Sommaire pour Issue 1 de Kickback

IS IT ANY surprise that ‘The Comet’, Larry Houghton’s 1988 Norton Rotary-based custom was voted ‘Best in Show’ at the 2025 Kickback Show, at Three Counties Showground, Malvern? Not only is the engine one of the rarest powerplants to grace a custom bike, but also the amazing creativity and engineering skills to fabricate the machine take custom building to a new level. Larry was already famous for the brilliant custom bikes that he built when he owned the Lamb Engineering business near Salisbury, Wiltshire, as well as for his often tongue-in-cheek conceptions. Larry’s Comet was not ‘set in motion towards the sun by gravitational perturbations from passing stars and the galactical tide’ as with a real galactical comet. In fact, the time taken from concept to finished bike was quite…

STEVE ANSTIS HAS been playing with bikes for more than 40 years and, after fixing up and selling his first bike, he’s basically continued to do that as a living ever since. He owns and runs Motorcycle Mania in Frome, selling used 250cc and upwards bikes (motorcyclemaniafrome.co.uk). He’s also something of a Laverda enthusiast. He bought his first, a 180 model Jota, modified it, and sold it in the mid-1980s and has had a series of the Italian triples since. But there was always a hankering to use all his knowledge and experience to build ‘the ultimate Laverda Jota’. The Jota model (its name comes from a Spanish dance in triple time) ran from 1976 through to 1982. It’s a 1000cc triple that was the brainchild of the then UK…

INTRODUCED IN 1958, Honda Motor’s 10th year of existence, the Honda Cub was created by Soichiro Honda to “provide the joy of playing a useful part in people’s lives.” In October 2017, Honda celebrated the 100 millionth Super Cub produced. A couple of years before that, a new trend began in Japan and other Asian markets: customising the Cub, which has since enjoyed a cult following worldwide. Brian said: “My project started out life as a 1975 Honda C70. After building a few show bikes I wanted to build something a bit more extreme and, just like my other bikes, most of the parts were sought while I was out in Malaysia. Coming home with my finds, I started my vision!” Brian built a frame jig, because all but the…

THE 12TH EDITION of Scram Africa, the legendary expedition that redefines the limits of adventure on two wheels, was more than just a journey. It was a call to the wild – a 2500km odyssey through the heart of southern Morocco, carved across desolate roads, rugged trails, and shifting desert dunes. The brainchild of Spain’s Fuel Motorcycles, Scram Africa is not your average ride. It’s the world’s first and most daring adventure designed exclusively for scramblers and customised bikes. A one-of-a-kind adventure – raw, demanding; arguably the ultimate test for modern retro scramblers. This year’s edition took riders further than ever before—deep into Morocco’s remote southern regions, where civilisation fades and only raw nature remains. With no hotels and no services, participants faced the unforgiving terrain with nothing but their…

INDUSTRY & SUPPLY hosted a Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club ‘show’ earlier this summer, which made a good excuse to visit a venue we had followed on social media for some time. We weren’t disappointed. The show was superb. The coffee and breakfast delicious. And the support the event got from bikers looking for some place to go on a warm Sunday afternoon was simply overwhelming. Industry & Supply produces their own original artwork to create a huge range of really cool automotive merchandise, apparel, stickers, posters etc but with a welcoming café, it’s become a magnet for riders looking for a destination and meeting place where they will be warmly received and can be guaranteed a fantastic breakfast and good coffee. It’s based at ‘The Depot’ in Weedon, Northamptonshire, a…

COUSINS, ROBERT NIGHTINGALE and Johnny Cazzola, are both designers. Together they launched Malle London, making really robust, and seriously refined motorcycle luggage, based on their own experiences of using soft bags on the bikes they toured around on. As Malle took off, the business soon diversified to incorporate a series of amazingly cool riding events using what they term as ‘inappropriate machines’ – including long distance rallies. It reached a point where Robert decided he wanted something a little more relaxing to ride on these rallies, something that allowed him to take in the scenery, something properly classic… We never saw you as a Vincent enthusiast? My dad always had a model Vincent on his desk in the study and my earliest memory of!motorcycles is him saying, ‘don’t touch the…

DESIGN & BUILD Design: Jeff DuvalFrame: OEM upgradedMotor: Carlo Molinaro, Zipper’s PerformanceBuild: Sean Reynolds, Jets ENGINE Harley EFI Twin Cam boosted to 107ci/1750cc by Carlo Molinaro of Zipper’s Performance fame. The Zipper’s kit is based on decades of excellence in tuning HD motors, always honed, fitted, fired, and tested by a senior ZP technician. The critical two-into-one, beautifully fabricated D&D Performance exhaust looks neat, sounds neat and frees the motor from inconvenient incumbrances. TRANSMISSION Beautifully effective stock primary and gearbox but final chain drive for that GTO competition feel… Magnificent (little known) billet primary cover by no less than Barnetts. CHASSIS OEM, but cleansed of all the nasty pieces… SUSPENSION Battistinis lead axle forks to increase steering stability at speed, mated to 49mm clip-ons and enhanced by those tracker bars…

Introduction by Chris Nelson Foreword by Robert WilliamsPublished by Assouline BETTER GET A stronger coffee table. The Race of Gentlemen is one weighty tome. And a beautifully produced one at that. The Race of Gentlemen, or TROG as it is commonly referred to, was first held in 2012 on the beach in Asbury Park, New Jersey, a stone’s throw from where the tradition of beach racing began in 1905, with an exhibition race at Cape May that included the likes of Henry Ford, Louis Chevrolet, and speed record holder Walter Christie. The annual TROG celebration is now held at Moreys Pier, Wildwood, New Jersey, and attracts speed demons with old hot rods and vintage bikes from all over the world to race the eighth-mile strip, recreating the atmosphere of early…

NICK EDDISON IS the custodian of this piece of British chopper history – the third owner of ‘The Original Sin’. It was originally put together by Dick Smith in his South London workshop, ‘Baron’s Speed Shop’. Dick is world famous for building period-correct stock and custom British bikes, especially Triumphs, and has an impressive client list which includes ‘A’ list celebrities as well as the more humble customers. The Sin was built 15 years ago to showcase the skills of Baron’s Speed Shop and was originally owned by Del Russell, co-founder and part-owner of the business. At that time, the bike was a very different incarnation – different paint, oil and petrol tank, sissy bar, footpeg and handlebar rubbers, plus the rear light was positioned differently. Basic specs include stock-length…

THE FIRST MALLE MILE took place in the grounds of a manor house in Kent during a warm July weekend in 2015, run by cousins Robert Nightingale and Jonny Cazzola who, three years earlier, had founded Malle London, selling top quality, highly fashionable, motorcycle luggage. Their motto for The Mile always was, ‘a race for inappropriate motorcycles’. That first year included drag races on grass, where you could witness the unlikely match up of, say, a Diavel racing a Vespa scooter, or a vintage Indian Power Plus against a GSX-R1000 superbike. Think of any similar permutation of madness and it’s likely it happened. But the racing was just part of a weird weekend of kids running between picnic hampers, girls in flouncy summer dresses, champagne being served in fluted glasses,…

MOTOAMERICA, the organisation headed by three-time 500cc World Champion Wayne Rainey, and currently doing an incredible job rejuvenating American road racing, pulled of a master-stroke when they incorporated the Mission King of the Baggers series into their racing programme in 2021. Baggers, the huge V-twin cruisers favoured by Harely-Davidson and Indian, seem an unlikely choice of race machine, based on heavily laden, lumbering, giants of the road. But NASCAR had the same idea when they promoted a racing class based on heavyweight sedan cars back in 1948. The reality was that what started as souped up sedans for running moonshine, morphed into a silhouette class, and under the hoods were much modified, big-bore V8s slotted into purpose-built racing chassis. When Ford, Chevrolet and Mopar officially got in on the action,…

DESIGN & BUILD Design: Jeff Duval & Tony TaysomFrame: Tony TaysomMotor: Tony TaysomBuild: Jeff Duval & Tony Taysom ENGINE ‘Fast road’ Yamaha 350 TR3RD engine with 348cc barrels and pistons using dynamically balanced crank, pistons and rods. Gas-flowed head crowned by a pair of Amal Concentric MkII carbs pre-tuned to ‘Endurance’ specs, once again optimising real-world useability over power. TRANSMISSION Five-speed OEM gearbox also rebuilt from scratch at the same time as the motor by Tony Taysom. CHASSIS OEM with numerous invisible – and unnamed – improvements, for that special Jets touch! SUSPENSION & STEERING Classic Yamaha lead axle, front fork assembly, and rear shocks by CR Suspension of Budapest. WHEELS & BRAKES 18” & 21” alloy wire rims with stainless steel spokes. Beringer front and rear racing brake assemblies.…

ACE CLASSICS HAVE been at the forefront of the recent emergence of street scramblers and desert sleds among the classic bike fraternity. Advantages of these off-roaders over classic street bikes? Pretty obvious, really. Firstly, it’s not as expensive to re-imagine a really cool old British bike as an off-roader as it is to go the full restoration route, with all the costs that entails. And secondly, it gives you options as to where you ride. Yes, scramblers and sleds make great urban bikes, but the big plusses are they are, providing you make them road legal, perfectly at home on nadgery little back lanes. Plus, you can ride the things off-road. Both playgrounds that are mercifully free of the mobile traffic jams that clog our major highways. Kev Rushworth at…

It all started in 2011 when Lorne Cheetham launched his first Kickback Show on an unsuspecting biking community at the Bournemouth International Centre. In the subsequent 15 years, Kickback Shows have been held in ornate city halls, agricultural showgrounds, defunct prisons, the grounds of country manor houses, and even a Premier League soccer stadium. And in 30 shows, Kickback has displayed more than 4500 custom bikes, enjoyed by some 75,000 customers. Kickback has effectively charted the recent history of the development of custom bike culture in this country. And about the only assumption you can make about the scene is that the imaginations of those custom motorcycle builders remain as fertile as they always have been. Their creative talents seemingly know no bounds. Starting over the page, we’ve picked 30…

Flyin’ like an aeroplane • Feelin’ like a space brain • One more time tonight* Simon, how did this build come about? Every time I build a special, I say to my mates and to myself, ‘no more, that’s it, I’m done.’ But I’d just finished building a ‘Kettle’ engine in an FXR frame, and no sooner had the paint dried, I got a phone call from my mate. He had begun this project but explained that he wanted rid as he was moving house and had lost interest in it. Once I got it home and stripped it to see what there was, I realised how much time and money it was going to take. When you first saw his work, did you have a vision for your finished…

The Victorian Gothic ‘Vicky’ was originally a BSH feature bike called, I think, ‘the Schwinnster’ It had been rattle-can painted brown, then red when it came to me. The original springer front end had been changed to a standard yoke and telescopic forks. It was owned before me by a body modification artist called Dr Evil so, as you can imagine, I had to have it. I had it painted in black and gold-leaf by Jobe, a pinstriper in Somerset As a boy I always loved the JPS F1 cars, and the JPS promo girls. Then, piece by piece, I rebuilt or repurposed brass objects I found. The handlebar ends are a poker, and the tong handles were part of a fireside set. The arms of the tongs hold the…

DAN DUGGAN INTENDED to build a café racer, taking the best parts from two tired CX500s and a spare motor. He bought a Yamaha R1 front end and enlisted the help of his mate Ger Conlon, of C&C Choppers, Cork, Ireland, to build what was supposed to be a very cool, but practical café racer. But, after a trip to the AMD World Championships held in Cologne, Germany, he told Ger he had a free hand with the design. Initially Dan was thinking of an hydraulic drive system, but Ger always wanted to build a friction drive bike. Dan sourced a Yamaha XS1100 bevel drive box, a set of twin Weber 40 carbs and block of billet aluminium and Ger got to work with a grinder... The friction drive wheel…

Clothing from Fuel Motorcycles, known for its unique blend of vintage style and modern functionality, unveils a striking new gear combination designed for riders who want to stand out while staying protected. The outfit brings together three signature pieces from the brand’s heritage lines and, together, these pieces form a complete, stylish riding outfit that fuses heritage design, premium materials, and rider-ready engineering. Ideal for motorcyclists who seek both authenticity and performance. fuelmotorcycles.eu Arizona Jacket The Arizona jacket is inspired by the dry and hot Arizonian deserts. This short jacket, similar to the first motorcycle jackets ever made, is optimal for summer and high-temperature environments. Design details such as the arrow-shaped pockets are influenced by American army garments from the 1940s. It’s a classic trucker-style jacket reinterpreted the Fuel way.…

At Jimmy’s Iced Coffee, we’ve always believed there’s a different kind of magic in building things yourself. Whether it’s marketing assets like our 6m giant Jimmy’s BottleCan, a new event stand styled like a race car pit-stop, or in this case, a rugged, field-ripping Suzuki DR370 Scrambler, it just hits different when it’s born in-house. No glossy marketing agency decks. No outsourced brief. Just hands, tools, and a bit of organised chaos. This year marked our second trip to The Malle Mile. Back in 2022, we rocked up with our fully converted electric café racer. More of an art piece than a trail-blazer. It’s pretty, maybe even too pretty. A gallery piece with wheels. So this year, we wanted to flip it and take a bike which could be used…

31 KICKBACK HM PRISON GLOUCESTER, a former Category B men’s prison originally built in 1792 on the site of the historic Gloucester Castle, has taken on an unexpected second life since its closure in 2013. No longer housing inmates, the venue now plays host to an eclectic mix of events—from candlelit tours and parties to adrenaline-fuelled paintball days. But on July 6 it once again welcomed the Kickback Custom Show, transforming this eerie and atmospheric setting into a unique stage for custom culture. This year’s Kickback event shifted focus more toward four wheels than two, with access and parking limitations meaning the main outdoor exercise yards were reserved for a curated selection of 60 stunning hot rods, vintage trucks, and custom cars. Inside the prison itself, around 30 hand-picked custom…

DESIGN & BUILD Design: Jeff DuvalFrame: OEM upgradedMotor: Sean Reynolds, JetsBuild: Sean Reynolds, Jets ENGINE ‘Fast road’ T120R engine with 750cc barrels and pistons. Dynamically balanced crank, pistons and rods. Gas-flowed head with competition valves, springs and rockers, together with appropriate lift cams. Crowned by a pair of Amal Mk2 Concentrics, optimising usability instead of all-out, uncontrollable power. TRANSMISSION & STARTER Four-speed OEM transmission also rebuilt from scratch at the same time as the motor by Jets’ Sean Reynolds. Retrofitting of an Ark Racing electric starter, as distributed by Triumph specialists Shropshire Classic Motorcycles. CHASSIS OEM with numerous invisible improvements for that unique allure and upgraded specs. Competition Ceriani 35mm adjustable front fork assembly, and rear shocks by legendary CR Suspension of Budapest, Hungary. WHEELS & BRAKES Chromed 21” &…

Competition Seat Ace Classics took a mould from a very well-known 1960s desert racing seat and came up with a good-looking, durable desert sled saddle which comes with all the hardware you’ll need to mount it. Although made to fit the pre-oil in frame Triumph models, customers with oil in frame bikes from 1971 onwards also have them fitted. These seats are hard-bolted to the frame. It was common practice in the 60s to modify the oil tank and have the oil tank filler moved to the outside to check or refill your oil. Some mods may be needed on the Unit 500 and 650 models, depending on the oil tank fitted. Ensign Trials Universal 350-19 Front Tyre Ace offer a replica of the Dunlop Trials Universal tyre, which is…

WILDUST SISTERS is a clothing and accessories brand for women who ride. It offers pieces that sit halfway between motorcycle gear and fashion, so there’s no need to choose between style and safety. Inspired by workwear, Western, and outdoor culture, the brand designs certified motorcycle gear as well as a lifestyle collection. RIDE LIKE A GIRL. Pioneer KOI Jacket looks lifestyle, but delivers on durability and protection. Crafted from armoured cotton, it's highly resistant to abrasion, and every structural seam has been tested for strength in the event of a fall. Integrated pockets for body armour means it's built to strict safety standards. The Cargo Overland pants look unlike anything you'd see on the road, but tick all the boxes in terms of protection. Stars & Stripes Brick jacket is…

Rollin, 2010High In The Saddle, 2019The Name Lives On, 2023Gunsmoke, 2024 I’VE ALWAYS HAD a love for southern rock, and was checking out new bands when I discovered the Texas Hippie Coalition (THC). This would have been back in 2008 when they released an album called ‘Pride of Texas’. Now, this is no ordinary southern rock band. THC is the original ‘red dirt metal’ band, and their music has to be played good and loud to get one’s ears properly savaged. “Pissed Off and Mad About It,” on ‘Pride’, with Big Dad Ritch’s growling vocals and a thundering backbeat, sold me on the band forever and I only hear them getting better and better with each new album THC were formed in 2004 and judging by the great storytelling, the…