ISSUE 394 FEB 2017 £3.99
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PROJECT HERALD REVEALED
the last, but definitely not the least of our project builds!
38 GSX 750 CHOPPER
loud, fast, fat and in-yer-face!
42 IRONHEAD
SPORTSTER
12 CUSTOM XTREME AT MOTORCYCLE LIVE
BSH leads the way in the custom world at the UK’s biggest bike show
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one woman’s love affair with her bike
52 TWO ENFIELD CUSTOMS
built by Enfield UK no less!
66 H-D EVO’ BOBBER
CUSTOM BIKE WINNERS
this bike just radiates cool… and it’s for sale too
the five winning bikes in the BSH Custom Bike Building Championship
72 TRIUMPH
THRUXTON 900I
20 INDIAN
the legend who is Chris Ireland and his other Indian
24 TRIUMPH TROPHY
Death Machine by name, but not by nature
76 W650 KAWASAKI CHOPPER
CHOPPER
old school with a newschool engine
the cover bike in all its glory
30 ULTIMA CHOPPER
blacker and tougher than a crow with a Kalashnikov!
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34 YAM DIVERSION BEACH RACER
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going properly fast on the soft stuff
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A) ROAD 46(ALMOST TEST
– the scoop on the new and eagerly awaited Triumph Bobber! (pictured)
58 HALF ON A HARLEY, 62HALF ON A HONDA
CENTRESPREAD – Louise Limb’s latest artistic offering
– the third part of the touring Scotland story… without a Harley in sight
82
MAG NEWS – our regular column by the MAG chairnongenderspecificperson
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HOW TO – create a
decoupage paint scheme, part the first
91LETTERS 92OPENFACED
– have your say about ... well, owt really!
94PRODUCTS
– loads of good stuff for you to spend your hard-earned on
96
COOL KIT – want the latest, most up-to-date kit? Look no further!
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99EVENTS
–our guide to the best rallies, shows, parties and runs!
102READERS’ LIVES
– four pages of your pictures and our silly captions ... yeah, sorry about that.
106SMALLS MR BRIDGES’ 88MOTORCYCLE DIARIES 113NEXT MONTH – lowering rear suspension
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– all that’s new and happening in the custom bike world
– sell your bike here for free!
– what’s in the mag next month … obviously!
114RICK HULSE
– the musings of one of the most eloquent thinkers in bikerdom!
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editor:
nik@backstreetheroes.com 07884 052003
Happy New Year!
So 2017 then? Blimey… editorial assistant:
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Irish Motorcycle Show over in Dublin and of course, MC Pecquencourt’s Salon de Moto over t’Channel in northern France (if you’ve not been, you should – it’s ace!). April brings both the huge BMAD Festival in Devon and the first of Yorkshire MAG’s excellent events – Into The Valley. I’ve not been to BMAD before and I’m quite looking forward to my first visit.
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NIK SAMSON
It’s customary, I believe, for editors to make predictions about the coming year at the beginning of said year, but as I don’t have a crystal ball (it’s just the way I walk) I’m going to refrain from doing that, I think. Such predictions inevitably, like a big single with hookie points, backfire in your face and, hell, I look foolish enough most of the time as it is without adding anything more to life’s great custard pie. So instead I’m going to just look forward to what 2017 will bring without making any form of Mystic Meg (is she still around?) predictions. The BSH diary is already filling up so if you’d like us to come to your event then now’s a good time to drop us an invite. We do try to get along to everything we’re invited to, either in person or in the guise of trusted freelancers, but there will inevitably be date clashes so the earlier you go “oi, you lot, come to our party/show/rally”, the greater the chance is of us being able to, y’know? Similarly, if you have a bike that you think we should know about, drop me an email or a text with a picture? For the next couple of months it’s going to be quite difficult to get stuff photographed ’cos our snappers are like bears in the winter and hibernate from about November to March (they also often shit in the woods too), but as soon as the first buds of spring push their way through the frozen earth we will be, rest assured, rattling their cages and sending them out to capture your pride n’ joys on… err, I was going to say ’celluloid’, but no one’s used film for yonks now, have they? ’Capture your pride n’ joy on an SD card’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it though, does it? Oh well, you know what I mean, don’t you? Anyway, the address and number you’ll need are over to the left of this missive somewhere. So, what’s happening in 2017 then? Weeeell, this month is a little quiet, I will admit, but then that’s no bad thing as most of us, aside from the hardy and only marginally mental winter rally types, are quite happy to let what is traditionally the coldest month of the year pass without too much fuss. In February though there is of course the ExCeL Motorcycle Show in London, with its excellent custom show, and then in March there’s the
May brings, as usual, the rather wonderful You’ve Been Nabbed, the NABD’s expertly organised annual blow-out, and that Mecca for new school customs (and men with suspiciously fragrant beards) – the Bike Shed’s Tobacco Dock show. In June there’s the grungefest that is the Rat & Survival (now in its 20th and possibly last year), and that legendarily good biker party, the Farmyard. July has, for us anyway, the NCC Diamond Day Show at the Ace Cafe, and the Rock & Blues, and August the Yorkshire Pudding, the Bulldog Bash and, if the dates don’t clash, both the new Buster Lang Show and Brackley Festival of Motorcycling. September is the massive Ace Cafe Reunion in Brighton and the great northern bunfight that is Stormin’ The Castle, and the year draws to a close with the Copdock Motorcycle Show and another visit to the seaside for Brightona. So, with that list in mind, if you’d like us to come along to your bash, let us know as soon as possible, yeah?
On top of that we’re already planning 2017’s crop of project bikes and tech features. What they will be at the moment is a closely guarded secret as a few i’s have to be dotted and a few t’s crossed (and, no, not ’cos I don’t actually know what they are, y’cheeky bleeders). As soon as they’re finalised though we will let you know, but they’re going to be good builds, that I do know. Hopefully that’s whetted your appetite for the coming year! See you next issue!
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NIIK Having trouble finding a copy of this magazine? Why not just ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month?
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Distribution Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue London, EC1A 9PT, Tel: 020 7429 4000. Printed William Gibbons and Sons, Wolverhampton. ISSN: 02679841. BSH is copyright to Mortons Media Ltd 2017 and all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The publishers accept no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. If you send material to us for publication, you are strongly advised to make copies and to include an SAE. Original material must be submitted and will be accepted solely on the basis that the author accepts the assessment of the publisher as to its commercial value. BSH UK subscriptions £43.89, European subs £55.89, all other countries £67.89, from BSH Subs, Mortons Media Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle LN9 6LZ. USA subs $60 per annum from Motorsport, 31757 Honey Locust Road, Jonesburg, MO 63351-9600 and additional mailing offices. Periodicals postage is paid at Jonesburg, Missouri, USA. Postmaster: send USA address changes to BSH, Motorsport, 550 Honey Locust Road, Jonesburg, MO 63351-9600.
IT’S IRONIC, ISN’T IT, THAT ALTHOUGH OUR PROJECT HERALD IS THE LAST OF OUR THREE PROJECT BIKES TO BE FEATURED IT WAS THE FIRST ONE OF THE THREE TO BE FINISHED.
WORDS: NIK PICS: SIMON EVERETT
I
t’s actually been completed since May last year and has been under the care of our Lauren and, if you’ve been to any of the events that we’ve had a stand at, you will have seen the h wee beastie in all its glory. It’s fu unny, given how most people react to o Chinese-built motorcycles, just how h many folk have expressed th heir admiration for the little 250 Classic – it just goes to sh how, I think, what a good jo ob Mr Bridges has done building it. Okay, so most have h said they’d prefer a front mudguard (sissies!) but, apart from that minor quibble, response to it has been entirely favourable, and more than a couple have asked if you can buy them like this straight from the shops? Sorry, chaps, no, but I’m sure Mr Bridges’d happily build you one like it if you ask him nicely!
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TO GET OWN HEYOUR CONTAC R ALD HER ALD T THE OTOR CO A UM NIT 1 PHOENT IX ST MARG COURT, A RE WAY, T’S HUNTING CAMBS, PDON, E29 6EA O 01480 41R RING 5080 OR GO TO W HER ALD W W. M COMPANOTOR Y COM .
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MOTORCYCLE LIVE AT THE NEC EACH YEAR IN BUR-MING-UM, AS IT’S PRONOUNCED LOCALLY, IS THE UK’S MOTORCYCLING SHOWCASE; THE GATHERING TOGETHER OF ALL THAT’S BEST ABOUT THE BRITISH MOTORCYCLE INDUSTRY IN ALL ITS MANY AND MYRIAD FORMS.
CUSTOM XTREME WORDS: NIK PICS: SIMON EVERETT
A
AT MOTORCYCLE LIVE!
nd despite the nay-sayers and gloom-mongerers on t’internet, it’s a real spectacle. One can’t fail to be impressed at the sheer scale of the endeavour – three massive halls are filled to the gunnels with every conceivable facet of motorcycling, and it’s not actually that difficult to completely lose your bearings in the maze of stands. It’s also not difficult, unless you’re very careful, to find yourself with an empty bank balance as, if you take the time to look, there are bargains to be had too, and even if your self-control is as rigid as iron and you’re able to resist the thousands of bright, shiny
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and new things around you, it’s still worth a good wander around to see what you might want to buy at some point in the future. The BSH Custom Xtreme stand is reckoned by the Motorcycle Live’s grand
fromage, Mr Finlay McAllan, as being one of the show’s biggest attractions, and so it’s important that we, as the custodians, put on as good a show as possible. Custom bikes are, as anyone who’s not been meditating on top of a rock pillar in the desert for the last 20 years will know, a huge part of motorcycling in this country and beyond, and this is reflected in the fact that just about every major manufacturer of note is including custom-built versions of their bikes on their stands too. Custom Xtreme,
though, is dedicated to custom bikes and therefore features only the best one-off motorcycles in the land. This year’s line-up reflected that with a host of BSH cover bikes, the winners of the inaugural BSH Custom Bike Building Championship, as voted for by you, and some of the best customs we’ve featured this year or are about to feature next year too. The line-up this year was, in no particular order, Tommy’s Destiny Cycles-built Suzuki (soon to be featured), Second City Custom’s e engraved Shovelhead (again soon to be featured), Dave Aitken’s Hurricanised Triumph (issue 393), Jade Lloyd’s 550 Zephyr chop (cover issue 390), Glenn Wilkes’s Triumph (cover issue 389), the Project Herald (this issue), the XSR900 Project Street Mutant (cover issue 393), Dave Batchelar’s Hinckley Triumph, Dave Perrie’s GS/GSF Suzuki (cover issue 391), my Kawasaki trike (cover issue 383), the Project Rat Rod (cover issue 392), Jim Ord’s CX650 (winner of the Best Custom category in the Custom Championship), Kym Hallaway’’s Sportster (Best Chopper), Chris Stirrup’’s KTM (Best Engineering), Kev’s Lewis’ Fazer (Best New School Custom), Peterr Kavanagh’s Bourget chopper (Best Paint), Public Enemy Customs’ massivve ‘Resurrection’ chopper (soon to be featured), and last but not least, Mattt
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E L AND CHRIS IR : S D R O W ART RRY S TU PIC S: G A
T
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here were only two pictures of it and all the description said was ‘Indian engine, out of my comfort zone’. The pictures weren’t too good but I could see that all the fins on the barrels and heads were pristine. It had no carburettor or distributor, but I decided to bid on it as I wanted the heads for my supercharged Indian race bike.
MY MATE MEXICAN JOHN RANG ME ONE DAY TO TELL ME HE’D FOUND AN INDIAN ENGINE ON EBAY SO I CHECKED IT OUT.
A week later it was in my workshop. I was pretty excited as it really did look in good condition, even though it was covered in 74 years’ worth of crap, so the first job was to see if it turned over. It did, but very stiffly, so I decided to strip it. There were no spanner marks on the head bolts, no screwdriver marks on the cheese-head screws, and no mole-grip marks or dents on the valve spring tubes – this motor’d obviously never been apart. I pulled the heads
off – no carbon on the pistons and no wear whatsoever on the bores. The whole engine came apart a treat and I found out why it was stiff – the 70-year-old oil’d solidified. After a good few hours in the wash tank I reassembled it with all parts freshly oiled, and it spun over nicely. The engine numbers’d never been stamped (something Indian stopped doing when the US joined the war), so I knew what I’d got; a brand new 1940s Indian Scout 741B that’d never been run! It was, of course, far too good to cannibalise for parts so I decided I’d build
it into something and sell it to finance my next Bonneville trip. I found a super-rare Triumph Slickshift gearbox on eBay with a cam connected to the gear lever that, as the lever moves, presses the clutch pushrod – if you’re careful you can actually FEBRUARY 2017
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THEY SAY THE DEVIL HAS ALL THE BEST TUNES, DON’T THEY? THE DARK SIDE OF HUMANITY HAS ALWAYS BEEN VERY ATTRACTIVE TO FREE-THINKERS AND THOSE WHO REGARD THEMSELVES AS NOT CONSTRAINED BY SOCIAL NORMS.
G
ary Foley at Public Enemy Customs wanted a bike that’d appeal to his dark side – a proper chopper with a big motor, long forks, a fat back end and paint nearly as black as a witch’s hat. ‘The Black Gem’, as the bike’s called, started life as a build for himself; during the first couple of years of setting up a new business as Public Enemy Customs, he’d been too busy to do anything for himself with the Jamie
WORDS: FD PICS: NIK
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Millerchip frame he had tucked away in the back of the workshop while he waited for some free time and the inspiration to use it. When that time came, he decided he wanted something uncluttered with clean lines, a stealth-style chopper – subtle, but with
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OF ALL S THE BIKEED LAUNCH ST IN THE LARS, FEW YEA THE NEWFROM BOBBER IS TRIUMPH Y PROBABL T THE MOSTED ANTICIPA N ONE I CAER. REMEMB
46
’s r is Triumph The Bobbe ewn of ld or the w entry into intended osit for oms, and is st ep d cu l sh oo ca h a sc ucati’s n D w o of d s s t e’ ke u p on the li gh the bik ke ta ou th to Bobber, en i’s one, ev Moto Guzz ngly, , zi eb er a w bl m a m e, , n ra d V950 zi n Sc SRs and X very maga full spec a yet to be book amaha’s X Y ce ad d h e Fa th an ce d n ri on a p forum actual their take prett y s to have way . That ’s a Bolt, and is e em ed m se sa rm p e fi u n th ro u g co ’t yo much g about it at ion, don bobber in as on the been talkin good indic d Triple w has really k e ee ik ac Sp b b e t is th en th as ev at 94; it’s th ch 19 , n k u in s in la c’ ck th since the ing publi fighter ba ik et and more b re r, e st a th rsion ye ve ed st la grabb e tic factory in October eople hav s an authen FEBRUARY 2017 at tention? than 450 p of the bike
E
that folk’ve been building on the street for a long time now. Now, as I mentioned in my editorial last issue, a lot of people have been quite disparaging of the concept of a ‘factory bobber’, much as they were of the ‘factory streetfighter’ all those years ago, but don’t let that put you off because, as you’ll read, the Bobber is actually a damn good bike.
IK WORDS: N CYCLES PH MOTOR PICS: TRIUM
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NKSA THAP AD TO SING FORH H T AS CLOR ZE CRND A THE LMET A ER HE RIGG T THE G SHIR RIDINCELLENTU – EX HAT YO M KIT TGET FROTE I CAN IR WEBSA DA E P H S T W. G. W W AT LOTHIN C O.UK C
WHAT’S IT LIKE , TO RIDE? WELL N IN A WORD, FU – SURPRISINGLY GOOD FUN
It’s based on the new 1200cc Bonneville and uses a reworked version of the Bonnie’s High Torque engine, and so puts out 77hp and 78ft-lb of torque. It’s housed in a new frame with what Triumph call a ‘cage-style’ rear end that allows them to make it look like a traditional rigid, but one which actually has a single monoshock suspension unit under the floating seat to provide uppy-downy movement over the rough stuff. There’s a 16” wheel with a 150 tyre at the rear, and a 19” with
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a 100 section front; the forks have a single disc and gaiters; the headlight is a very traditional smaller one; the ‘bars are flat bobber items, and the tank is smaller than that of a stock Bonnie at just nine litres, but looks the part. That floating seat, with its stylish alloy pan, is adjustable so that it can be moved back from the standard position for taller riders and/or a more laid-back riding position, and the big single speedo unit is adjustable to suit the seat position too. The rear brake master-cylinder is hidden behind what looks like an aluminium engine case, the battery is hidden by an old-style battery cover, and the ignition is below the fuelinjector bodies, which’ve been neatly styled to look like old Amal carbs – nice touch. As you’d expect there is a huge range of accessories (high ’bars, clip-ons, exhausts, mudguards, saddlebags etc.) to allow you to personalise your bike, including two ‘inspiration kits’ that change the overall look of the bike while retaining its essential ‘Bobber’ness. So that’s the basic bike, you either like the look of it or you don’t, but what’s it like to ride? Well, in a word, fun – surprisingly good fun (okay, so that’s four words, and a hyphen – sue me… no, actually don’t, I’m brass). Looking at the bike, you might expect
it to be a little form-over-function – all look and no trousers – but remember it’s based on the Bonneville and that’s a bike that rides none too shabbily at all. The Bobber may look like a straight-line-only weapon, but it’s no long wheel-based lump that won’t go around corners; in fact it loves bends, and feels agile. I s’pose the fact that Triumph’d decided to debut on the twisty mountain roads above Madrid in central Spain is a pointer towards that; if it’d steered like a puppy on a lead,