Back Street Heroes

Hello once again, and welcome to this new issue of BSH. Having spent a few days of late smoking about on Pam’s hardtail (mine’s still up in the frozen north, but it sounds like it won’t be, relatively speaking, long before it’s back), it’s got me thinking about the state of our roads ‘ere in this windswept isle in the North Atlantic. It’s rare, isn’t it, that anyone goes out on ‘em, be it on a bike or in a car, and doesn’t wince at least once as their suspension, or lack of it, goes clang over a pot-‘ole or a bump. I got in the habit of both riding bikes and driving the van as though they’re hardtails, twitching and swerving to try and miss as many of the…

Michelangelo, a member of the local Wild Wheels Kustom Club, works at the local racetrack and, together with his crew and the members of WWKC, they’ve been putting on a fantastic event since 2014. For years now, the journey begins in mid-July, heading for sun, sea, and beautiful custom bikes. Riding south, especially from Rome onward, the weather gets increasingly more beautiful, and warmer, and motorcycle clothing and rain-gear become too warm and completely unnecessary, so we leave all that with Luigi, customiser and father of Niko (Nikobikes), where we always spend a few days, and continue along the coast on small, winding roads that hug the beach and give a constant, magnificent view of the deep blue Mediterranean. Swaying palm trees, over 35 degrees Celsius, my daughter on the…

Kevin, Kev, Johnson of Middle-of-Nowhere-in-The-Fens, Lincolnshire, has, for his sins, a ‘thing’ about Honda’s ubiquitous, and often reviled, CX500 v-twin; the 497cc, liquid-cooled, longitudinal (as in across-the-frame), OHV (overhead valve), 80-degree, four valves per cylinder v-twin made between 1978 and 1983, that puts out 48 gee-gees (more than I expected, I have to admit), and which became a firm favourite of motorcycle couriers back in the day… and, yes, those slightly odd older men we’d see in the pub, growing up, who drank mild and wore Derri Boots. He bought one the day he passed his test back in 1986. “It was six years old, and cost me the princely sum of £150. It was a hideouslooking thing, but I was a courier, and it was rugged and dependable, and…

They’re a rare beast these days; the last ones featured in the pages of this ’ere magazine were the three-wheeler Ian at Hyper Trikes built for the late, lamented Murrels of NCC Suffolk, and Wayne from NCC Mercia’s orange muscle cruiser. I know, also, of a trike built by NCC Leics that was featured in this magazine years ago that’s still going (and I’m hoping to photograph it this year), and Jay from NCC Norfolk has the uber-low, long, and black one (similarly) built by Big Kev, ex of Desperate Dan’s, way back in the early ’90s. There are, I’m sure, others too but, as I said, they’re rare sights these days. The one you see here was built, and is owned, by Iain at Knot Custom Trikes from Glenrothes…

“Rewind 17 years. I sold my Honda chop, featured in BSH 285, for a Twin Cam Dyna Low Rider which became my daily ride, rain or shine or snow. That bike really showed me how good a factory bike was at long distances, and ease of maintainance, compared to a one-off hardtail chop being ridden daily allyear round. “Fast-forward seven years. I was still all about building one-off hardtails until a good friend asked me to ‘go to town’ on his Twin Cam Rocker-C and, when I finished it, I rode it over to him. That was the moment I realised a Softail’d give me everything I wanted in one bike – that one ride instantly changed my opinion, forever. That day, too, was the beginning of the bike you…

I should, with hindsight, just’ve gone for the evening, as Flame & Thunder is, primarily, about the night racing, but I learnt years ago that you really need to go to these things early so that you can work out in advance who and what’ll make the best pics, and all that time, in the freezing wind that howls across the wide-open spaces of the Pod, it really took its toll on my poor broken back… sorry. Flame & Thunder is one of my favourite events that Santa Pod, the famous dragstrip in Bedfordshire, does. It’s not as well attended by the really big boys of the (drag) racing world as some of the others, but it really is an absolute spectacle, especially as the evening falls. There’re multiple jet car…