For the past six months I've been riding past the Lucky Devil tattoo shop almost every week. Each time I passed I noticed a tidy looking green Gixer streetfighter parked outside until eventually, one day, I just had to stop and find out something about the bike. And that's how I met Dickie. Now Dickie hasn't followed the usual route into custom biking, having spent his formative years on scooters. Yes, folks, that's scooters of the Vespa/Lambretta variety, not the latest trendy plastic mouldings from Aprilia or Peugeot. Dickie spent years doing scooter rallies up and down the country and built a variety of tidy customs with forks which seemed to grow longer with each re-build. Eventually the prospect of facing another season droning up and down motorways at 50 MPH got too much, and Dickie decided to defect to proper two wheelers. Not being one to do things by halves he jumped straight in with a 650 Suzuki chopper which opened up a whole new world and sowed the seeds for the bike you see here.

This is Dickie's fourth bike and is based on that ubiquitous lump close to every bikers heart, the GSXR1100. This particular motor came from a GSX1100F which he bought as an accident damaged project. Dickie had the motor set up by Hobbsport and it now runs a Dynojet stage 3 kit to match the K&N filters and Micron pipe. Hobbsport popped it on the Dyno and measured 123BHP at the rear wheel. Not to be sneezed at...The donor bike also provided the lower frame cradle, but all the rest of the engineering you see, including the extensive frame mods and rear suspension, are hand crafted by Dickie himself.

 

Dickie originally conceived this bike as a rigid, but a back injury meant he could no longer face the daily encounter with West Yorkshire's potholes and a revision to the original plan resulted in the tidy rear end you see here. The rear suspension is based around a Harris swingarm, lengthened by 4" and mated up to a Fireblade shocker. Front suspension, wheels, brakes and running gear were all donated by a Kawasaki ZZR600. Dickie took care of all the engineering required to mate this lot together with the exception of the yokes, which were made up by his mate Stopper in Burnley.

That elegant looking tank is from a breakers and is of of unknown origin, though it looks very Yamaha-ish to me. However Dickie wanted a little more fuel capacity so he cut and widened the tank by three inches, adding an aircraft filler by Harris. Some excellent engineering details finish the bike off, those headlamp brackets, luggage rack, chainguard, engine mountings and tasty stainless footrests being the product of Alan Willis. Dickie opted for the twin mini Bates lamps but spent some time converting them to Halogen internals to provide serious illumination.

 

The final touch, and one of the things to first catch your eye on this bike, is the superb paint by Mick at Creative Customs (07788632020). Dickie chose the colour scheme and wanted tribal scroll work which echoed his own tattoos. The resulting metallic designs are so tasteful, yet so subtle, they really do add to the bikes lines with an understated flourish. The high gloss laquered finish does make the paintjob bloody difficult to photograph, though...

Dickie is delighted with the bike and it has delivered everything he wanted from a tidy street custom. It's taken him on rallies all over the UK including the Isle Of Man and Glastonbury, and at the dragstrip at NABD in York he clocked a 11.09 second pass with a terminal speed of 121 MPH. Not bad for a bike you can ride to work each day.

 

If you're near Silsden in West Yorkshire and need some smart tattoo work pop in and see Dickie and the lads at Lucky Devil. Give 'em a call on 015353 655338 and tell 'em I sent you.

Dr.Rod.