BEER BUILDS BETTER...

GROWING UP RACING MOTOCROSS, I ALWAYS RODE SPORTS BIKES, YES, LIKE A KNOBHEAD, AND I KNEW I COULDN’T CONTINUE DOING THE STUPID SHIT I USED TO, SO I DECIDED TO RESTRICT MYSELF BY BUILDING A CUSTOM, AND THAT’S WHEN THE BUG BIT.

- BILLY LUDLAM

I bought this VN900 brand new, and it stayed standard for a total of seven miles – the distance from the shop to my dad’s. After he stopped laughing, because cruisers really aren’t his thing, we got the tools out. I modified bits and bobs straight away, and literally smashed huge spikes down the brand new exhausts just to make them louder, but not long after that my mate Roger the welder came round to measure up for some new ’pipes. A few weeks later he arrived with new sections to fit into the heads and, after working with lengths of big-bore tube, he created my vision piece by piece. Nearly ten years later they still look, and work, beautifully, and I really do need to thank him because he’s become a great friend since then.

I messed about with styles and, once I’d wrapped the ’pipes, I put hot rod scallops on the tank to give it that old school hot rod look. That didn’t last long though, and it was soon stripped down to nothing, forced into the back of my girlfriend’s Seat Ibiza, and driven to my mate Richard Flowers’ garage where we drank beer, smoked fags, and cut the shit out of my frame whilst listening to Limp Bizkit. In my head, I was saying “What would Billy Lane do?” (he’s a huge influence on me and, after meeting him once, I found him to be a really nice chap). The bike had many trips backwards and forwards between my place and Richard’s as it was cut up and about, and then I got a job working for my now good friend Geoff Law, where I could use the steel-fitting tools, and fell in with another now friend, Steve Bailey, and his welding skills helped create what you see today.