When I got it home and took the seat off, the top frame rail resembled Swiss cheese. The owner had drilled eight 10mm holes—four in each rail— and fed the brake wire through one. The swinging arm was moving from side to side because it needed a 10mm spacer and the upside-downie front end had no pads in the caliper—and the guy had been riding this around, really proud of himself!
After that, the bike sat in the shed for eighteen months just getting in the way, until I decided to build it for the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building round at the Irish Motorbike and Scooter Show in Dublin. So, I ordered the parts that I needed and booked it in with Ger Conlon at C&C Choppers in Cork. I didn’t want a standard café racer frame, so I decided on curving the rear frame rails and that allowed the exhaust pipes to exit perfectly. A whole new subframe and frame rails were fabricated, along with an undertray and battery box as well. New footrest mounts were made up because the dedicated CB750 rearsets that I bought from the United States turned out to be dedicated to something other than a CB…
This story is from the Issue 254 edition of 100% Biker.
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This story is from the Issue 254 edition of 100% Biker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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There's No Place Like Chrome
When settling down to write a feature for a magazine, it’s necessary to have two things, nay, three things in front of you. A computer is useful, it saves all that messy ink and blotting paper that we used in those long gone school days, a strong hot mug of tea should also be on the desk (goes without saying), and finally, a set of scribbled notes that a couple of months ago resembled a detailed description of a motorcycle, but that by now, are largely illegible…
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Named after the only pub in the village of Broadmayne near Dorchester, nobody there can quite remember how long the informal get together that is the Black Dog Custom Show has been going
TWEETY
Over the last couple of years, very few if any motorcycles have inspired such bafflement and scratching of heads as Dan Duggan’s Honda CX500
THE DOUBTER
Every project starts somewhere and this one began at the Bike Shed Show at Tobacco Dock in London or, to be more accurate, when my mate Matt Donaldson turned to me and said, “I bet you can’t build a bike good enough for here.” Well, that set me to work!
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Sometimes what is missing from a show is more interesting than what’s present. With the German show Custombike celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, the event remains a showcase for European customising in all its diversity— with the additional benefit of a focus on parts that are homologated and approved for Europe
COVERT MISSION
It’s not often that I have to sneak in and photograph a motorcycle without the owner knowing anything about it—something that was made tougher in this case by the said motorcycle being kept at said owner’s house
Carry On Screaming
As is often the case, I first caught sight of Nige Biffin’s cool Honda CB750 at a local show last summer, standing out as it did from the stock stuff and the classics present. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t just the ace paint that grabbed my attention, but the obvious quality of the build throughout. I needed to know more…
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Ensuring that a custom motorcycle will comfortably chew up the miles is perhaps not always one of the main priorities for every builder, but for anyone in the National Chopper Club, it’s essential. Never more so than when you happen to live in one of the far flung parts of this island which means that you’ve usually got a journey to do before you even start going anywhere, as Paul, NCC National Secretary and member of Chopper Club Kernow, knows all too well. This is the story of his latest chop.
