Back Street Heroes: Britain's Custom Motorcycle Magazine Since 1983

Back Street Heroes is a monthly British custom motorcycle magazine, published since 1983 from Horncastle in Lincolnshire. It showcases home-built bikes, choppers and the wider UK custom bike scene, covering the machines, the builders and the lifestyle that surrounds them. Its website is backstreetheroes.com, and its publisher, Mortons Media Group, describes it as Britain's biggest-selling custom bike magazine.

The magazine's first issue was dated November/December 1983. More than forty years later it is still published monthly, with its editor recorded as Nik Samson and its International Standard Serial Number as 0267-9841. In a British motorcycle press that has seen many titles come and go, Back Street Heroes — often shortened by readers to BSH — has become the long-running record of British custom biking.

Overview

Back Street Heroes covers all styles of custom bikes. Its publisher lists the range as choppers, bobbers, streetfighters, trikes, café racers, street scramblers, flat trackers, brats and rats, among others. The common thread is not a factory model but a transformation: bikes built, rebuilt or heavily modified by their owners and by professional custom shops.

The magazine also documents the subculture associated with the scene. Its team describes it as a rock and roll biking magazine for hardcore customisation fans, and its coverage extends to custom biker lifestyle events large and small across the country and in Europe. Technical articles on bike building and maintenance sit alongside readers' pictures, custom bike news and products — and, the magazine notes, its staff are all bikers themselves.

History and Founding

Back Street Heroes was first published with an issue dated November/December 1983. It arrived when the British custom scene — choppers built in sheds and small workshops, rallies and custom shows — had no dedicated monthly magazine of its own, and riders picked up event details from flyers, word of mouth and the classified pages of the general motorcycle press. A magazine catering specifically for the British custom scene filled that gap, and banners advertising its launch were remembered by riders who attended the custom shows of the early 1980s.

Mortons, announcing its acquisition of the title in 2015, referred to the thirty years of success it had already enjoyed. The magazine is also credited by its publisher with helping to popularise a new breed of custom motorcycle, distinct from the choppers that had gone before — the harder, performance-influenced machines, including the streetfighter style that grew out of the scene the magazine covered, which changed what a British custom bike looked like.

Publisher and Ownership

In August 2015 Back Street Heroes joined the motorcycle portfolio of Mortons Media Group, the independent publisher based in Horncastle, Lincolnshire. Mortons acquired the title from Ocean Media. Publishing director Dan Savage said the company was delighted to complete the acquisition and looked forward to building on the title's three decades of success, noting that a magazine looking in such detail at the lifestyle associated with custom bike ownership added another dimension to Mortons' offering.

The title sits within Mortons' portfolio alongside brands such as Classic Bike Guide, Motorcycle Sport & Leisure and Classic Motorcycle Mechanics. Along with the publication's assets and archive, the existing editorial, design and advertising teams moved with the title, although they continued to work across the UK, while subscription, circulation, marketing and other logistical operations were based at Mortons' offices in Lincolnshire. Mortons' publishing pages list Back Street Heroes among its seven modern motorcycle titles.

Editorial Content and Sections

The core of each issue is the bikes themselves: full features on individual custom machines, with the story of their build, their specification and their builder. Club features are a recurring element — one October issue, the magazine's 438th since 1983, was a National Chopper Club issue containing eight club bikes and a report from a club event, showing the quality of machines built to be ridden, in the magazine's phrase, and to be ridden hard.

Technical content explains how custom work is done, covering a range of vehicle modifications and custom bike-building styles, together with maintenance advice aimed at owners who work on their own machines. News and product pages cover the latest custom parts and releases, readers contribute pictures of their own bikes, and event reports give a flavour of the custom scene at shows and rallies around Britain and across Europe. Competitions such as the BSH Virtual Custom Bike Champs, whose round winners were revealed in the magazine, extend that participation online.

Notable Editors and Contributors

Nik Samson is recorded as the magazine's editor in current reference listings. Under Mortons, the existing editorial team transferred with the title in 2015, preserving continuity for readers and for the custom shops and clubs the magazine deals with.

The contributors who define Back Street Heroes are as much the builders as the writers. Owner-builders whose machines are featured, club members whose bikes fill special issues, and the photographers and technical writers who document the builds all contribute to the magazine's archive of the scene. Individual features range from a Sportster converted into a trike that barely resembles its donor bike to Japanese parallel twins such as a Z750 Kawasaki custom — examples the magazine itself highlighted in previewing an issue — showing the breadth of machinery its contributors bring to its pages.

Audience and Readership

Mortons describes Back Street Heroes as Britain's biggest-selling custom bike magazine. Its readers are custom bike owners and builders, from home builders working in sheds to professional shops, together with riders who follow the scene's events and culture without building themselves. The magazine's own characterisation of its audience — hardcore customisation fans — signals that it does not dilute its content for general motorcyclists.

That loyalty is long-standing. Readers recall buying issue number one in 1983 and keeping decades of issues, and the magazine's features are discussed in biker forums and club circles as a record of who built what. For many British custom riders, an appearance in BSH has been a mark of recognition within the scene since the magazine began.

Print and Digital Editions

Back Street Heroes is a monthly print magazine, sold on newsstands including major high-street retailers and by subscription, with single issues available to order from its publisher with UK delivery. Its archive of past issues is accessible through its website, which carries features from back numbers alongside current content.

The 2015 acquisition brought the magazine's subscription, circulation and marketing operations into Mortons' Lincolnshire base, aligning its fulfilment with the publisher's other motorcycle titles. Mortons has also invested in unlocking archived motorcycle content across its classic and modern titles, and Back Street Heroes' four decades of bike features represent a substantial archive of British custom building.

The Custom Scene and Events

The magazine's relationship with events is central to its identity. It attends and reports on custom shows large and small across the UK and Europe, and Mortons noted on acquiring the title that it already had close ties with some of the leading custom shows in the UK — ties the publisher intended to extend using its own presence at grassroots motorcycle events.

Club culture is equally important. Dedicated issues for organisations such as the National Chopper Club recognise that custom biking in Britain is organised through clubs whose members build and ride together. By giving club bikes the same detailed coverage as professional builds, the magazine reflects the scene as its participants experience it.

Influence on British Custom Building

Back Street Heroes is credited by its publisher with helping to popularise a new breed of custom motorcycle in Britain, distinct from earlier choppers. Through the late twentieth century the magazine's pages spread build styles and techniques between regions and workshops at a time when there was no internet through which builders could share work instantly; for many builders, the magazine was the national shop window.

Spin-off enthusiasms are part of that story too. Readers recall Streetfighters beginning as a Back Street Heroes special before becoming a title in its own right, carrying the performance-custom style the magazine had championed. Even allowing for nostalgia, the magazine's role as the printed meeting point of the British custom scene for over forty years is difficult to overstate.

Recent Developments

Back Street Heroes continues as a monthly title within Mortons Media Group's motorcycle portfolio, listed by the publisher among its modern motorcycle magazines and sold through its channels alongside its website at backstreetheroes.com. Its recent issues maintain the established mixture of feature bikes across every custom style, technical articles, readers' pictures, event coverage and competitions such as its virtual custom bike championship.

From a launch advertised on banners at early-1980s custom shows to a title numbering its issues in the hundreds, Back Street Heroes has outlasted most of the motorcycle magazines founded in its era. It remains what it set out to be in November/December 1983: the magazine of the British back-street builder, written by bikers, about the bikes they build and the life around them.