Cruisers

For a lot of gentlemen (and ladies) of a certain age, those of 
us cutting our teeth on the first rung of the biking ladder (he said, mixing his metaphors) in the 1980s, chops looked, or would’ve liked to look, 
like the bike you 
see here 
before 
you. Words and pics: Nik The ’80s (and…

Continue reading »

For many custom bike builders, it’s their life’s dream to open a custom bike shop, building bikes and getting paid for it. The reality, though, is that if you do ever attain that dream, you’ll always be building bikes for customers, and you’ll never get another chance to build one for yourself again… Words and…

Continue reading »

Taking on a project bike build that someone else has already started can, but not always, be a little like taking on a rescue animal… no, no, really, it can. Pictures: Nik Stop looking at me like I’ve finally (finally?) gone mad, and let me explain. Taking on a rescue, be it a dog, a cat…

Continue reading »

It’s a long-established fact of custom bike building that any given project will take at least twice as long to complete as intended, and cost at least twice as much as the expected budget. Words: Dave M      Pics: Simon Everett Tom Russell had a H-D Softail Twin Cam B, the one with the…

Continue reading »

I hate writing articles, although I’m reasonably erudite and inventive. I can never really think of any decent opening sentences, or ‘hooks’ as Mr Samson puts it. I could write “this bike began…” or “it all started when…” but it’s all a bit tedious, isn’t it? Words: Jim Ord       Pics: Nik Anyway, once…

Continue reading »

I don’t know 
how up you are on the law of triviality? Parkinson’s law of triviality? And the concept that best illustrates it – that 
of bike-shedding? You’re not? No problem, read on 
and I’ll explain… Pictures: Simon Everett Back in 1957 a British naval historian named C. Northcote Parkinson came up with an argument…

Continue reading »

It’s been a few years since Sandy, the owner and driving force behind Triumph’ant Motorcycles in Wales, last had a bike in Back Street Heroes. Pictures: Simon Everett Back in the ’90s and early 2000s, bikes he’d built featured quite regularly among these pages, but as his business, specialising in spares for Hinckley Triumphs, flourished…

Continue reading »

There are people out there, strange, twisted people, who believe that colours other than black are eminently suitable for the painting of custom motorcycles. They are, of course, quite, quite wrong…  Pictures: Simon Everett For Billy Perks, the owner and builder of this ’ere Ironhead Sportster, there could be only one colour for him to paint…

Continue reading »