As most today are built out of hogs, it’s easy to forget that most archetypical choppers were all based on British bikes. Brando’s Wild One wouldn’t have been quite so wild without his Thunderbird 6T, and it wasn’t until much later, when Hopper and Fonda easily rode their bikes, that the Harley’s dominance began to take shape.
In this era of V-Twins, fat exhausts, ape-hangers and more breaking wind than In The Wind, it’s nice to be able to sit back and appreciate a sweet Triumph twin nestled in a cool nine and a half foot long stick man of a bike. This chopper sports a competition engine jocky shift, 4-speed,.1960s Harley springer front fork and a hardtail rearend. The bars, tank and details are all custom, as is the infantry cammo paint job. Enjoy.
Image source: [Vintage Chop]
Zombie Chopper is a Triumph of Execution
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I've ridden things like this. They were milder chops, but had just about as much front brake. The rear brake was decent, but you got a lot of engine braking as well. You had to figure in the engine braking so as to not lock the rear. If you missed a downshift when braking, you ran out of runway pretty quickly.
Oh, and they are a handful when driven slowly, as the front wheel wants to flop to the nearest side until you get enough speed for the gyroscopic effects to kick in.
Fun though! -
Look at the footpeg/seat/grips relationship and think about what kind of being it would take to be comfortable on that thing. I'm thinking either Reed Richards or Grape Ape and that's just about it.
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Didn't you mean to say "Zombie Chopper is the execution of a Triumph?"
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That's a pretty sick looking chopper, and so cool to see someone do something other than a Harley engine. The paint's pretty awesome too.
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Agreed, the nonconvential engine choice make it that much more interesting. It's like the bike equivalent of building a hot rod with a Windsor instead of a 350 Chevy.
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1979. My blacksheep uncle had just got out of prison for a crime he did not commit. (No really, he took the fall for his brother who had little kids and did something stupid, and never once complained)
So said uncle comes up from San Fransisco to visit us in the mountains, and shows up on a bad-ass black Triumph rigid-frame chopper with raked and extended forks, a magneto and just the right amount of chrome. I'll never forget the way that awesome bike sounded, or the way he looked exactly like one of them Easy-Rider cats in the David Maan posters.
He shows off the bike, then as he goes in the house he tosses me the keys saying "If you can start it, you can ride it." as a joke, thinking this little 12 year old 85lb kid had a better chance of getting laid by Bo Derrik than kicking it over.
I sat there jumping up and down on that kick-starter pedal until it was nearly dark, and the bike would hardly wiggle, let alone turn over, while the adults would occasionally look out the window and laugh at me, bouncing away on a bike that was taller than I was.
Suddenly the bike started and I was all "WHOO-HOO!! OH HECK YEAH!!" Room room!
2.5 nanoseconds later the door burst open and he came flying off the porch yelling 'GET OFF THE BIKE! GET OFF THE @#$ &@#& BIKE!!" And thus my first ride on a Triumph chopper never came to pass.
I was pretty disappointed. But, he made up for it later that night by teaching me how to snort lines of Cayenne pepper instead. Good times. Good times.-
Persistence always pays off, just not always in the way we expect it…
wait, snorting… Cayenne peppers?!?!?!?!?! I probably don't want to know
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I’m so happy about my new softail springer motorcycle…#and i# am blabbing my mouth to the whole world. well, i #have been# doing alot of reading…finally this is decent info. greatly appreciated
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