Fat-wheel sporty Mint Customs trike

Sometimes having a like, or a dislike, for a particular thing can bring you a whole heap of, if not actual trouble, work that, if you’d’ve just kept your mouth shut about, you wouldn’t’ve had to do…

When it comes to customs, Simon at Mint Customs in Hertfordshire likes Harleys and doesn’t really like Japanese-engined… well, pretty much anything really – he’s a Harley man through and through. That meant that, one day, when a customer, Garfy, rolled up asking if he’d finish a build for him, one that had a 1200 Bandit engine in a HUC trike frame with some very, very Taylormade Wheels bits on it (massive billet split-rim wheels, late-model upside-down forks, monster wide yokes, one of Steve’s very neat little axle ensembles), he found himself suggesting they f**ked the Suzuki motor off… sorry, sorry, changed the Suzuki motor, for a four-speed Sportster one, almost without being able to help himself. Garfy thought about it for, ooo, about a second, and agreed and, suddenly, what’d previously been a fairly straightforward job, that admittedly he wasn’t too keen on doing, became something a lot, lot more involved.  

And I mean, a lot more involved. With the Bandit engine taken out, and the Sporty one offered up, it was immediately obvious that the frame, as it was, was way too low for the H-D motor. Sportster v-twin motors, as anyone with an eye for any kind of engineering (even just putting together Lego – it’s that obvious) can see, are much taller than Suzuki inline fours, and that meant the rocker covers wouldn’t fit under the HUC (I don’t need to tell you that stands for ‘Hard Up Choppers’, do I?) top-tube/backbone/whatever you want to call it. This meant that major remedial surgery was needed, and Si ended up cutting the frame in half and, pretty much, starting again, keeping just the rear (trike) section, and making a completely new front loop, with all new engine mounts etc. and a new, and rather nice, gooseneck headstock.

Don’t imagine the rear, trike, section didn’t get a good looking-at too – even before the trike’d come apart, they’d already sussed that the Bandit and the Sportster motors having the outputs on different sides’d mean the wonderfully minimal axle’d have to be turned over so that, firstly, the sprockets’d line up (with a bit of jiggery-pokery) and, secondly, the diff’ ran the correct way too. This meant cutting off the old mounts that held the axle where it was, flipping it over, and making new mounts to suit. Working out the gearing needed took some thinking about too. See what I mean about it all being a lot more involved?

Anyway, with that done, and all the lovely Taylormade parts added back in, the trike was once again a roller, and Simon and the crew at Mint could get on with sorting out the rest of it. Garfy (well, I don’t know if it was actually his idea or Simon’s) wanted the look of the trike to be as close to the Exile trikes built by Russell Mitchell over in the Yoo-Ess of Ay; satin black, no chrome, raw finishes, and so that’s what it got. The standard, foot-operated, way of changing gear was changed so as to clean up the ‘bars on the left side – Simon made up a foot-clutch, and a neat little gear lever with a resin shifter on top, and reports that it works really well and is surprisingly easy to ride. Foot clutches on trikes, to me anyway, make a lot more sense than on bikes – you don’t have to balance a trike to use ‘em for a start. The ‘bars do look clean too – nothing on the left bar the shaped grip, and just the (same) throttle on the right along with the minimal master-cylinder and lever for the big Brembo front brakes. There’re Brembos on the back too – not quite as big as the front’s, but with more than enough stopping power nonetheless.

He (Simon) does admit that he went a bit mad with the ‘pipes, but I think they suit it perfectly, and I really do like the way they sit at the same angle as the raked forks. Mind you, I may be a tad biased as I want similar-style ‘pipes on my 45 (currently oop nawth with Mr Jefford) cos I’ve always liked that twin-stacked, up-in-the-air look. Anyway…  

I also quite the simplicity of the air-cleaner too; made from a couple o’ three clutch plates and some rubber sleeving, it has just the industrial look that suits the brief. The sprung seat was made by Mint and covered by their seat-coverer of choice and, is perhaps, the one thing, if it were mine, I’d change – I’ve never been a fan of sprung seats (except, perhaps, on period late Fifties/early Sixties vintage choppers with stock frames), and I’d want to be sitting down lower, more in it than on it, but I’m aware that’d mean major changes to the ‘bars and forwards and, besides, it’s not my trike, is it? Garfy likes it just fine, and that’s all that’s important really, isn’t it?

We can’t really finish without saying a little more about Mr Taylor’s contribution to the build as it’s the trike’s wheels that give it so much of its visual impact. The monster 345-section rears’d look good on anything, but it’s the massive 300-section front one that really grabs your attention in a headlock, wrestles it to the ground, and pounds its nose into the dirt ‘til it bleeds, isn’t it? There’s something just so damn imposing about wheels like this – you may or may not be a fan, but they, and particularly that front, mean you can’t mistake this thing for anything else. Similarly, the exquisiteness of the rear axle – the trike looks as good from the rear as it does from the front.

As I said, Garfy, and Simon, are really pleased with it – there’s plenty of punch from the Sporty motor and, as Steve’s an old hand at working out trail, it steers like a go-kart, and stops frighteningly well too. And while, admittedly, the first paragraph of this article may only bear a superficial resemblance to the actual truth as it’s my interpretation of various conversations, the fact is that (a) whatever the circumstances, Simon’s put together a very cool trike (which was actually accepted into the Bile Shed Show this year, a feat almost unheard of for a trike, but ended up not going for one reason or another) that rides as well as it looks, and (b) there’s no point in letting the truth get in the way of a good story, is there?

Nik

Spec:

1988 four-speed H-D Sportster engine (one-off air-filter, one-off exhausts, foot-clutch conversion, one-off gear-change), HUC trike frame (modified), one-off forwards, 300/35/18-tyre, Taylormade Wheels 18-inch wheels (front/rears), aftermarket wavy discs (front/rear/handbrake),  Brembo radial calipers (front & rear)/master-cylinder, HEL brake lines, Suzuki GSX-R 1000 USD Nitrided forks, Taylormade Wheels billet yokes, aftermarket risers/’bars, aftermarket throttle/grips, single-cap Mustang tank, one-off sprung sissy-bar, one-off oil tank, one-off battery box, one-off electrics boxes, Taylormade Wheels axle/diff’/chain-tensioner, one-off loom, H-D headlight with Daymaker insert, Kellerman tail-light

 Finish:

Satin black by owner, powder-coating by G Ross Engineering, polishing by Mint Customs

Engineering:

Bike built & frame modifications by Mint Custom (Facebook), wheels/axle/diff’/yokes by Taylormade Wheels (01597 860692 or www.taylormade-wheels.co.uk)

Thanks To:

“Steve at Taylormade Wheels; Craig & Rick at G Ross Engineering; Allison Parry; & all the crew at Mint Customs…”