed that it was actually a bike he’d built…

ON the following pages you’ll see the five bikes that won the 2024 BSH custom Champs – the overall winners of the Best Chopper, Best Custom, Best Engineering, Best New Skool, and Best Paint classes. They were picked from something like 1,500 entries throughout the year to both our online and real world rounds, and judged by a panel of expert judges made up of Vic and Lin Jefford of Destiny Cycles, ex-editor Odgie, NCC President Houdi, and Larry Houghton of Lamb Engineering and are, we think, absolutely representative of the British custom bike scene – probably the most diverse custom bike scene in the world. If you went to the Stafford Show last month, you’ll’ve seen them all together on the BSH stand there, and now here they all are,…

Sam’s bike, you see, is just so out there – a real throwback to the days of great British engineering; of double and triple-engined drag bikes; of quiet men working long hours in sheds the length and breadth of the land to turn out quite, quite, crazy motorcycles. It’s a bike that makes you nostalgic for a bygone era; of the heady days of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s when the biking world was a simpler place, years before electronic ignitions, fuel-injection systems, ABS brakes, and the like… “The whole thing started back at race camp during Race the Waves 2023 when, after a few beers in the evening, we were talking about what I was going to do with the three left-over J.A.P 600cc engines I had from building…

We have so many other great titles too! Get 6 issues of one of these mags for just £20 Classic, twinshock or Evo, it’s the place for you to dive into the dirty side of biking. Real-world tests of the latest bikes and kit, places to go and features not to miss. The tools and techniques used by model makers, light engineers and restorers. The best rail news, features and images covering the UK’s preservation movement. Real bikes. Real riders. Real rebuilds. Real Rides. RealClassic! Running, riding and repairing Japanese, European and US classics from the 70s onward. For those who like building model boats, or just enjoy soaking up this huge hobby. Enthusiast-led content, news, in-depth expert features and outstanding imagery. Celebrating the rich history of motorcycles and motorcycling,…

*does this really matter? Does anyone actually adjust their forks? Having done a week around Scotland, and up and down the soul-destroying A1 to get there aboard one, I’ve a bit of experience with the Royal Enfield cruiser version of their well-regarded Interceptor, so I was quite looking forward to spending a couple o’ weeks aboard their new ‘bobber’ version of it; the Shotgun. Visually, the two bikes’re very similar – they have essentially the same profile, bar the shape of the rear mudguard, and the seat of course, and that’s because they share the same frame, swingarm, engine, bodywork (bar the back mudguard, as I said, and the headlight), and 43mm non-adjustable* Showa USD forks, but there are subtle differences; those forks’ve been shortened (33mm less than the SM)…

CAN-AM PULSE Can-Am, the creators of the well-regarded Spyder three-wheelers, have announced a new electric motorcycle – the Pulse, developed for city riding due to its compact design, which makes it agile, nimble, and the perfect bike to make easy work of city traffic. It has a 47bhp electric motor with four different riding modes, an Active ReGen system that provides the rider with enhanced control and smooth deceleration, while providing more power back to the battery, a reverse function which means riders no longer have to walk their bike backward into position, a quick-charging facility, and a range of up to 100 miles in city traffic. No price as yet, but you can get more info from their website at www.can-am.brp.com PETER JAMES’ ROYALENFIELD INSURANCE Peter James Insurance’ve announced…