The motorcycle industry is replete with modern replicas of classic machines. These days, you can buy bikes that mimic the style of vintage motos?but with hidden electronics and catalytic converters, and no oil leaks.
Period-correct old timers are becoming rarer by the day. So we need guys like Hayden Roberts: craftsmen who live and breathe classic motorcycles. He’s a British transplant living in Santa Paula, California, where he repairs and restores old British iron under the Hello Engine banner.

His latest project is a showstopper. Built for the Born Free show, it’s a Triumph desert sled that’s dripping with patina and could have been built in 1965?except that it’s not technically an original model.
Hayden gives us the skinny: ?I?d been collecting parts over the years and wanted to build the desert bike I?d always hoped to find stashed in a shed someplace. The idea was that every piece had to be original, no reproductions, and was there to serve a purpose: a race ready desert bike, no filler.?
?Maybe I got a little too deep into it, down to the logo on the bolt heads having to be era correct. But I wanted it to look like it was built 54 years ago?when in reality I finished it last Sunday!?
Hayden’s Triumph is a ‘bitsa’ like no other: a textbook example of how to build a desert sled. The frame’s a 1964 TR6 unit?but it’s not stock. Hayden braced it at the steering head, strengthened it, and raked it out an addition...