Back Street Heroes

When, a few years ago, I only had a bike licence and went everywhere, but everywhere, on two wheels, I was always slightly jealous of those who professed to be able to lose themselves in the ride – to forget all their normal cares and woes, and just revel in what they’re doing aboard their bike. I, you see, couldn’t – I spent so much time riding that it became second nature to me, and I could carry on with all my normal* thinking in the same way as I would when doing anything else. Riding, for me, wasn’t an escape from the everyday world as it was for some people - it was just what I did if I wanted to get anywhere, y’know? Over the last few weeks…

Nick Maybury’d decided to build a Sportster for his girlfriend, Lone (pronounced Lona – she’s Danish), and, being no stranger to these things, started by sourcing a reputable donor bike, a Y2K 883 Sporty, and ordered a (hardtail) frame from a well-known builder of such things. Sadly, it seems a lot of other people’d had the same idea around that time as he was told, because of the queue, the lead time for it’d be somewhere between nine months and a year. Undaunted (well, a bit…), while he was waiting for said frame, he stripped the Sporty into the two now-traditional piles (one of bits to keep, and one of bits to out) and, as it was only a wee 883 (always makes me smile when someone describes a nearly…

Towards the end of last year’s biking season, meself and a couple o’ three mates decided to put on a one-nighter (on a Saturday) with a rat show, with trophies, the next day at the White Horse in Tattingstone, near Ipswich (a place well known to the rat lot as it was, for years, the home of the much bigger Rat & Survival). Rather than a proper ‘organised’ event with ‘entertainment’ an’ that, it was more of an old-school pub meet with a late bar, a bonfire, and a few awards, and although not that many made the long journey from wherever they live to the wilds(ish) of Suffolk, enough did that it was a good night – a damn good night in fact. Folk started to turn up around…

I don’t know whether you know, but in 2019 a 1936 SS100, partially built, that’d belonged to, granted, a famous racer back in the day, was sold for £424,500, and it’s quite rare to see one under £125,000. What’s nice to see, though, is that while most’re very much the preserve of the Commodity Biker, investors with only a vague interest in actual motorcycles, there’re still some folk out there using them as motorcycles. At the 2012 (I think, the 50th anyway) Dragon Rally, in North Wales, in February, I saw an SS80 and an SS100 leant, on their tanks, on a telegraph pole, halfway up the side of a mountain, in a muddy field. David Burdett, the owner of the motorised velocipede you see here, has long been a fan…

I first went to see it more than ten years ago in my 100% Biker days after various people’d told me about it (often at length) and, being a fan of bike-related things that’re a little out of the ordinary, thought I’d go and have a look. I really enjoyed the day, and vowed to go back and watch again but, to quote the (translated) words of Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns in 1785, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”, and I never did make it back for a long, long time, despite being offered the loan of a bike to have a go at it on. A few years later, I did try and get the late, lamented Billy Manning to take up the still-open offer as…

Personally, I think if you think your bike is a streetfighter then it probably is, no matter what any faceless internet troll may say – it’s such a catch-all term that almost anything can fall into the definition. I mean, back in my days as ed’ of the magazine of the same name, when it was about fun and hooliganism, and not who has the biggest turbo’, we featured a myriad of different bikes that all fell, in one way or another, under the genre heading: Harleys, 125s, supermotos, trikes, old Brits, Japanese bikes, Italian bikes, pro’ builds and home builds, you name it. In one issue we even ran a Super Dream… a Harris-styled trick-frame Super Dream with upside-down forks and a carbon fibre tail-piece, granted, but a Super…