A Shaw thing!

CMM reader Malcolm Shaw is a self-taught spanner-man with a penchant for making specials…

- BERTIE SIMMONDS

“Let me see. I have a GT750, a Z650, I’ve got an air-cooled RD350 along with aRD350 special being built with a Nico Bakker TZ frame. The engine needs a complete rebuild in that one. That bike has an Aprilia RS rear end and RS250 Aprilia forks – Aprilia wheels, too. The VFR tank on that looks like it was meant for it. I guess I’ve got around 17 bikes, nearly all two-strokes.”

Welcome to the world of Malc Shaw. A former nurse, now a self-taught specials builder and lover of classic bikes (ok, nearly all two-strokes, but the Fazer 1000 is four-stroke and modern. “It gets me to Spain and France in comfort,” says Malc.)

While Malc carries on talking I realise this isn’t the bike I wanted to come see. But it would be rude of me to interrupt when he’s in full flow!

He’s pointing at the RD350 with the Nico frame again. “I’m making the mountings for the Jim Lomas exhausts. I’ve built lots of stuff myself for it, you know, rear-sets and the like. I want to be able to ride them (I’ve got a shot right knee) so I look at the bike, look at seat heights, look at foot-peg position with blocks of wood – it’s more than an educated guess.”

Our Malc is even making moulds for the seat. “Yes, I chopped up an old Two-Four seat as I had a scabby one and altered it, then glassed it up to make a seat unit. It’s a crude way of doing it, but it works.”