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Words and Pictures Reproduced with the kind permission of Blue,& Yoda..Back Street Heroes |
RIDE OF THE VALKYRIE There is a legend in Norse mythology that if you see a Valkyrie before a battle you will die in the fighting. So, if you’re thinking of going out on the town this weekend, I suggest you either skip the next few pages or stay home with a nice mug of Horlicks and the omnibus edition of ‘Bargain Hunt’. Although Honda may produce some of the finest bikes in the world, whoever is in charge of Naming of Motorcycles has a tenuous grip on Scandinavian legend. It probably seemed like a good idea in 1997 to name its new Gold Wing-derived cruiser the ‘Valkyrie’. But it immediately presented the world with two problems; firstly, how |
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did you spell it? And secondly, how did you pronounce it? Aside from all that, it was also somewhat inaccurate. The word ‘valkyrja’ in Old Norse translates as ‘chooser of the slain’ and, in legend, the Valkyries were maidens who selected which warriors on a battlefield would be killed. As compensation for being hacked to death, the warriors would be escorted to Valhalla, the hall of heroes, and served mead. The Valkyries are usually depicted as beautiful, blue-eyed blondes in scarlet corsets, which must have also been a bit of a bonus. The chief Valkyrie was the goddess, Freya, who travelled in a chariot drawn by cats, so any hero with asthma or an allergy to felines had to hope that such ailments wouldn’t affect them in the afterlife. So, we must assume that Honda’s Namer of Motorcycles either hadn’t boned up on his Norse folklore properly or was possessed of a very dry sense of humour, for it is difficult to imagine a motorcycle with less resemblance to a slender, blonde demi-goddess than the Valkyrie. Tipping the scales at nearly 700lbs, with a 1500cc flat six engine, everything on the standard Valkyrie – from the starter button to the fuel tank – is oversized. On the face of it, not the obvious choice of bike to customise. |
But then again, Mick and Helen Clarke’s Valkyrie was never intended to be a custom bike. They had previously owned a Harley Fat Boy on which they spent a month touring Europe, and Mick had then decided he wanted a V-Max. But, when he sat on one in a showroom, a brave salesman had the courage to say, “Um, doesn’t reallysuit you, sir…” Mick and Helen also had to accept that, much as they liked Yamaha’s muscle bike, it wasn’t suitable for touring. Although they hadn’t considered one, once they’d both sat on a Valkyrie, they realised it would be ideal for what they wanted – a big, reliable, comfortable cruiser – and promptly swapped the Fat Boy for a fat Honda. |
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That was way back in 2000, and Mick and Helen already had a custom bike, the infamous Tribal Vision. They intended that the Valkyrie would be an ideal back-up, a standard bike for those times when it wouldn’t be practical to use Tribal Vision. As it turned out, they used Tribal Vision far more often than the Honda (and when they did, everyone would ask “Why didn’t you come on your custom bike?”) and, although I’d heard tell of the Valkyrie, I’d begun to doubt that it really existed. Although Mick planned to keep the Honda more or less stock, there were one or two things he wanted to change. He had hated the exhaust system from the first moment he saw it but, as Cobra had announced its plans to produce a 6-into-6, this didn’t seem like an insuperable problem. As it turned out, the Cobra system never went into production and the original pipes stayed on the Valkyrie in the garage while Mick and Helen clocked up the miles on first Tribal Vision, and subsequently its successor, Extreme Vision. Now, this is where I hold my hands up and take a little of the blame for the transformation story. I knew that Mick wanted to make a few minor alterations to the bike so, when two or three years ago, a certain Vic Jefford decided to start his own business I surreptitiously shuffled between the two of them, saying to one, “I know this bloke who’s brilliant at bike building…” and “I know this bloke who wants some work doing on his bike…” to the other. (Look, you work out which way round it was). Then I introduced them. And ran away. I knew that Mick had very exacting standards, and that Vic’s work is some of the best you’ll ever see, but recommending people can be fraught with danger if it all goes wrong. |
I will make another admission – or rather, two. I knew it wouldn’t go wrong, but I also knew it wouldn’t go exactly as Mick had expected. Mick and Helen invited Vic and his partner, Lin, down to Clarke Mansions for the weekend, most of which was occupied with discussing plans for the Valkyrie. If Mick thought he was just going to get a new exhaust system and a few frilly bits he was sorely mistaken. I knew that. Vic knew that. I’m fairly certain that Mick didn’t… So when Destiny Cycles opened for business in October 2001, the Valkyrie was shipped up to North Yorkshire and Vic had his first paying customer. Apart from new exhausts, Mick had a list of other modifications he wanted. He gave Vic a small budget and uttered the fateful words, “Do what you can for that”. I knew what that would mean. Vic knew what it would mean. Mick was 175 miles away. However, by the time the Clarkes made their first trip north to see how work was progressing, light was starting to dawn that this might |
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be more major surgery than quick makeover. That the Valkyrie had been completely stripped down was a clue. Again Mick emphasised that he didn’t want the bike taken too far away from stock – and let him get on with it. His insistence that the Valkyrie should not turn into a full-blown custom is understandable when you know that Vic was also building Charlie’s radical Twin Cam beastie (from the cover of BSH223) at the same time. Just once or twice Mick must have wondered whether, on his next visit, he would find himself the proud – if somewhat bemused – owner of a hardtailed, goosenecked Valkyrie chopper with girder forks and a six-foot sissy bar. Staying within his remit (that translates as ‘Vic! Don’t go over the top!’) Vic re-used or modified many of the standard Honda parts, even if they hadn’t come from that particular Valkyrie. The original petrol tank had a custom paint job, so Mick and Helen didn’t want it chopped about. Instead it went into their loft while Vic found another accident-damaged tank. He then cut it into three sections and re-assembled it to be eight inches longer and three inches higher than stock. While the forks are standard Valkyrie, they’ve been polished and now sit in one-off yokes that feature 5 degrees of extra rake. The headlight is also a one-off, carved out of finest billet left over from a kitchen-building job of Mick’s, and houses two car spotlights, converted for dip and high beams. Although the front mudguard came with the Valkyrie, it now sits on elegant filigree brackets. To convince him, Vic cut one side first to show Mick the contrast between the original and the modified. When it came to the back end, though, Vic had to do a powerful job of persuasion. By now, 2002 was well-established, which was more than the rear end of the bike was. The first idea of a simple cut-down job was soon abandoned, and the mudguard and other parts found themselves being re-used to make the bodywork. Mick and Helen made regular trips to Yorkshire, checking on progress, taking him cheese, getting him banned from his local pubs… During one of these visits Vic casually suggested that a new swinging arm might look rather well, but Mick was far from certain. Just when he’d made up his mind up that he would stick with the stock item, he walked into Vic’s workshop and saw the billet swinging arm he’d just finished … Sold to the man with his jaw on the floor. |
It was a similar story when Vic proposed monoshocking the bike. By now Mick really shouldn’t have been surprised to find that it had already been done. Vic had also already roadtested it to check that everything worked, and worked well, although people usually lose interest in the engineering details and adopt expressions of admiration when they hear that Vic took the bike down the road at 100mph – without a seat. A few of us were once pondering the logistics and discomfort involved in this method of testing, when Tigger interrupted and patiently explained the reasons for it. ‘It’s because Vic has a bum like a tuning fork. If he rode the bike with the seat on he wouldn’t be able to feel what it was doing.” She didn’t quite add ‘any fule kno that’, but we’d already been struck dumb by the idea of Vic having a bum like a tuning fork. Like all of Destiny Cycles’ projects, the Valkyrie has many one-off touches that aren’t immediately obvious. Take, for example, the pointed detailing at the bottom of the engine bar, or the alarm lights that have been cunningly fitted into the top of the headlight so that, at night, they look like two red dragon eyes. But the exhaust system is instantly noticeable. Instead of the lardy originals (inspired by the scaffold pole school of exhaust design), the bike now putters out of six short pipes with turned-out ends that are vaguely reminiscent of the pipes on a Spitfire. Although the new system is a huge departure . |
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from the original, Mr Jefford done good. Not only does it sound lovely, but when the bike was dyno tuned the exhaust system was pronounced absolutely spot-on. The positioning of the exhausts, though, meant that the sidestand had to be moved from the left to the right side, something which Mick does remember. Most of the time Vic made a new engine bar to match the exhaust, something of which, several months later, Mick and Helen would be very glad. A car cut too close to them, clipping Mick’s arm and sending them careening into the side of the road. Fortunately, the engine bar jammed against the kerb, bringing the bike to a sudden halt and holding it upright without too much harm to Honda or Mick and Helen. If the bike had gone down not only would it have resulted in far more damage all round, but, as Mick concedes, he’d never have been able to pick the Valkyrie up again! |
Following in the tyre tracks of Mick and Helen’s previous two bikes the bodywork for the Honda (by now officially christened ‘Destiny’s Vision’) was shipped off to Percy at Badbrush Designs. Vic and Lin brought all the parts down to Percy’s Derbyshire studio, and were introduced to the splendid young artist for the first time. Considering that Percy has subsequently painted every one of Destiny’s bike, I think we can conclude that it was quite a successful meeting. Mick and Helen briefed Percy with a few ideas (mainly inspired by tattoo designs) and then let him run with them. As they had come to expect, they got far more than they’d ever imagined. The final job was to have a seat made by Outback Seating (unlike Vic, Mick does not regard his posterior as a tuning instrument and insists on a modicum of comfort). Outback upholstered the asymmetric seat in leather and added detailing in either ostrich or lizard pattern, depending on whether you speak to Mick or Helen |
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| and how big an argument you want. Suffice to say, it looks like something other than cow. Mick picked the bike up from Outback late one night and rode it home – the first time he had ridden the modified beast. He was pleased to find that it still handled just like a Valkyrie, and still had all of the lazy, assured smoothness of the standard model. Although the ‘one or two jobs’ had taken longer than expected, Mick and Helen had to wait a while more before they could unleash Destiny’s Vision on the world. Vic might have made many trick modifications, but he hadn’t built one that would enable the Valkyrie to be ridden by someone with a broken foot. That was the one mod which Mick could well have done with after he fell off of some |
scaffolding one day. It was time that Mick and Helen have since made up for, adding some 4000 miles to the odometer during 2003 and, as you might expect, winning all sorts of tinware. One of the trophies of which Helen is proudest was from the Valkyrie Owners Club. The judges of the VOC took one look at the pillion seat and immediately honoured her with the ‘Iron Butt’ trophy, although, given his testing methods, I think that’s an award that really belongs to Vic Jefford. words: BLUE |
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