When they were kids, Long John and his kid brother used to go and raid the top shelf at the local newsagents to nick copies of "Health & Efficiency". One day, with the angry newsagent bearing down on them, John grabbed a magazine at random before legging it off up the road. When they stopped to look at their haul John realised he had pinched not some tasty girlie mag, but an early copy of Easyriders, whose pages fell open at Harley Knucklehead chop with 33" over springers. The twelve-year-olds life changed at that moment, and Long John began a life long love affair with custom bikes.

 

Let me tell you something about Long John. This quiet, modest bloke has been building tasty bikes since most of us were dreaming of our first FS1E and comes from a scene which practically launched the custom bike in the UK. John was a member of the NCC back in 1976, was active on the Bradford scene back in the legendary "Mucky Duck" era and used to make his living running the paint shop for Gary Sylvester's Custom Engineering, one of the first and most influential custom bike bike shops in the UK.

I'm just old enough to have known some of the key players from those days and when we met up at The Boot & Shoe, John's local boozer, we ended up swapping tales and anecdotes about Goldstar Geoff, Ian Bassett, and a youthful Steve Myatt who was once refused a cup of tea at Custom Engineering on the grounds that they didn't suck up to anyone.

 

And when it comes to building bikes Long John has stayed true to the original ethos of choppers; not only is everything hand made, every single component on this bike is so carefully thought out and skillfully engineered it puts most big bucks engineering projects to shame.

The forks for example. Incredibly these are the first girders John has made. He ran a 20" over custom engineering unit on his last bike but realised the geometry could use a re-think. John worked out the geometry by laying templates out on his workshop floor, then playing around with the rocker geometry until suspension movement translates into a direct up and down movement of the wheel, rather than fore and aft. This painstaking craftsmanship has resulted in an 18" over-stock front end which is easy to handle, doesn't flop to one side uncontrollably at low speeds, and even acts as an anti-dive system under braking. He then added details like the front brake cable which runs inside the fork leg before bronze welding and molding the whole plot.

 

The frame is based around the engine cradle from a '64 Bonnie, but has the engine offset 4mm to the left to make sure the drive chain has room to clear the side of the 5.00x16 rear tyre without having to build the wheel with too much offset. The rest of the frame was again hand made, welded, molded and painted by John. He used the stock '66 Bonnie motor without any modifications other than a careful rebuild, figuring that the finished bike would be so light he would have a respectable power to weight ratio without risking breakdowns from a too highly tuned Triumph engine. And this bike is light, I saw him lift it by the grabrail and turn the whole bike 180 degrees in the pub car park when I asked to photograph the other side. His only concession to the ageing engine design is a modification to the breather system, which now vents through the primary case via a polished copper pipe.

And the detailing - I could have happily sat all afternoon and studied the engineering details which make this bike so much more than just a run of the mill custom. The oil tank is carefully crafted to sit behind the Citroen 2CV oil cooler and has a filler concealed under the seat. The coils are rubber mounted on a dedicated bracket above the top chain run, spot the connection across the coils made from a solid copper wire to echo the copper pipe used for the rocker oil feed.

 

Long John shares my view that comfortable seats result not from loads of padding, but from being arse shaped. Having made a cross shaped metal framework John took a mould from his arse and used that as a former to make the fibreglass seat base, lghtly padded and covered in leather from a charity shop leather coat. The seat pivots at the front and sits on two rubber bobbins at the rear which give a minimal but crucial movement over bumps.

 

If that lot isn't enough to impress the pants off you let me tell you that John also painted the whole bike with that lovely swooping graphic that so subtly empahisises the lines of the bike. No distracting murals to spoil the lines of this baby. And I haven't yet mentioned the speedo face, hand painted to match the tank graphics, or the Combine Harvester taillight with seperate number plate light, or the single saddlebag carrying the battery, or the forward controls hand crafted from bits bought at the local breakers. Or any number of other things worthy of your attention.

 

On the bikes first public outing Long John took the trophy for "Best In Show" at the NCCs Northern Exposure show. The trophy, a pewter tankard, now lives at the Boot and Shoe, being more suitable for the consumption of Guinness than the huge cup he won for "Best In Show" at Kent '85 with his last, girder forked, Triumph.

 

Long John likes to sit up on his farm building choppers, restoring classic bikes and getting involved with left field engineering projects. He doesn't surface for bike events very often so you may have to watch carefully to see this bike in the flesh. But be careful, it could change your life.

Click here to download a short video clip of John riding the bike

Dr.Rod.