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Our June custom roundup visits three continents to check out three unhinged custom bike projects. First up is a brutal Harris Magnum 2 by Sideburn Magazine founder Gary Inman. Then we head stateside, where Barnie Bowman hopes to win the Biltwell People's Champ Show with his groovy 1960s-style Knucklehead chopper. And lastly, to commemorate this fourth edition of the roundup, we take a look at a rogue fourth-gen Triumph Speed Triple by Bolt Motor Co. in Spain.
Gary Inman Harris Magnum 2
In the world of flat-track racing, Sideburn Magazine (Instagram) is the superlative source of inspiration. As you'd expect, Sideburn founder Garry Inman is an avid racer himself. So when it came to building a motorcycle for the street, he wasn't about to settle for anything subpar. This is Inman's Harris Magnum 2, a motorcycle he spent five years transforming into his ideal hooligan bike.
At a time when engine performance seriously outweighed frame capability, the UK company Harris Performance designed and built frames that could tame the most powerful Japanese inline fours. The concept was a huge success and Harris sold thousands of Magnum kits, which typically included a frame, swingarm, and fuel tank. Inman's bike is based on a second edition of the Harris Magnum kit from the mid-1980s.
Purchased as an incomplete project, Inman's Magnum is kitted out with a concoction of period-correct and modern go-fast bits. Powering the bike is a Kawasaki Z1000J DOHC inline-four that’s been hopped up with larger valves, bored cylinders, a welded crank, and hot cams. Fuel delivery comes via a quartet of Mikuni flat slide carbs and the exhaust mates custom headers to a Harris performance muffler.
Front-end handling is taken care of by an Öhlins Universal RWU 43 mm fork, rare Spondon twin brakes, and a Dymag wheel from Inman's personal parts stash. As for the rear end, the Magnum swingarm is supported by a made-to-measure Maxton shock and a matching Dymag rim. To fit everything to the bike, Inman enlisted the help of local CNC experts at Race Component Development, who are responsible for the custom triple clamps, brake mounts, battery box, race-style fuel filler, brackets for the oil cooler and tachometer, and more.
For the bodywork, Inman has used components from different era Harris kits and a few custom-made touches. The bike's tail hails from one of Harris' earliest kit bikes, the F1, and the saddle was reupholstered by local automotive tailors, Holy Goat. The shapely, endurance-style alloy tank is a late-model Harris Magnum item. And the race-number-style front fairing, with its off-center headlight, is a custom-made CNC part.
The bold yellow Harris frame is one of this bike's most striking features. It was this color when Inman purchased the bike and he admits he had no intention of leaving it that way. But after learning the previous owner's reason for selling the bike was because he had a terminal illness, he decided to leave it yellow in his honor.
Special thanks to Dice Magazine for help with photos and information.
Barnie Bowman 1946 H-D Knucklehead chopper
Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time" tells the tale of a man who builds a Cadillac using pilfered parts from different year models. In the song, the idea doesn't work out that well, but that certainly isn't the case with this custom motorcycle.
Barnie Bowman (Instagram) developed a passion for Harleys as a result of his father's own obsession with the bar and shield. After his father's passing, Barnie inherited his Dad's 1977 Super Glide and he's been riding and tinkering on Harleys ever since. Similar to Cash's tune, Barnie's latest Chopper is a Frankenstein creation built using parts he sourced over a couple of years, but unlike the Cadillac in the song, the result is a cohesive, 1960s-styled rolling work of art.
This chopper's defining feature is its 1946 Knucklehead V-twin motor. After Barnie got his hands on the engine, he rebuilt it with the help of his mate, Massey Bick, who has his own shop in western Virginia. As for the rest of the project, Barnie pieced it together in his modest "mini-moto shop" nine-by-20-foot shed.
The Knuckhead sits in a restored 1950 Panhead Wishbone frame. During its restoration, Barnie integrated the neck from a 1936 Knucklehead into it to keep its proportions "nice and tight." Delivering power to the rear end is a 1955 Panhead transmission and the wheels themselves are a 21-inch and 19-inch front and rear combo, built using shouldered alloy rims and star hubs. The springer fork is a Harley "peashooter" setup that was used on board-track racers in the 1920s. Barnie has heavily modified it to beef things up both visually and structurally.
Choppers are all about aesthetics and Barnie has invested plenty of time in making this one stand out. The gold flames are made from brass, which was painstakingly cut and shaped by hand. The carb cover was designed in 3D then printed and used to create a sandcast aluminium part. The sissy bar has been hand-bent from stainless steel bar and Barnie's even made little sand-cast pitbull heads for the valve stems as a hat tip to his beloved pooch. A repurposed vintage car tail light with LED internals forms the headlight and the tail light was made using a prism glass lens found on eBay. One of the only parts of the bike that Barnie didn't build or modify himself is the crushed velvet king and queen seat. It's the work of B&C Cycles, who used purple velvet to match the Nissan 240SX-inspired deep fuchsia pearl paintwork.
In "One Piece at a Time," Cash sings, "I'm gonna ride around in style, I'm gonna drive everybody wild. 'Cause I'll have the only one there is around." I think it's fair to say those words will ring true for Barnie.
Bolt Motor Co. #45 Triumph Speed Triple
Bolt Motor Co. (Instagram) of Valencia, Spain, is a powerhouse custom shop with an impressive portfolio of more than 60 builds. As you'd imagine, this means they have worked on all manner of motorcycle makes and models, but this bike is the first of its kind to pass through their doors. Wearing the build designation #45, this is Bolt's first custom Triumph Speed Triple.
One definition the dictionary applies to the word "rogue" is "a wild animal that lives apart from the herd and has savage or destructive tendencies." In many ways, the Triumph Speed Triple is a rogue. It was, at the time of its release, the only factory-built streetfighter on the market and when it came to performance it certainly didn't pull any punches. So when approaching this project, Bolt decided to emphasize their Speed Triple's roguish demeanor.
The donor for this project was a customer's fourth-generation 2006 Speed Triple 1050. To kick off the transformation, Bolt relieved the bike of its plastic-shrouded rear end and stock subframe. They then replaced it with an even shorter custom alternative, complete with a short bench-style seat.
Similar to the streetfighter craze that spawned the creation of the Speed Triple, Bolt has fitted this bike with rudimentary styled replacement parts. Slung under the subframe are a raw steel battery box and aluminium mesh side covers. The unorthodox front fender is raw steel, too, and there is a hugger at the rear which hosts the lighting and license plate. Up front are a pair of bug-eye lamps, which are an homage to the Speed Triple's iconic headlight configuration. Discrete aftermarket turn signals keep things street-legal and they're controlled by a Motogadget m-Unit.
At the request of the client, Bolt has added a touch of off-road styling to this road-going beast. An enduro handlebar positions the rider in a more upright position. The front and rear fenders sit high above the wheels. And, what is sure to be the most contentious part of this project, the wheels wear chunky Continental Twinduro TKC80 tires. Fitting that rubber to the bike was no walk in the park. To squeeze all that tread in they installed an Öhlins Race Spec fork, custom-made triple clamps, wider axles, and new bushings.
The Speed Triple's fuel tank remains stock but the paint is anything but. Finished in a vibrant satin orange and sporting fighter plane-esque shark teeth, it lets onlookers know this rogue of a bike means business.
