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Words and Pictures Reproduced with the kind permission of Blue,Mike Prior & Simon Everett..Back Street Heroes |
It is said that most of the world’s history has been created on horseback. This country has turned under the hooves of the horse for all but the last century: horses ploughed the land, pulled the stagecoach and the wagon, carried the soldier, the constable and the highwayman alike. The machines of the Industrial Revolution may have transformed the process of manufacturing, but goods would have rotted in the new factories were it not for the horse on the road or the canal towpath. The horse has accompanied man throughout history, but where there are men there will, at some point, be war, and when man went to war, so did the horse. While cavalry units still exist, albeit using horses only for ceremonial purposes, it is less than ninety years since the British Army deployed |
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horses at the battlefront. Great Britain’s first military engagement of the Great War was a mounted attack near Mons in August 1914. Although the horrors of trench warfare, machine guns and barbed wire meant that horses were used primarily as a form of transport (my great grandfather looked after the horses and mules at Gallipoli), senior military personnel on both sides were slow to relinquish the age-old belief in the supremacy of the cavalry attack. As late as March 1918 British officers ordered a cavalry charge against the Germans; of the 150 horses that galloped towards the enemy lines, all but four were cut down by the German machine guns. But there is one image more than any other that embodies the horse at war, an image that has survived in the myth of St George, through the words of Shakespeare’s Richard III crying ‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’, in the romanticised fiction of the Victorian novel and the fictional romance of the Hollywood film. Bearing a knight in armour into battle or joust, its hooves thundering beneath its bright caparison, breath snorting through the armoured chamfron protecting its head … this is the war horse. |
This quintessentially English image was the inspiration for War Horse, the latest creation from the Destiny Cycles’ stable. It should be pointed out at once that the idea of War Horse has nothing to do with the sentimental inclination of (primarily American) bikers to refer to motorcycles as ‘steel’ or ‘iron horses’; War Horse was built for Lin, one half of Destiny Cycles, who has spent many years working with horses, and so wanted her latest bike to reflect that part of her life. However, Lin and the other part of Destiny, rising custom god, Vic Jefford, both have to admit that this theme was not Lin’s first choice. When, last year, they started to make plans for a new build, she originally wanted a ‘chainsaw massacre’ theme. This didn’t surprise me, for Lin is the only person I know who’s as interested in knives as I am. (I’ve often wondered why people look so nervous when they see the two of us together, but writing that last sentence I |
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may just have realised why!). In practice it was an idea that just didn’t quite seem to come together. Vic has an instinctive feel for what will and won’t work, and even before the project began, the few mock ups of stylised or modified parts he’d made were enough to tell both of them that – with all due respect to our equine friends – they were flogging a dead horse. While he was playing with ideas in the serial murderer line, Vic had casually turned up a small axe head out of a piece of stainless steel. (Don’t you just love that ability to airily and accidentally create a little work of art? You can imagine Picasso absent-mindedly doodling on the TV Times while watching ‘Supermarket Sweep’ and then thinking, ‘Oh bugger! Not another masterpiece of modern art…’) The finished axe head had a stylised shape more reminiscent of the Middle Ages than of modern times – it was a lovely piece of work, but it didn’t fit |
with what he was trying to do. Still trying to decide how to make the chainsaw massacre plan work, Vic and Lin took a week off and went to the Blue Beach festival in the south of France, a show organised by local Harley club, the Blue Beach Bikers. Among the trade stands was KatKris Wheels, a company run by a couple from Toulon. Although the stand only featured a handful of their custom-made wheels, the Destiny duo were so impressed by Kat and Kris’s work that, after a long discussion, they agreed to get in touch when they got back home to Yorkshire. It was the first of two meetings in France that were to have a bearing on the War Horse project. The second was with Claude Babot of Technoplus, a company designing and manufacturing innovative billet custom parts. Lin fell in love with a set |
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of Technoplus’s forward controls, but they didn’t have enough money left to buy them. When Claude realised this, he shrugged and said, “Take them anyway – send me the money when you get home.” Amazed that he was prepared to trust two foreign strangers, Vic and Lin speak highly not only of Monsieur Babot, but of the Technoplus forwards which they credit as one of the catalysts for War Horse. Back in North Yorkshire – and having wired Claude his Euros – they started to rethink the still hypothetical project. Around this time Vic was recruited to take part in a UK version of the successful American television programme, The Great Biker Build Off. An advantage of this would be that the new build would now have an enforced deadline. (In fact, it turned out to be the advantage of participating in the show!). Now that the clock was ticking, work had to start in earnest, whether it be on the chainsaw theme or something else entirely. Fortuitously it turned out to be something else. |
One night, picking up the stainless axe head that had been tossed to one side, Vic and Lin formulated the idea of War Horse, a chopper that would combine the imagery of medieval martial pageantry with Lin’s love of horses. (It was around this time that she – apparently by accident – acquired her own real horse, although she resisted the urge to just nail forward controls and a set of apehangers onto Dobbin. The Biker Build Off film crew probably wouldn’t have noticed, anyway…) The one criteria for War Horse was that it would have 24” overs, mainly because Lin had already ordered a set of forks from the USA. That’s ‘already ordered’ as in ordered in February. It was now October. The forks would turn up at Christmas… |
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Crossing their fingers that the front end would indeed arrive at some point, they went ahead and ordered a set of wheels from KatKris in France. Based on the company’s ‘Daytona’ design, the wheels ended up involving more work than anyone had expected, but berets off to Kris and Kat who refused to charge any more than their original quote. The finished wheels are beautiful. Despite knowing only the width of the forks, KatKris has made an exquisite front wheel on which all the bolts and fittings have been cleverly concealed. |
In the meantime Vic had begun to make the frame with the original plan being that it would house a RevTech engine. Then, while perusing the great cyber flea-market that is eBay, Vic came across an Indian PowerPlus 100 scrap core. Having always wanted an Indian engine, this seemed like too good a bargain for him to miss. During the latest ill-fated chapter in the marque’s history, the Indian Motorcycle Company had begun production again in 1998. Having been launched hastily after a lengthy legal battle over trademarks and manufacturing rights, the makeshift company (the result of a merger of nine firms) began by building motorcycles that used 88ci S&S motors. The initial outlook was good. Around a thousand Indian Chiefs were sold in the first year and, by the end of 2000, the company had notched up $40 million in sales – a drop in the ocean beside Harley-Davidson’s $2.2 billion for the same period, but a respectable figure nonetheless. But the S&S v-twin is based on Harley technology and, despite its proven power, reliability and good looks, the management at Indian decided it wanted an all new proprietary engine. It poured money |
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into the research and development of the new motor, the PowerPlus 100, working with outside engineering partners, including Lotus. The resulting 100ci (1638cc) forty-five degree v-twin was the largest displacement production engine ever manufactured by an American company. Its serrated billet aluminium rocker boxes and stout rounded cylinders recreated the look and feel of the original Indian engines, and its launch in 2002 was greeted enthusiastically. But the truth was that the new project had swallowed up every cent the company had, and many millions of dollars besides. The final straw was that the first PowerPlus 100s had an inherent tendency to break. In what seems to be a wilful rejection of any Harley-related technology, Indian fitted imported flywheels into which the crankpin taper was cut at six-and-a-half degrees but used crankpins cut at six degrees. Half a degree difference might not sound much, but it’s critical to the proper lock up of the pinion shaft and flywheel. In addition, the imported flywheels were softer than those made by Harley, S&S and other major suppliers. With the harder crankpin running out of line with the taper, the pin could pull through the soft flywheel. As well as being half a degree out, many of the tapers had not been cut 100% perpendicular, resulting in the flywheel running out of true, causing the shaft to break or the pinion bearing insert to come adrift. It seems churlish to mention that the oil pump didn’t work, either… |
The cost of recalls and refits, combined with the phenomenal R&D bill and the subsequent loss of customer confidence, sounded Indian’s death knell. On 19th September 2003 Indian’s Gilroy, California factory closed its doors for the final time; six months later everything from bikes to office chairs were sold in a liquidation sale. But, for all its initial teething problems, the PowerPlus 100 is intrinsically a good engine, and demonstrably so when rebuilt with different parts. This is something that Vic suggests you get someone else to do. While buying the scrap core might have seemed a bargain at the time, the cost of parts and his time ended up exceeding what he would have paid for a complete rebuilt engine. Having spent time and money on it, the PowerPlus was destined for Vic’s own (and, at that point, nonexistent) project. Then he made the horrendous mistake of sitting the engine in Lin’s new frame, ‘just to see what it looked like…’ (I could have told him this was not a wise idea. I remember my Mum and Dad, having seen an ad in the local paper for Irish Wolfhound puppies, going along ‘just to have a look’. They came home with Padraig Bear, now the biggest Wolfhound in |
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Suffolk). Vic might have got away with this bit of foolish speculation had Lin not been in the workshop at the time. She was. You may notice that War Horse has an Indian PowerPlus 100 engine… The Indian motor looked perfect in the frame, and the wrong side carb manifold that Vic had already made, intending to modify the RevTech, fitted straight onto the PowerPlus. At first he fitted an Edelbrock carb, but found that it made the engine run like a cement mixer over cobbles. When War Horse made its debut at the ProCustom show in Doncaster (meeting its deadline by hours) Vic happened to mention the problem to Richard Millard of Skull Choppa. A few days later the postman delivered a 42mm Mikuni carb that Richie said he just happened to have lying around: with the Mikuni fitted, the Indian now runs as sweet as a bowl full of extra-sweetened sugar. The exhaust system was designed jointly between Vic and Lin, with Lin insisting that the end pipes curve over like snake heads. They’re one of the most distinctive feature on an already jaw-dropping machine, and anyone who think that the spikey ends are designed to stab anyone who gets too close to the bike knows Lin all too well. |
With fifty-one-and-a-half degrees of rake in the frame, there’s an extra five in the yokes (and should anyone be daft enough to doubt Vic’s engineering skills they are welcome to get out their tape measures, protractors and bits of string – but they will find the trail is spot on!). For those huge slabs that follow War Horse’s axe motif. Vic drew a sketch of what he wanted and gave it to Woody, a young gentleman working in nearby Pickering. Not only did Woody produce exactly what Vic wanted, he also added the bevelled edges as well as machining out the rear brake disc to match the wheel. The rear brake (there is, as yet, no front, although it will eventually have two independent braking systems) was the result of another chance meeting, this time with Ralph and Sybille of BigB Braking Elements of Germany. Not only does BigB manufacture top quality items, but Ralph and Sybille are infectiously passionate about their products. Unbelievably, many German builders still use the likes of PM simply because they’re American, despite having on their doorstep this gem |
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of a company that makes a far better product – and that’s not just my opinion; according to the German TUV authorities, BigB’s systems are the most efficient motorcycle brakes they have ever tested. Like every Destiny Cycles’ creation I have documented there is far, far more to War Horse than I have space to record. It’s best to see it for yourself, as you will have the chance to do at shows throughout the rest of this year. Vic and Lin are attempting to keep it immaculate (going completely against their credo of riding everywhere very hard) until November when, as its prize for winning the ProCustom Best of British title, it will be shipped out to Las Vegas to compete in the World Championships of Custom Bike Building. The Yanks may have moved slightly away from ‘show not go’, but the prevailing attitude is still ‘show-and-go-just-enough-to-prove-it-works-but-only-if-it’s-indoors-and-on-a-nice-carpet’. Whereas most British judges will regard positively the odd stone chip and signs of road use, in Las Vegas War Horse will be competing with machines that have never turned a wheel in anger, or anywhere else for that matter. With the War Horse theme firmly established by Vic’s various axe and pike staff devices, it was left to Percy at Bad Brush to provide War Horse with its own caparison, the ornamental trappings that covered a knight’s horse. This is a horse destined to go to battle, not the jousting field, so Percy took as his inspiration the medieval horse armour created to protect the animals from the enemy’s bowmen. On the tank he has painted a crinet, a piece of armour designed to provide protection for the horse’s neck, and made of plates riveted together. Most horse armour would have been heavier in form, but War Horse wears a crinet based upon Gothic work of the late 15th Century which was more delicate and ornate than later pieces. As well as the armour, you may spot artwork depicting leather straps that represent not only the tack worn by a war horse, but cuirboille, boiled and hardened leather traditionally used as a cheaper alternative to metal horse armour, a set of which could cost a knight a year’s income. Incidentally, a word that is immediately associated with the knight in armour is ‘chivalry’. Now inaccurately used to describe politeness, chivalry was originally the name for the code by which a knight was bound, and is derived from the French word, ‘cheval’, meaning horse, emphasising how important the horse was in the Middle Ages. The more time you spend with War Horse the more logical the theme becomes. There is the obvious stuff such as the axe head seemingly embedded through the down tube, but there are other, more subtle touches. The tank, for example, designed by Lin and built by Vic, is radical in itself, the front sculpted in lines that echo knife edges. But it’s only when you stand back and look down on War Horse that it becomes apparent that it’s actually a shield. Even ‘destrier’, the correct word for a war horse of the Dark Ages, resembles the name of Destiny. Like the great horses that bore knights into battle, War Horse has presence, indefinable and audacious, but presence all the same. And, just as the destrier was only a horse until called upon to serve, so War Horse can only be fully appreciated when it’s in motion. (Lin volunteered Vic for the riding shots – it may be her bike, but if anything happens to it before Vegas, she’s damned well not going to be to blame!). Up on the North Yorkshire moor tops, with Vic riding, War Horse came alive. I have rarely seen such a transformation in one bike between static and action. Whereas – like a heavy horse – from certain angles the stationary War Horse might seem almost ungainly, in flight it is surefooted and elegant. On the moors, with nothing in sight to anchor us in time, Vic let War Horse have her head, throwing her about single-handedly, just as a knight might have urged his destrier into battle, reins gathered in one hand. War Horse is a motorcycle, not a living thing of flesh and blood but, just for a few minutes that afternoon, it felt that the past and the present met across some forgotten field, nodded at each other approvingly, and moved on. Words: BLUE |
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SPEC MAKE & MODEL: |
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FRONT END: 24” over forks in 50mm stainless tube with hidden suspension, yokes designed by Destiny Cycles and machined by Woody, one-off 4¾” x 18” wheel by KatKris Wheels, Toulon, France. Combined head-steady, coil mount, exhaust mount and speedo housing in polished stainless by Destiny Cycles. Handlebars and fuel tank designed by Lin and fabricated by Vic. PM handlebar controls, forward controls by Technoplus, France, Arlen Ness mirrors. REAR END: One-off 12” x 17” wheel by KatKris Wheels with Avon 330-section tyre, vented disc brake with 6-pot caliper and carrier by BigB Brakes, Germany. Seat by Outback Motorcycle Saddles. BK Stiletto rear mudguard, modified by Destiny Cycles. One-off oil tank by Destiny Cycles. ELECTRICS: Wiring by Derek (Ox) Gordon. Headlight by Jorn, LED taillight, Dakota 2 1/16” multi-function speedo. PAINT & FINISHING: Paint by Percy at Badbrush Dezigns. Powdercoating by NB Coatings. Polishing by Vic and Derek. THANKS TO: “Kat and Kris; Ralph and Sybille; Percy; Tammy and Ged, and Woody – true artisans all! Special thanks to Pete Stansfield who helped us out when we were badly let down. Very special thanks to Derek who gave his time and his humour when the going got tough (and very behind schedule). Most of all, thanks to Vic who, by imagination, dedication, craftsmanship and sheer bloody hard work made this bike possible.” |