Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2025 i Back Street Heroes

IT actually belongs to neither, of course, cos they’re both fictional characters; no, it belongs to a guy called Gary Buckler, and is the result of spending too much time with his good friend Rich Norman of RSC Fabrications – one of the unsung heroes of trike building. Gary was, in his day, a (car) drag-racer of some repute, and has been around powerful exotica all his life. He’s known Rich, whose trikes’ve been featured in magazines over the years, for a good while now, and wanted to do something a little different to what everyone else was doing – an idea that was music to Rich’s ears. He’s been building trikes, and doing other engineering, too, at his workshop out in the Fens for years, doing both conventional conversions and…

The Oddballs MCC’s rallies’ve gained a good reputation over the years – they’re no frills trad’ rallies: a marquee in a field in the middle o’ nowhere; a control tent doing tea n’ coffee n’ p*ss-taking (very important that last one); a couple of catering wagons doing traditional biker fare designed to fill up the gaps in the belly; a few stalls to peruse; a reasonably-priced bar (well, it was to me coming from way down south); and a band each night to keep your dancing feet dancing – what more do you need? From the moment I rolled in through the gate, nearly taking their roped-off section tapes with me, I knew it was going to be good – I mean, the club emblem is Gilbert the Alien, one…

PART ONE No, what this is, is an introduction to BSH’s old mates The Airbrush Company’s excellent airbrushing courses down at their premises in Lancing in West Sussex, and it’s in response to the number of people over the years who’ve said (something along the lines of): “I’d love to have a go at airbrushing, but I haven’t a clue how to even start.” I can see their point – buying an airbrush and compressor (no, the one you blow your tyres up with won’t do) isn’t cheap (well, you can get cheap ones obviously, but as you know, cheap isn’t necessarily good) and, if it turns out that you don’t get on with it, that’s money that many of us can ill afford to’ve thrown away. Plus, on top…

VOL. VIII, EPISODE VI I think it was around 2005 I started writing with the Notebooks stuff, and that segued into the Diaries stuff. Well, after around 20 years in the same workshop, rent increases’ve caught up, and I need to find one that’s more affordable. As you might appreciate, with 20-odd years worth of accumulated bits and bobs floating around, that’s not a small undertaking and, as I may’ve mentioned before, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. The first thing to go awry was getting the FJ1200 out the door with its new wiring; although it fired and ran perfectly happily with a squirt of Easystart on the pod filters (which is where I consider the wiring to be finished), there was a suggestion that…

The National Motorcycle Museum’s just announced that the first prize in their Summer Raffle is a 1981 Triumph Bonneville Royal Wedding 750cc Bonneville (Limited Edition) – one of just 125 ever made! Second prize is a £1,500 Sealey Tools/NMM voucher for you to use to a value of £1,500 on Sealey Tools in the National Motorcycle Museum shop, and third is a Sealey Tools Patriot roll-cab tool cabinet (valued at £719.95) in a choice of Union Jack, George Cross, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish flag designs. Tickets cost just £3 each, and you can buy them through the Museum’s website at www.thenmm.co.uk The draw’ll be Sunday, 26 October at their Museum LIVE event. Good luck!…

The Farmyard, as it’s colloquially known, returns for its 37th year over the weekend of 20-22 June, and as ever it’s run for bikers by bikers, in aid of bikers all over the UK. As usual, there’ll be the huge Big Top main stage; an additional three stages with their own bars; music for all tastes, young and old alike, with over 30 acts performing; two secure camping fields (one with fires allowed, and one without); the cleanest loos on the rally scene; caterers offering food from around the globe; a real ale marquee; a huge trader village; the Saturday afternoon bike show; probably the biggest comedy show at a bike event; and much, much more. Tickets cost a very reasonable £50 in advance (way, way cheaper than an equivalent…

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 SOMEWHERE IN THE MAG! star LETTER DEAR BSH, It was a lovely day last Friday, ninth of May. I decided to ride my classic 350 BSA, in metallic green, to visit my parents’ graves at the local cemetery. I bought some lovely white roses from Morrisons (four quid, bargain), and was pleased to see you can ride right in – great. This year, VE Day celebrations (dad was an 18-year-old D-Day veteran) and mum’s birthday coincided, and I parked up next to their graves, wandered off to get some water for the aforementioned flowers, and returned a…

Rest assured, dear reader, that I won’t carry on in this fashion, adapting the age-old nursery rhyme ‘This is the House that Jack Built’ to tell you about Jack from NCC Kernow’s long n’ low Evo’ chopper cos, well, what starts out as vaguely amusing soon becomes increasingly complicated as time goes on and, if you’re anything like me, the moment something becomes complicated my train o’ thought wanders off like an unattended bloke on a family shop in a supermarket. No, what I will do is tell you that the bike you see here, the very long and very low Evo(lution) Harley-engined chopper, originally was an idea, or more precisely a sketch, dreamt/drawn up on a nightshift a few years ago. Jack, he of the epically appalling sunglasses (see…

‘Course, the effect of this is slightly lessened when you’re not on a bike, but in a van, but in my defence, if there is such a thing, it was 4.20am when I set off for the Chopper Club Wales Autojumble & Custom Show at the South Wales clubhouse, the temperature was barely above freezing, and I had me bed in the back for that night’s après-party slumbers. I won’t bore you with the journey down but, suffice to say, I was the first person there, arriving only moments before Soggy from the South Wales committee. Even at that early hour bikes were starting to roll in, and I soon got the signature bikes-outside-the-club house pic before the punters arrived. And arrive they did – by-mid-morning the car park was…

Keeping up with contemporary trends, the bike is very much in the US ‘club-style’ mould: a half-fairing with a low screen, a pair of smaller rear ‘bags’, higher foot-pegs than on other models, a solo seat, restrained graphics. It’s a bike for doing miles on, carrying the bare essentials, faster and more involving than on a conventional tourer, and looking the part while doing so. The heart of the beast is the 117 High-Output Milwaukee-Eight engine; a 1923cc air-/oil-cooled v-twin putting out 114hp and 125ft/lb (173Nm), and it makes the bike quick, seriously quick – honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve ridden a Harley and thought ‘Fcuk me, this is fast!’ It’s that deceptive but, ultimately, very useable quick, if you know what I mean – not Japanese…

The 350 Bullet has a rich and storied history dating back to its introduction in 1932. Originally manufactured in Redditch in Worcs, it quickly gained a reputation for its robustness and reliability and, during the Second World War, played a crucial role as a military motorcycle, serving in various theatres of war. After the war, production of the Bullet for us civvies resumed, and it became a popular choice with its timeless design, characterised by its signature thumping engine and classic styling, capturing the hearts of riders around the world. Over the decades, the model underwent numerous upgrades and iterations, but its essence remained unchanged. In the 1950s, Royal Enfield established a manufacturing plant in India, laying the foundation for its enduring legacy in the country, and the Bullet became…

The day was as murky as most March days usually are, but it wasn’t actually raining when we set off, me on the Bandit chop and her on her matt black Gixer streetfighter. We were both wearing our Keis heated weskits under our gear, cos we’re old and nesh, but the roads were dry, and we made good time along the twisties and, thankfully, managed to tag along with someone who knew where they were going – a Good Thing as we sure as hell didn’t. The Christmas Tree Farm Barn’s down a short bumpy track, always good on a hardtail eh, and by the time we got there mid-morning(ish) it was busy. There’d been a ride in that morning from the Veloce Club motorcycle clothing shop in nearby Hitchin,…

The ’90s-style streetfighter you see here’s called ‘Pork Chop’ as, as we all know, the GSX 1100 EFE Suzuki that it’s based on was, although fast as hell, a big, heavy pig of a motorcycle, and this one was chopped, by a gentleman by the name of Joe Sullivan back in the ’90s, hence ‘Pork Chop’. Actually, Carlos, the owner and builder, has a story to go with it. “When I first nicknamed it, I had a life-like sticker of a pork chop stuck on the tank, and someone once asked, ‘Is that Australia?’ (the shape vaguely resembled the country). Guessing geography wasn’t one o’ their better subjects at school, eh?” Strictly speaking, the bike’s not actually an 1100 EFE; it’s a 750 ET with an 1100 EFE motor, but…

Andy Griffiths has long been a fan of the late Mr Ness’ handiwork – many (about 35) years ago, he decided he wanted a Ness-style prismic tank for his first chop project but, as you couldn’t really buy one over ’ere on this side of The Pond*, had to make up a set of cardboard templates and then get it fabricated in stainless steel. It was on his first chopper (a rather cool Shovelhead back in the day) for about eight years before he took it off and hung it on the wall in his workshop, where it stayed for many years. One day, though, he always knew he’d use it again. Then, about 12 years ago, he decided he wanted to build a new bike, and one around a…

The Hornet’s gone back to Herself as temperatures’ve finally risen above (or at least close to) 10 degrees at 1am in the morning so she can start using it again for work – she doesn’t like to ride home, which takes an hour plus, in the early hours of the morning when it’s less than that, and I can’t say I blame her much, but it does mean the ‘Onda’s back in her custody… bum. TFB (The Future Bike) is still with its engine in pieces all over Shaun at Paradise Garage Motorcycles’ bench due to delays in parts supply, and the fact that his workload is monumental – that’s the trouble when people/companies’re good; you have to wait for them to have the time, especially when what you want…

Well, not quite like that – Harley and MotoGP’re launching a new global racing championship featuring Harley-Davidson bagger motorcycles, debuting in 2026. The twelve-race series’ll be run at six Grand Prix across Europe and North America, with riders battling it out on race-prepared Harley-Davidson Road Glides in two races per round. The machines, engineered by Harley-Davidson Factory Racing and built for head-to-head competition, weigh approximately 280 kilograms and produce over 200 horsepower and 245Nm (180lb-ft) of torque, and’ll reach speeds of over 185mph. Every bike’ll be identical, ensuring close competition, and the grid’s expected to comprise six to eight teams, each fielding two riders, supported by Harley-Davidson Factory Racing. Those looking to join the growing field or explore sponsorship and media opportunities can contact factoryracing@harley-davidson.com…

RSD SECTOR RISERS FOR 1&1/8s ‘BARS These RSD Sector risers offer an innovative solution for riders looking to elevate the comfort and control of their motorcycle by dialing in their handcontrols’ position. They fit any H-D with 3.5-inch centre riser holes in the top yoke, and come as either individual risers or as one-piece top ‘bar clamps, come in a choice of two, three, five, eight, and ten-inch heights as individuals or in two, three, five, six, eight, ten, and twelve-inch heights as one-piece top clamps, are machined from 6061 aluminium and then anodised black, and come with black stainless Allen bolts. Get yours from anywhere that stocks the Zodiac range orwww.zodiac.nl REX LONDON STORAGE TINS Add a retro touch to the home, garage, or mancave with these vintage-inspired storage…