In the pursuit to create for you guys a quality website to make you laugh smile and cry, I’m realizing that we need more writers to create some good posts for the website to keep things fresh and add some new angles and perspectives for you to read.

Say with that can we sign you up yeah?

If you’d like to help please get in touch with how you think you can and anything you have done in the past, which by the way is not necessary, I don’t care if you’ve never done anything in the past all I ask for is someone with a reasonable grasp of the Queens English and a sense of humour!

WAIT!! Don’t go yet!

If you want to get involved please send an email to features@happychoppers.co.uk with the subject writer.

On top of that we would also like to hear from builders about what is in your shed maybe have your build as a feature on the site and do a feature and photoshoot when the bike is complete.

Finished Bikes, hot rods and anything else cool is always welcome!

Ta Mooch Moe!

The post Your Country Needs You!! well maybe not but I do…… appeared first on Happy Choppers.

The London Motorcycle show is one of the best shows in the country always a great day or weekend out if you can get it, it’s a bit different from the kind of show that I usually like to frequent, I’m more of a camping in a muddy field, drinking more than I probably should and looking at the bikes on offer kind of chap, but the MCN is a nice change of pace.

This years show will be held at London’s Excel Arena on the 13th 14th and 15th of February.

As usual this is more of an expo than a show, with pretty much every major motorcycle brand represented in the sea of trade stands, sneak peeks of bikes being released and much more, this year an interesting thing i would like to see is Richard Hammond and James May’s personal collection of bikes, now we all know these guys are into their classics but I’d like to see what they actually have.

This year is a little different for me as i can’t make it down (gutted) so if anyone reading would like to contribute and do a write up on the show after they have been please please get in contact with us on features@happychoppers.co.uk or me directly at moe@happychoppers.co.uk thanks much guys!

The post 2015 MCN London Motorcycle Show appeared first on Happy Choppers.

So something else that is new for 2015 is band and gig reviews, the original point of this website was around the biker scene but more so the lifestyle of the biker from the builds in the shed to the music and everything inbetween, so 2015 we will be bringing you lots of awesome reads to keep you busy whilst on the bog, so without further adieu we bring you…….. The Darkhorse.

On a cold friday night in January I wanted to get out and have a pint with some friends and get some metal in my face, the music kind not the usual fillings in my fingertips kind. So after a flick through on facebook I saw that there was a metal night not far from me at Kiln farm in Milton Keynes, and playing there on said evening were a band I’ve seen before and I know that I like, that band as the sharp among you have probably guessed was The Darkhorse so i decided that was my night sorted.

The Darkhorse are a 4 piece metal band (Doom / Sludge / Southern Grove / Sounds of NOLA is their own description) based out of the Rushden area of Northamptonshire and consist of: Barry Groome vocals/guitar Daniel Groome Vocals/bass Jamie Darnell Guitar and Mat Ward Drummer.
They have only been together just over a year and have pretty much gigged for that entire year, as well as being asked to play Bloodstock festival in august! Pretty huge in their first year of being a band.
They have also recorded an EP which they have released independently (of which i picked one up at a show with a t-shirt for a tenner! bargain!), they have been picked up by a management label and won an award for Best Live band of 2014 run by a promotional company, and are now booking up their diaries for 2015 as well as I’m reliably informed trying to get onto the bill at a bike festival!

So Back to the night in question, me and my chums arrived at Kiln Farm and were told that the entry was free and that 4 bands would be gracing the stage that evening! happy day’s! Elation was short lived though as I went to the bar and got a round in…. I really should get out more drinking cheap french stubbies in the workshop is warping my view on what a pint cost’s.

After the venue filled up a bit and the beverages started to flow the first and second of the bands took the stage and belted out solid sets which got the crowd juices flowing and raring to go and then it was the turn of The Darkhorse.
These guys came out in a flurry of hair and beard, it was quite magnificent to behold!
The set started off balls out, no messing around no fluff just boom and they began, Strong riffs, ballsy bass and hard crisp drumming set these guys apart, the rhythm and time in their songs is on point and changes often in songs making you feel what they are playing and not help but move your head, with a variety of tempo’s and guitar riff’s with their own sound all together this band really do have an enjoyable yet still hard/aggressive edge to their music, the guys at the front engaged well with the crowd and had us chanting and talking along with them.

I really like these guys and having seen them a few times will definitely be checking them out again, I would love to see them at a bigger venue with a larger crowd.

After the show the guys hung around and chatted with people as well as manning there merch stand, which consisted of T-shirts for a fiver, CD’s £5 and stickers, I got myself all three for under a tenner! and chatted with the guys a bit after!

Top band and nice guys, check em out!

The Darkhorse can be found by clicking the following:

Facebook www.facebook.com/thedarkhorseuk
soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/thedarkhorseuk

You can book the band for your venue/ wedding/ bah mitvah here:
To book the band contact Nick at forge artist relations on bookings@ForgeArtistRelations.co.uk,
BIKE SHOWS!! I’M TALKING TO YOU, GET THESE GUYS AT YOUR SHOW!!

Go see them folks and buy a t-shirt keep a band on the road!

here are some snaps of them in action

As usual folks, til next time peace

Photos courtesy of the darkhorse and credit to sean edwards (photographer)

The post Band review – The Darkhorse appeared first on Happy Choppers.

New for 2015 we are going to be bringing you some of our favourites bikes from around the place and picking a favourite to feature as bike of the month!

So without further a due we give you, Phil’s Harley!

So step right up contestant number!

Whats your name and where do you come from?

I’m Philip Moore, 29 and I’m from Belfast

It’s a lovely bike you have there mate, what made you want to build?

I grew up watching american chopper, and I loved all things motorbikes. I had several sports bikes but I always wanted to build my own bobber. I liked american chopper but I always thought the bikes they build were a bit to much for my taste. I like the nice simple looking old school bikes.

how long was the build start to finish?

It took me about a year in total from start to finish. I was only working on it when I had a spare minute between working full time and having a new baby about the house. I had planned to finish it for the early summer but I got meningitis and it put a bit of delay on everything.

Yeah meningitis will throw a bit of a spanner in the works? a side from that any other speed bumps?

I had a few issues with the engine mounts and fitting the engine in as the engine is offset to allow for the 200 rear at the back.

What made you choose the bobber style?

I love the older style with the large but not ridiculously large rear wheel. Legs out front hands up high nothing beats it when you are cruising along.

Couldn’t agree more mate, love a bit of wind in my beard haha, I love the gold detailing on the black ace of spades any significance there? or did you just like it?

I picked black and gold because I though it had a nice richness to it without being tacky. The Ace of spades with the 13 in it symbolizes the year the bike was born 2013. The Ace of spades had been used as the highest wanted card in the American army’s target list and from my point of view finishing my bike for 2013 was my target to achieve.

You recently won the bsh readers bike of the month, congratulations on that, and now gracing our humble pages! any plans to take the bike to shows this year? which ones?

Yeah I will take it to most of the shows here in the Northern Ireland circuit (Hog n Bog, Belfast Custom bike show etc) and possibly get across for the bulldog bash.

Bulldog bash is a good one we will be in attendance, I’d like to get to some Irish shows too, Any future plans for the bike?

Possibly want to put up swept exhausts on the bike but for now I am very happy with it and plan to enjoy taking it out this year.

Top man thanks for your time Phil get out and enjoy.

Well how about some picture’s of Phil’s bob? here you go!

From this…….


To this……

Well hopefully like us you find this bob an awesome bit of kit and hopefully one of many home grown bikes from some cracking builders around these fair isles!

If you’d like to have your bike featured then please contact features@happychoppers.co.uk

All the best folks and until next time thanks for reading!

Moe

All pictures are property of Philip Moore and content property of happy choppers inc.

The post Bike of the month, First one of 2015 Phil’s sleek Harley Bobber appeared first on Happy Choppers.

We have 3 bike builds to follow from scratch throughout the year, two rolling heavy style vans, we will be bringing you write ups on music and shows as well as feature bikes and cars, and all sorts of cool stuff and reviews that are getting our juices flowing!

So fair not we aren’t dead and we will be launching with gusto very soon!

The post New year! let’s crack on. appeared first on Happy Choppers.

With all the other bullspit going down with the daily the chopper build has taken a bit of a back seat and it’s about time to do some more on that, so a quick recap, the frame is down to bare bones and I’ve chopped off the rear sub frame, unbolted the swing arm, chopped off the two ugly top tubes and started cleaning up the brackets and do dads that I don’t need any more, next steps are fitting the new single top tube that I have made, and hard tailing.
Now for anyone that has done this before I have a couple of options,

1. make one from scratch.
Buy in the tubing, measure cut, bend and weld the back end exactly to my specification
pro’s, it’s completely custom, 100% made to my spec and probably the cheapest option in terms of off the bat lay out.
con’s, it takes along time to do and is a very involved process

2. buy a ready made weld in back end
pro’s, a lot less work than above, it’s all ready complete and ready to rock
Con’s, your not going to get much change from £200, and it’s not easily customisable

3. buy a kit
You can get ready bent and cut lengths of tubing and rear mounts for under £100
pro’s, probably the most cost effect way of achieving the goal. it’s fairly customizable too
Con’s, it’s still someone’s else’s design and available in pretty much one style so if it’s your style then your quids in if not then well, back to square one.

For me in particular I think option 3 is going to be the way forward and I will be purchasing it on Friday, so I will let Y’all no when I get it and do a picture have of fitting it!

The post Hardtail matters appeared first on Happy Choppers.

1.
The Ride: New Custom Motorcycles and Their builders

This book is an epic, one of my Favourites, it’s about the same size as the old testament, 320 pages to be more accurate.
It’s 320 pages of the best bikes built from around the planet with amazing photography and profiles of some of the best builders around the globe.
If your looking for technical info, this book won’t be for you, however if you want a book crammed with awesome bikes and more bike porn than you can shake a stick at, then this is an absolute must for you shelf. The only gripe with this one is it has a pretty hefty price tag, but hey! it’s christmas treat yourself!

2.
Cafe Racers:Speed Style and Ton-up Culture

A great reference book on cafe racer’s, it has a great blend of the history of cafe racer’s and features a load of pictures from the great Micheal Lichter, one of the best photographers of custom motorcycle’s in the business, like “the ride” this is not a know how book, it’s more of the best cafe’s out there and the chaps that have built them, another great read and I particularly loved the history section, for a young gun like me that wasn’t around in the 60’s it was definitely an eye opener and made me appreciate the style a lot more.

3.
How to Build a Bobber on a Budget by Jose Di Miguel

Now the above two books are not how to manuals, more nice to look at, this one however is. Now you probably gathered the theme of the book by the title, well there are a lot of books on this subject (or very similar ones) but very few stay true to the “budget” section, recommending frankly ludicrously expensive practices and not really telling you how to do things, this book however does what it says on the tin, it’s very comprehensive and easy to follow with great tips on getting started, cost saving and full building. The point of bobbers etc was, make what you can from what you have, this book stays true to that. This book has motivated friends of mine that aren’t builders to get started, and also gave me my recent kick up the chuff to get going with the “bit of a div” build (see blog to follow)

4.
Billy Lane’s How to build old school choppers

Another how to guide, this book is chocca with great info and inspirational pic’s, it is one of my go to’s for information when i hit a speed bump on a build, from one of my favourite builders Billy lane, this book covers building of a few different styles and is a good read too, my only complaint with it is sometimes it can be a bit excessive and tends to forget that the majority of us home builders aren’t building a bike for a T.V show, or the best in show at sturgess award, however with that being said it’s still a great read.

5.
Custom Bike Building Basics: Tips and Tricks for the Backyard Garage Mechanic

I use this book alot, it lives in the workshop and goes into a bit more detail than the other how to’s i’ve read, almost a generic haynes manual on ground up building. The other thing that sets this book aside from other step by step build books is that it is aimed at the hobbyist, which is a refreshing approach! From the fine folks at the US based Cycle Source Magazine (can be found here http://www.cyclesource.com/ ) it is well written in an easy reading magazine style (I know shock horror but hopefully you follow!)
Looks best open on the bench covered in oily fingerprints, well mine does anyway.

6.
Indian Larry: Chopper Shaman

I effin loved this book, i lost my copy at some point this year and i was pretty pissed when i found out, so if any readers want to buy me a christmas present i want say know! The man, the legend, the shaman indian larry, this book covers his remarkable life, the bank robber, the drug addict, the outlaw biker.
This man is also a genius of the bike building world and inspired some of the best builders in the land, in his words he didn’t build bikes, he created rolling art. Unlike the other books i’ve featured this one is more of a man, the bikes are a relatively small part of the man, read this book you will not be disappointed.

7.
50 shades trilogy

Dog shit.

The post Biker Books! Because we’re a sophisticated bunch appeared first on Happy Choppers.

It’s that time again folks, jack frost is starting to rear his ugly head, the heavens are opening and it’s time to put the summer gear away for the foreseeable! Here though is a nifty little trick by those dry guys Nikwax.

If like me, you don’t want a pair of gloves for sun, for hot days, for light showers, for snow, for cold blah blah blah well with Nikwax glove proof you don’t need to, My intention when I bought this was to waterproof my summer textile gloves, now I should say they are in no way waterproof, at all in fact, but after a coat of this stuff? well lets find out?
Well i used it and as if the weather gods were on my side (or not depends how you look at it) it rained 2 days later! get in! and i must add, after the 45 minute ride in the rain my hands are dry! my jeans are soaked but that’s a story for another time.
The stuff itself was pretty fiddly to apply, my gloves have leather palms and leather in between the fingers so I wasn’t really sure how much was enough, so i went with the slap it on approach, which meant they took and ages to dry (overnight), but that could have been my mistake for being a bit over zealous.

Bang for Buck
At least than a Lady Godiva to waterproof your gloves is pretty dang good

Eye Candy
Doesn’t really apply for this one, it dries clear and you wouldn’t know it’s on there (visually)

Quality
It does everything it claims to, so no complaints here

Ease of use
This was the area that lost me a bit, it reminded me of cleaning my shoes when I was a kid before going to my nans birthday bash, and it was a little vague on how much I should slap on, but having said that, fill in the blanks yourself and you get Open bottle- squeeze stuff onto gloves – let it dry. so yeah I guess its pretty straight forward.

Happy Choppers Reckons
Well if you don’t think dry, warm  hands is worth a fiver you should probably have a word with yourself, freak…

The post Nikwax glove proof appeared first on Happy Choppers.

I start to strip the old engine down, and as I suspected, straight off the bat I’m seeing what’s gone wrong, the cam over the number three cylinder is chewed and cam followers are well and truly battered, so orrrf with his head! that’s when I can see the real damage, the valves have been bent leaving the valves pointing side ways into the cylinders, perfectly placed for the piston to hammer against them and shatter, thus bending the con-rod into a nice right angle to claw up and down the cylinder liner causing that in turn to shatter too….. awesome.

Now that I have the motor stripped right down to the short block, pistons out and sump off, I can see right through the inner works of the block, crankshaft and gear box and it’s all kinds of ugly in there, some big ole chunks of piston clanging about, but more concerning, little bits and some so fine it’s basically grit, so now I have a conundrum, do I spend more money still on another engine?, do I buy another block and carry on as planned? or do I finally give in, stop throwing money at a dying cause?

Well dear friends I think its finally time to call it, she’s done, time to turn the machine off. It’s not an easy decision but to be honest as you’ve probably read before, I probably should of done it a while ago, I think I’ve been hanging on purely because I can, I can fix it, I probably still could, but at what point do you draw the line? can I fix it? sure I could, but is it worth another £100 and a million man hours stripping the gear box down and getting the cillit bang on it until it’s cleaner than a choir boys cock? nope. so that’s it decision made, done.

Within hours she’s stripped of anything worth keeping for the chopper and pictures taken of the other parts to go on the bay of e, so that’s it then the div is dead, I’m not sure how to take it, one thing is for sure, I’m definitely in mourning, if anyone wants me I’ll be in the shed….

The post well, that folks is all she wrote appeared first on Happy Choppers.

One week on from that decision and I’m weighing up my options, I’ve contacted a fella I know up north and he just so happens to have an engine for sale! belter! what are the chances of that! “£60 and it’s your’s”, excellent, I’ll be up Monday night to get it.

Now that gives me a day to strip the Div and get the motor out, it’s relatively straight forward on the xj600s the only pain is on the newer ones (98< my one) is they have an inter-cooler and the pipes for that get right in the way, but I’ve whipped a few motors out in my time so I wasn’t particularly phased, here is how I do it: First, get some WD and empty that bastard on every nut you can think of that is exposed to mother nature and the roads, most importantly exhaust studs (you don’t want to break these!) and engine mounts (same goes for these) Second, off comes everything, take out the battery (your gunna be playing with wires) tank off, carbs and inlets off, fuel pumps and lines off, exhaust manifolds off, unplug everything electrical and label it if your unsure, HT leads off, chain off, I think that’s it off the top of my head, but use your loaf, have a look at the bike see if you can see anything that will potential stop your engine sliding gracefully out. Third, unload the engine, what that means is take a jack (I use a flat piece of wood too to spread the weight) put that under your engine, lift until it just touches then give it a little tweak, you just want it to take the weight not lift the bike up. undo the engine mounts and viola, it should be loose in the frame. Fourth, carefully manoeuvre the motor out, some people like to lay the bike down and lift the frame off, letting gravity do it’s thing, but I’ve never had much luck this way, I just moved it as far forward as it would go, lifted it so the sump cleared the frame and pushed, out it came piece of cake. So off I pop for a jolly up the M1 to go and fetch the new engine for the Div, at this point I’m thinking “I’ve got a couple of hours tomorrow evening, I could have this in, at least tomorrow maybe even running,” when my phone rings, it’s the seller, now I should explain that the seller is not a bike guy, he uses these parts for boats and such, so he is fairly mechanically minded but not all that clued up when it comes to bikes, “I can’t get the rear engine mount bolt out mate”, Right so the motor I’m on my way to pick up is still in a bike, perfect. “you need to take the weight of it bud, it’s the main load bearing bolt” After a little back and forth, I tell him to hold fire I have a friend with me and we’ll get it out, “just dowse it in WD and leave it for me”, it’s not a big job I explain to my mate, I’ve already done it today, “it’ll be half hour tops getting it out from there” famous last words. So me and my buddy mat rock up at the seller’s house and get to it, I must say too that this guys has a serious garage attached to his house, all the gear, floor mats, awesome lights, the works so it could be worse, we could be having to do it on someone’s drive way in the dark. After the pleasantries we get to it, only to find that said bolt had been hacked and chopped to pieces, Grrrrreat! None of these hacks however had managed to go all the way through, it was an absolute mess, after a while of trying to figure out how to back peddle the other guys mistakes, we concluded it was hopeless, we were on a time crunch, it was getting late and we still had a couple of hours to drive to get home, neither of us were planning to be out this late on a school night! So the only option was to chop it out and figure it out with fresh eyes, after talking that through with the seller and getting the green light to chop his frame up (he did try to sell me said frame that i was about to take a grinder to!) it was in the car and we were on the way home. The next day we got to have a proper look, the chopped bolt was a mess, after finishing chopping it out we discovered it had seized in one side, the other side slide straight out to reveal a nice hole in the crank case where they had tried levering against it, not to worry though, mat is a cracking welder and can patch that up no drama, then the bombshell, we discover a hair line crack running right up the block, from the sump right up the side of the seized up mount right to the top, bummer….. The block is useless, even if you weld that up (presuming you can) you would throw the mounts out of line, the work that would involve to save that block is incredible, no easy fix here then, the devil bike strikes again! Back to square one I’m starting to think this bike doesn’t want to be fixed!

The post A little update on the div appeared first on Happy Choppers.