Matt7/32: "London T'ing"Kustom Chopper and Slammed Schwinn
Alright Mate,
Glad ya like my little puppies. The green beast is a pure ground-up chop, the frame is CNC-bent ERW tubing, the forks are pushbike tandem top tubes and capped with live shotgun cartridges. The dropouts are lasercut 6mm lovelies, cut to my design. The front ones are just another pair of the rears cut in half and drilled to accomodate the 20mm bolt-through axle. Two BMX bottom brackets have been welded together to accomodate the monster rear wheel.A smashing coat of deer hunter green candy has been sploshed over a coarse silver metal flake base coat. This was all done in powder coat , then f**k-loads of wet-coat 2-pack lacquer laid over the top to make it f**king sparkle!
The wheels are 17" Super Moto rims (custom drilled 40-hole (old skool Brit- bike- style, laced with the aid of some custom-cut and threaded DT spokes onto HOPE Big'Un hubs and covered with Conti Super Bike front tyres (on the wrong way round; they looked better!)
Stopping is taken care of by a trick HOPE 205 disc brake (ya have to read what's cut into it !) The hose is internal and the master cylinder is a lovely CNC one-off. Going is sorted by the best cranks ya can get, the pedals are cut up DK iron cross numbers and that beast of a chain comes from the fatherland where it was meant to be used by the 20" bros. for grinding on .The seat is a genuine Harley solo throne, stripped down, cut to the right size 'n' shape then chromed. What ya can't see in these photos is the plush green leather cover stretched over 1" padding, then buttoned. There are far too many l'il tings going on, on this puppy, but one of the best ones is da welded chain stand (this and the flaming bracket took a long time to file down). Why LONDON TING? Well, every bit was sourced, made, covered or plated in London town, which trust me, is quite an
achievement. She now has a brand-new home over in Amsterdam, living with R1/2 the chop @ The Chopper Dome (check out his site, it rules!)
My favorite ride is Da Slammed Schwinn. It started life as a 2001 SS cruiser, but being the way I am, I just had to chop her! There is a 4"stretch in da backbone, 4" stretch down in da chain stays, and da mixte tubes have about 3" added to dem. The head 'n'seat tube have been cut out and replaced with columbus tubes in a much nicer rake (about 60-61degrees, I think?). Again a pair of 7/32" dropouts have been stuck on to stretch the old girl a further 2".The forks are just straight little numbers we made up, the future sees some lovely lowered bobbers slotted in to help scrape those Gusset 3-piece'n'Primo pedals along the asphalt!.
The bars are stripped off a Dyno (RIP) ,the rims are Sunn double-wides with some trick laceing using DT db spokes to a Miche wide-flange spool. Da rear is a Shimano kick-back, and once again, a KHE fat chain helps turn the wheel.All the rest of the finishing kit is genuine Taiwanese Schwinn bits. At the moment, she's covered in plain black paint, but this little madame is constantly under development, and plans are under way for yet more frame mods, so watch this space!
Also under way is a very special show bike to be entered to next year's PS2 Lowlife show in Bristol, England and also the first European custom show to be held in Amsterdam next July. This ride is going to be very special, as we are expecting stiff competition from the Germans, Dutch, Russians and Scandinavians. Shame there will be no Yanks there, but I gather your kustoms do not roll and are not really of a good enough standard! Keep on keeping on.
