THE GIRL BOXER Cheyenne’s Retro Ride

You don’t get to meet too many people in your life named Cheyenne. Therefore, I knew there had to be a backstory. And who doesn’t love backstories? I asked Mark Keogh, of Redditch, South of Birmingham, UK, how he came to name his daughter Cheyenne. He said, “I love Westerns. My father introduced me to Clint Eastwood movies and my grandfather always admired John Wayne,” he said.

During his wife Karen’s pregnancy, Mark saw a western with a female character named Cheyenne. “I suggested it to Karen and it just clicked straight away,” he said.

Cheyenne is 22 years old now, and Mark says, “I always put everything I could in front of her and if she picked it up, I just encouraged her all the way. It took no convincing to start building bikes as she desperately wanted to explore the lifestyle her mum and I had enjoyed until life, and child, changed priorities.”

Cheyenne had seen magazine features and photographs of things Mark had done back in the day and genuinely wanted to discover that side of life for herself. Cheyenne started wanting a motorbike at 15, and Mark showed her many sport bikes (his favorite) but the only thing she was attracted to was a bobber 125.

“We made it my own, much to dad’s dismay at times, but I got second place in the National Kickback Show in 2019. What a start!”

Cheyenne says.

She then built a GS500 Suzuki given to her in boxes of bits from her Uncle Dan. It earned first place in its class at Kickback 2021 and was featured in a Classic and Back Street Heroes magazines.

Mark is chief mechanic, tutor, fabricator and human jack, as he puts it. Or as Cheyenne puts it, “Dad teaching or doing the heavy stuff.” But he’s also an inspirer. “He set about finding out what I wanted. He showed me some styles and the BMW looked really unusual to me,” Cheyenne says. Thus, the BMW was to be her vision of how she thought a BMW should look. Not scrambler, not really cafe racer, more classic Triumph but with a massive engine, and quirky looks, as Cheyenne puts it.

They weren’t going to build anything else for a while, but the competition is like an addiction with meeting so many nice people each time. Mark agreed to fund another bike and the 1984 BMW R80RT came their way as a tatty Scrambler, although it was a “well-maintained pile of rubbish” as Mark puts it. For example, it took him two weeks of patient work to get a frame bolt out of the engine, but that’s one of the advantages of having an engineer as a father. Moreover, a “proper engineer that does things,” as he puts it.

The build was a 10-month project. Mark’s Photoshop skills allowed him to render images of what Cheyenne wanted, so she could make decisions. Best of all, at 800cc this bike was another step toward bigger bikes. Cheyenne was seeing what some people were doing. The BMW looked great and she wanted to put her own mark on it.

Like most custom bike projects, there was no lack of humorous instances. Cheyenne tells CRM: “Dad was trying to get the propshaft bolt out of the swingarm without taking it all apart. He was doing the bolts while I held back the rubber cover, and the very first bolt went ‘ping’ and down the tube. I mistakenly asked if he was sure, which met with a round of words no young lady should hear. Then, like a surgeon, he got out a long bolt retriever, and with me holding this endoscope he’s got for checking tank and bore conditions, he found it right down at the bottom and managed to get it back. Took about an hour to get the propshaft done but only once did he drop the bolt.” The exhaust is throaty and less boy racer sound, as Cheyenne puts it.

The electrics of the bike include a heavily modified loom to suit new parts and some layout changes. And the engine wears aftermarket tappet covers as well. The suspension on the BMW was upgraded up front with progressive springs and thicker oil. However, the rear shocks were a bit more of a challenge. They hail from a vintage British AJS because Cheyenne preferred old-fashioned covered styling. They had to work out the weight on an old bike to find a suitable pair. BMW snowflake wheels wear Heidenau K34 tires front and rear.

Triumph T120 (US model) handlebars rest on Kevils Speedshop top yoke and risers. While the rider rests on an aftermarket BMS Cafe racer seat cut down 5-inch modified by Mark. Vital signs are monitored with a Daytona Velona 60 speedo. Out back there’s a hand-fabricated license bracket made from a leftover mudguard that’s been cut off and modded. Combined 3-in-1 indicators, brake and taillight came from Alchemy parts, as did the billet mirrors. Fuel tank is stock with a Monza fuel cap and light ivory/purple red paint job by Wobbz. All other finishes are a mixture of gloss and satin black powder coating applied by Redditch Shotblasting Co. Ltd.

Currently, Cheyenne is a university student studying forensic psychology in her second year. She was at school when this journey of building bikes began. Cheyenne beams, “My mum and dad are my best friends, so spending time riding with them and in their company, I really enjoy. I had a thing called Work Experience in school at 15 in my last year and mum’s old boss let me spend time in the classroom of his motorcycle training school, which my mum used to be chief instructor at for many years until I came along.” Karen and Mark hadn’t ridden for some years but Cheyenne came back wanting to ride motorcycles. She had done well in her studies and Mark was happy to fund her dreams. Cheyenne says, “We’ve got such a bond through doing this.” CR