Zero and the Art of Motorcycle Building
Zeroesque – from a bar hopper to a show
winner. When it came to building a new bike Paul Beamish planned
on having a ratty
bike he could ride to the bar on, the only problem is he got
a bit carried away. The end result was a bike that placed fifth
in
the European Championship of Custom Bike Building.
Like a lot of custom builds, Zeroesque began with parts that were
sitting around the workshop in need of a home. Paul Beamish, the
owner of Krazy Horse Custom Cycles (KHCC) had been thumbing through
some copies of the Japanese custom bike magazine Vibes when he
came across the work of Japanese custom builder Shinya Kimura of
Zero Engineering, which gave him the inspiration for this build.
The starting point for Zeroesque was the motor from a 1977 Ironhead
Sportster, along with its matching four-speed gearbox. It was used
partly because it was available and partly, “because no-one
else builds custom bikes around them and we wanted to do something
different.” The engine has only been lightly modified. The
starter motor has been removed and the timing cover cut up and
remodelled. As a result of the later the engine’s oil lines
were remade in brass and exposed in all their glory. Carburetion
is taken care of by a Rivera supplied SU carb and matching manifold
and the exhaust leaves the engine via a KHCC fabricated set of
pipes.
The frame which cradles the motor is a one-off, rigid gooseneck
design from CCD, which features 45 degrees of rake. In order to
confuse H-D aficionados some surplus lugs were designed into the
frame by the rear axle mounts.
Finishing touches on the frame include the handmade, nickel plated
fender struts forged by a friend of Paul’s, Pete Baker. Pete
was also responsible for the kickstand, headlamp bracket and forward
controls. The fender itself was sourced from Chica Custom Cycles.
With regards to the rest of the bodywork the gas tank came via
W&W in Germany, with the oil tank being sourced from Custom
Chrome.
The use of a set of Zodiac Springers further helps to create the
illusion of a vintage bike, an illusion that is helped by the frame
and forks being painted to match in a very subtle shade of green
by Ty at Pageant. He was also responsible for the pinstriping and
the KHC logos on the tank.
Sitting atop of the forks are a pair of outrageously wide bars
that draw attention to the bike wherever it goes. They were not
initially intended to be like this. Paul explains what happened: “I
got a set of bars from W&W with the intention of cutting and
bending them to suit once the build was finished. I just put them
on at first to make it easier to wheel the bike around the workshop
while we were building it and I kinda got used to them, so they
stayed.”
Two hundred year old Yew was turned into three grips by Oz, a kitchen
fitter, with the third fitted to the suicide shifter. The top of
the shifter grip has a digital speedo set into it, while the clutch
lever also attached to the shift lever holds the hi/low headlamp
beam and horn buttons.
Further accentuating the Old School look of the bike is the wheel
and tire choice. At the front a ‘40s H-D drum brake hub was
laced up to a 16x3.5in rim, while at the back the same sized rim
was laced to a H-D Sportster drum hub. Tires at both ends are Avon
Speedmasters.
Zeroesque’s seat is based on a W&W unit. However, it
was recovered in leather supplied by UK-based classic helmet manufacturer
Davida. The color of the leather on the seat matches the lining
of the Davida helmet Paul had sprayed to match the bike.
One final and unique touch, which finishes Zeroesque off is the
ignition key. The standard unit has been modified with the addition
of a brass badge from ‘The Guild of Master Cellarmen’ which
was acquired from Krazy Horse Custom Cycles local bar – The
Kings Arms.
Taking fifth place at the European Championship of Custom Bike
Building this year in Mainz, Germany was a double celebration for
Paul, as his business is celebrating its 10th anniversary, or as
the company states on its website “KHCC has grown from the
proverbial shed to the great and shiny toy box you find today.”
Meeting
up with Paul in Mainz, AMD took the opportunity of finding out
from him how his Bury St Edmonds-based company and the British
bike scene have changed over the years and what the future holds
for both.
History plays an important part in Paul’s involvement with
bikes. In the 1920s his grandfather and grandmother ran a garage
and rode a Norton and a Triumph. Paul has a picture of the Norton
with fenders converted to make leg-guards which he describes as: “An
early form of European customizing. Though we’ve no plans
to do them now!”
He got his first bike aged 16 when he took to the roads aboard
a bright green Honda CB50J. Paul stuck with Japanese bikes until
1989 when his girl friend at that time, who was into Harley-Davidsons
and Brit bikes, took him to look at an ’82 Electraglide. “It
was the worst bike I’d ever ridden. It didn’t like
corners, the brakes were rubbish, it didn’t accelerate, but
I still bought it, and I’ve still got it. Though the girlfriend
has gone!”
This exposure to the idiosyncrasies of Harley-Davidsons, made a
deep impression on Paul, but the main catalyst for the start of
Krazy Horse Custom Cycles was a blown head gasket. He had been
to the Super Rally with his friend Steve whose bike blew a head
gasket on the way home. As they were unable to find anywhere locally
to buy a replacement, they decided to do something about rectifying
the supply problem. Fortunately, Paul already knew Paul Timpson
of Zodiac UK. So he and Steve approached Paul with a view to getting
a trade account to start a small business. In fact, when Krazy
Horse started it was based in some spare space in a friend’s
business premises and only opened evenings and weekends.
Around the time that KHCC started up, an official Harley-Davidson
dealer also opened nearby. This has proved useful for Paul and
his staff. “It puts a lot of bikes in the area. Though there
has always been a lot of Harleys in the area with the [U.S. Airforce]
bases around us. When we started, despite the historical number
of Harleys around here, there was no one supplying aftermarket
or custom parts.”
After five years Krazy Horse Custom Cycles
moved to its current high street premises. Then, 2-1/2 years ago,
Paul bought out his
partner and took sole control of the business.
Paul says of KHCC: “The aim of the shop is and always has
been to be the best custom shop in East Anglia.” Aiding him
to do this is a staff of six; three people in the workshop and
three front of shop. One of those front of shop staff is Sue Sawyer,
the business manager.
“It’s beneficial having Sue as the manager, she lightens up
the whole environment. It makes the shop a less intimidating place
for women to come to.” Such forward thinking is typical of
KHCC and goes some way to explaining why they are currently so
busy. As Paul explains: “We try to have a shop that has no
attitude. We have fun, we like riding the bikes, we don’t
have an attitude.”
What they do have is a sharp sense of marketing.
One such example is managing to get a display of their bikes in
the backstage area
at 2005’s Download Festival. The photography from the event
provided a lot of exposure to people who would not normally come
across KHCC builds.
Paul considers the Poacher line of clothing to be a great marketing
tool and it only started as a joke. When a former member of Krazy
Horse’s workshop staff went to work for a local H-D dealer,
the dealer posted a message on its website saying it was “a
case of the poacher turning gamekeeper.” Paul got his own
back on them by having Poacher T-shirts made up for the KHCC staff
to wear at a local bike event. The reaction to the shirts was so
great that Paul ended up introducing them as a stock line in the
shop, a line which has now expanded to a range of clothing.
The clothing is also a branding tool that draws interested parties
into the shop. “I’d like to sell to people who are
younger than the traditional H-D owners by being a little more
funky, a little different,” Paul says, adding that this hook
often leads to further involvement with this demographic.
Certainly, not being traditional when it comes to bike builds has
been a big help. “We’re doing a lot of Sportsters,
and get a lot of women customers who have got Sportsters and who
like them but no one else is building bikes based on them.
“
There’s a lot of potential in the UK. You’ve got your
traditional riders, the newer ‘HOG’ type riders and
then there’s the potential with jaded Japanese sports bike
riders looking for something a little different. The TV coverage
of US custom builders has had a big influence on bringing these
new riders to us. The type of riders I’m talking about are
the type who got back in to bikes around 10 years ago when the
sports bike boom really took off. Now they’re looking for
something different. They no longer want or need hyper fast sports
bikes. Yet nor do they want traditional H-D chops.”
The bikes these new customers are looking for are, as far as Paul
is concerned, typical of a new European style of bike building,
which is more aggressive and sports influenced. He sites the work
of Marcus Waltz as being archetypal of this new style and it is
an influence which can be seen in Krazy Horse’s workshop.
At the time of writing the company had a V-Rod in having a supercharger,
wide tire kit and new bodywork fitted.
Paul sees a great deal of potential with V-Rods: “They are
probably the right bike for the UK. If there’s a bike in
the H-D range that a Japanese sports bike rider would possibly
move to it’s the V-Rod. It’s an opportunity for us
to expand our market, not diminish it.”
That is not to say that Paul and the KHCC team are going to concentrate
solely on V-Rods. ”We don’t have just one style because
we like all kinds of stuff. We’ve seen a change in what customers
want. It’s partly driven by the exposure US shops like Orange
County Choppers are getting on the TV and a lot of it’s partly
driven by the influence of the UK hot rod and car customising scene,
guys who were building rods are now building bikes and there’s
a real swing towards Old School styling.
“Bespoke stuff is what we’re about, but if a customer bought
a kit bike to us, we’d build it to our usual standard, treating
it as a one off. We want to produce good bikes that look good and
work well. That’s why we’re not the cheapest. If I
see a bike out there that we’ve built I want it to look the
nuts, whether it’s a kit bike, a conversion we’ve done
for someone, a big rear wheel conversion, a Sportster in a Softail
frame or a complete bike, the quality should be the same.
“Hopefully the success of Zeroesque at the European Championships
will increase recognition of the shop and the work we do here.
We’d like to build more bikes like that for customers. But
we also want to support the local guys who are working on Shovelheads,
45s, bikes that are around the local area and need parts. That’s
the roots of the business and we want to keep that.
“And for the next 10 years we want to keep on building nice bikes
and having fun! That might sound silly but we do this because we
enjoy it and we have fun out of it. We build the bikes we like
and we ride the bikes we build.”
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