Husband and Wife’s Sportsters

I don’t know if you’ve been to any of these new(ish) vintage chopper events as they’re called – The Trip Out, The Hook-Up, South-West Chopper Fest, etc.? If you haven’t, well, you’ve missed out, I think, and if you have there’s a good chance you’ll’ve seen the two people who own these bikes ‘cos… well, they’re quite difficult to miss, aren’t they? The owners and the bikes…

Words by Nik Pics by Garry Stuart RIP

Mikey and Jamie-Lee, husband and wife, are both resident artists at the respected Rising Phoenix Tattoo studio in Leighton Buzzard in Beds, and they’ve been part of the chopper scene for a while now. Both’ve had other chops previous to these, and Mikey’s working on an Ironhead at the moment too, but these are the bikes they had, and still have, when the late, lamented Garry Stuart, sadly missed ace lensman of this parish, met them at The Trip Out a couple o’ years back.

Mikey’s

Spec: 2003 H-D 883R Sportster engine (bug-eye air-filter, chain conversion, custom upswept fishtail exhausts)/ 21-inch front wheel/front brake/forks (10-inch over)/yokes/foot-rests/foot-controls, unknown custom frame, Shinko front tyre, Biltwell rabbit-ear ‘bars, Frisco-mounted Sportster tank, aftermarket bobber seat (since changed)/rear mudguard (modified), one-off battery box, electrics under seat, one-off sissy-bar, Fuckstone rear tyre, minimal loom, hidden starter, Chopper Daddy headlight, aftermarket tail light

Finish: Custom candy flames by owner, speckle-coat powder-coated frame

Engineering: Bike modified by owner, oil tank/sissy-bar/loom by @fxrsole (Instagram), exhausts/battery box by Chris Thomas (@risingfrequency Instagram)

We’ll look at Mikey’s bike first for no other reason than his was the first set of spec’ sheets I transcribed. Originally it came from his good friend @fxrsole (they do have funny names these Instagram types, don’t they, what’s wrong with Kevin or Trevor?) and although not quite in the style he wanted, he could see the potential in it and a deal was done. He got it home, razzed it about a bit, and then set about making it a little more ‘his’.

The basic premise was sound: a 2003 883R Sportster, converted from belt final drive to chain, in a nicely-made custom frame of uncertain heritage (it’s marked up ‘Craig House No 1’… no, I’m none the wiser either), with a mag rear wheel, a Frisco-mounted Sportster tank, a lil’ bobber seat, and various other desirable bits and, as I said, there was nothing particularly wrong with it, but you know what us lot’re like – we can’t leave owt alone.

One of the first things he did was take out the existing front end and replace it with the 10-inch over ’un from his previous Sporty chop (the legs of which, he thinks, originally came from a Shovelhead). It wears a suitably olde-worlde Shinko tyre, and’s topped off with a set of so-bunny-they-almost-eat-lettuce Biltwell rabbit-ear ’bars. Unusually for a bike from this scene, it has a front brake, an actual front brake, but then again he and Jamie live in Milton Keynes and the thought of traversing all those roundabouts without a front stopper doesn’t bear thinking about really, does it?

Other groovy bits worthy of mention are the superbly-named Fuckstone (no asterisks ’cos it’s a brand name) rear tyre, the geometrically-shaped sissy-bar by their good mate @risingfrequency (although his mum calls him Chris Thomas), and the long, upswept fishtail ’pipes, made to Mikey’s design by Chris/@rising too. It’s these, I think, that make Mikey’s bike stand out from the vintage chopper norm – yes, lots of vintage-style chops have ’tails, indeed Jamie’s does, too, but there’s something about these… the length, the shotgun-style run, the angle, that gives the Sporty its definitive look. Mind you, the in-yer-face candy flames on the tank and rear muddie help, too. They’re the work of Mikey himself (you’d expect a master tattooist to be a bit arty, wouldn’t you?) after he’d been on a Skid Lidz (www.skidlidz.co.uk) custom painting course to learn the skills needed to create airbrush magic.     

Since the bike was finished (well, as finished as these things ever are) a while back, he’s changed a few odds and sods, but reports that it’s never missed a beat on a trip, long or short, taking in The Hook-Up in Wales, and the Trip Out in Suffolk to name but two. He says that he’s looking forward to getting the Ironhead, a ’75 model, sorted – bikes are such a big part of his life… almost as much as his wife Jamie.

Jamie’s

Spec: 1997 H-D Sportster 883 engine (1200 conversion, aftermarket air-filter, one-off fishtail ‘pipes, chain conversion)/frame (modified)foot-rests/controls/front wheel/front brake/forks (8-inch over)/yokes/front master-cylinder/switchgear/rear brake, Shinko 21-inch front tyre, buckhorn ‘bars, Frisco-mounted Sportster tank, one-off seat, aftermarket rear ‘guard (modified), aftermarket horseshoe oil tank, one-off battery box, under-seat electrics, one-off sissy-bar, 16-inch solid rear wheel, minimal loom, Electroline headlight, aftermarket tail light

Finish: Black paint by unknown painter

Engineering: Bike originally built by Heron Cycles (01359 253600 or Facebook), modified by owner/Mikey, seat by Adrian Mortimer, sissy-bar/fish-tails by Chris Thomas (@risingfrequency)

Speaking of Jamie, her bike, based around a ’97 883 with a 1200 conversion, was originally built by Heron Cycles (formerly So Low Choppers), and’d been through the hands, and under the arses, of a couple of owners before it came to her. Again, like Mikey’s, there was nothing really wrong with it when she got it, but it needed a few changes to make it more ‘hers’. She wasn’t happy with the ’pipes that it came with, and wanted traditional (well, more traditional than Mikey’s anyway) fishtails, and got Chris/@rising to work his metallurgic magic. She says she loves what he’s created as they’re just what she envisaged, but she has now burnt holes in three pairs of her trademark black flares ’cos of them. “Oh well,” she says, “beauty is pain.”

Chris also made the eye-catching (hopefully not literally) devil’s tail sissy-bar, and Mikey sorted the eight-inch over forks that, like the 10s on his bike, give the two Sporties so much of their attitude. Many of us more traditional folk’d think of taking a couple of inches off ’em to get the frame’s bottom rails level with the ground, but this looks very in with the vintage crowd, and Jamie and Mikey don’t have any issues with riding their bikes hundreds of miles to events so… She is thinking of changing the seat on her all-black beastie, though, not ’cos there’s really anything too amiss with what’s on there, but she’d really like a king & queen seat, a real king & queen that runs up the sissy-bar, and so will soon be talking to Argo Bowsher (known as @devilhide on Instagram) who makes amazing stuff out of leather about a suitably botty perch.

Apart from that, she says the Sporty is the most comfortable bike she’s ever owned, capable of dealing with any road anywhere in the country… except perhaps the ones they rode on the way back from the South-West Chopper Fest “where we encountered every pothole known to man!”. Jamie, you said it yourself: “Beauty is pain…”