PRECIOUS METAL
CUSTOM NORTONS, FULL-ON CUSTOM NORTONS, BE THEY OLD BRACEBRIDGE STREET ONES OR NEW DONINGTON (OR EVEN NEWER SOLIHULL) BIKES, AREN’T EXACTLY THE MOST RUN-OF-THE-MILL THINGS, ARE THEY? THERE’RE ONE OR TWO CHOPS WITH BRACEBRIDGE MOTORS, AND A FEW CAFÉ RACERS, BUT ON THE WHOLE THEY DON’T TEND TO GET THE CUSTOM TREATMENT AS MUCH AS, SAY, BSAS OR TRIUMPHS.
There are a few people who do stuff with ’em, though, and 72 Motorcycles, the brainchild of renowned photographer Merry Michau, and Jamie Ireson, are one such outfit. They’ve kind o’ made a name for themselves building flat-track style Donington Nortons (see them on Facebook or Instagram) with a particular no-nonsense look. This article, though, isn’t really about them per se, it’s about a bike they built that’s been reworked by someone else.
A guy named Jason bought one of their bikes, and immediately toko it over to Down & Out Motorcycles in Rotherham to have it reworked into something slightly more road-friendly (and riderfriendly too), leaving Carl and the lads there with a quite open set of instructions, happy for them to work their magic over it in the same way as they’ve done on countless Triumphs over the last few years. That, pretty much, entailed them pulling it to pieces and reworking the whole thing…
The 961 engine was left near-as-dammit as was as 72’d used its expertise to get it running just so, although D&O did make a new set of high-level exhausts that give the bike more of a street-scrambler feel (the look Jason was after), and made a new and very neat little oil cooler to keep the engine running a little more happily on hotter days. The frame was modified slightly to make it a little more conducive to Tarmac turns, but the front and back ends were left alone (mostly) as they were good as they were. The forks, you see, are reassuringly expensive Ohlins that take radial Brembos, and they’re painted now in black (from gold) to fit in with the look, and a new top yoke was made by the respected Fastec Racing (the bottom one’s a 72 Motorcycles item), while both wheels (and the tyres too), were changed an’ all. They’re Kineo spokers and Heidenau K60s respectively, and the bike now also wears a Bates-style h’light rather than one of 72’s projector/number-board ensembles. The rear shocks are also Ohlins, but you can see that, can’t you?
Down & Out also made and fitted a front mudguard, and offered up a new ’un at the back, and made a slimmer, more in-keeping seat with LED strip rear light. The alloy tank that 72’d made got a new Monza-style cap, and drowned in a wonderfully deep black with chrome-look stripes and graphics by Arnie at Pro Kustom Paint, as did just about everything else wot is noir, and the bits that need to look as buff as the arse of a policeman’s trousers were repolished, too. The bike was finished around three years ago, and delivered to Jason who absolutely fell in love with it. It sounded crisp and evil, due in large part to 72’s expertise with these motors, and the Down & Out ’pipes too, and rode really well on its stateof-the-art suspenders and on/offroad Heidenaus (which, if you run at around 20-25psi, grip like excrement to an old-fashioned bed covering, despite their take-no-prisoners appearance). The massive Brembos’d happily stand it on its nose with nary a touch, and the whole look was a little more road-bike subtle than the race-ready flat-trackers 72’re famous for.
Jase rode it around for the next few years (as and when he could when Covid hit), and then did a deal with James from The Bike Specialist in Sheffield who was looking for something to replace the custom Triumph he’d just got rid of. The bike now lives in The Bike Specialist’s airy loft among myriad pristine classics and ultra-desirable Ducatis, and holds its own against such exotica, too – it looks a little, to quote the founder of this ’ere magazine Steve Myatt, like a predatory hawk amongst a flock of sparrows: lean, lithe, understated, menacing even in its black livery. If you go to their premises (which, if you’re ever up Sheffield way, is well worth a look for the drool factor alone), you won’t miss it… well, unless James is out on it, of course, which, as soon as the weather gets a little less Baltic, I’m sure he will be.