One of the greatest spectacles in motorcycling is The Race Of Gentlemen, held every summer on the Jersey shore. It?s a recreation of the beach sprints of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the cars and bikes are modified to match?chopped, bobbed and hopped up, designed to look just like racers from the first half of the twentieth century.
As you can imagine, it?s an expensive pastime: entrants have to be pre-approved by the TROG organizers, who are looking for ?period correct.? But there?s more than one way to get that delightful vintage beach racer vibe, as British bike builder Shaun Fenton has discovered.

Shaun?s day job is making films for the Hoxton Moto YouTube channel, but he?s just as good at spinning spanners. Like most ?shed builders? he loves all things two-wheeled, but there?s nothing amateur about the results: his creations have been displayed at the huge Bike Shed show in London. ?For years I?ve drooled over the styling of Harleys and Indians from the 1940s,? Shaun tells us. ?I was also inspired by images from TROG, but an original Harley or Indian from that era is beyond my means. So I decided to build a replica.?

The first job was to find a cheap Harley to use as a donor bike, and when Shaun stumbled across a 1970s Ironhead Sportster XLCH, he knew he?d found The One.
?The bike had been imported into the UK as a restoration project, but aside from occasional tinkering, it had languished in a garage for over ten years.? Without revealing his intentions,...