If you were playing the word association game – you know, you say ‘spinach’ and I say ‘Popeye', you say ‘points’ and I say ‘prizes’ – and if you said ‘big budget custom bike, no expense spared’ I’d have two reactions. Firstly, I’d guess that you’re talking about something that’s garish, utterly over the top, and probably a complete nightmare for anyone mad enough to try and ride it; and secondly, I’d point out that that’s seven words not one, and not in the spirit of the game.

Bren Pateman’s new bike is a big budget custom bike, with no expense spared – but it’s also incredibly beautiful, effortlessly elegant, and a treat to ride. Just goes to prove how wrong you can be, in fact.

Bren readily admits that he had no interest in bikes as a youngster; indeed it wasn’t until he happened to see – you’re not going to believe this – Easy Rider in late 1996 that any sort of motorcycle registered on his consciousness. What fired his enthusiasm was the idea of a long-forked custom bike – but more than anything it was the sound of Peter Fonda’s Captain America bike. Bren decided that one day he was going to own something that made a noise like that …

At the same sort of time he was thinking of giving up his job – and if I tell you he was involved in specialist insurance in The City you’ll think that we’re talking about a posh geezer in a pin-stripe suit, won’t you? Well you’ll be wrong – and six months later he did exactly that. Soon after he was driving past Black Bear, the Harley shop in Newmarket, wandered in, and bought a new Springer Softail. Just like that.

He’d paid for it and was sitting on it, and the salesman told him that he didn’t look entirely comfortable; ‘I’m not surprised’, Bren told him, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever even sat on a bike.’ Exit one startled salesman.
Bren took his test – eventually, ran home, and jumped straight on the FXSTS. It was great, he loved it – for two weeks; ‘I realised that in fact, lovely as it was, it wasn’t what I was looking for. I briefly thought about simply accessorising it, but that wouldn’t have done either. There had to be something else.’

While he was running around on the Springer Softail Bren came across Krazy Horse Customs in Bury St Edmunds, and suggested to them that they take his bike apart and re-build it from scratch. This they did, and he was now the owner of a very distinct fully-fendered ass-dragger, which … guess what? Still didn’t impress him. Picky or what?

He had already been talking to Steve Studd of Krazy Horse about a bigger project, and they were kicking a few ideas around. At the same time Bren found himself in what sounds like a very acrimonious and messy divorce, but with that sorted he decided that he owed it to himself to aim for the stars. In talking to Steve he was beginning to realise that what he really wanted was achievable, and not too far beyond his reach. They talked about basing something around a Paul Yaffe softail frame, but £7,000 looked like a hell of a lot to pay for a chassis, and still something wasn’t feeling right; ‘Steve wanted to build the very best bike he could create, and I wanted to own exactly that. I realised it just had to be hardtail, so I decided to give him free rein. It was the end of March 2002 when I gave him the go-ahead – though in fact, anticipating my decision he had already bought the gearbox for it! – and I told him I wanted my ultimate chop.’

Bren didn’t just give Steve a cheque and walk away from the project; he was involved all the way throughout the build, but they didn’t see exactly eye to eye, ‘We disagreed on three things: I wanted traditional spoked wheels, I thought that Porker shotgun pipes would look right on it, and I fancied higher handlebars. In the end Steve won all three arguments …’

First stop was Paul Yaffe, but a rigid frame – into which Steve dropped a fully polished 100" Rev Tech motor, fitted with a Mikuni carb. Those very beautiful wheels are from Rich’s Steve’s Wheels (that’s right, weird, eh?) and like many other parts they were imported specially for the bike. The ’box which was already sitting waiting is a five-speed Custom Chrome unit, and there’s a Spyke starter attached to it.

The front forks are ten inch over SJPs, and the exposed Primo primary belt is ‘as big as you can get’. Krazy Horse made the exhausts, which are a copy of West Coast Choppers’ Hellbent – ‘in this case, Stevebent’ – pipes. Krazy Horse also made the spectacularly gorgeous stretched Sportster tank, and other details such as the number plate surround. The ‘flippin’ da finger’ chain guard was a gift from Steve; I first saw it, and indeed photographed it, on Steve’s own Shovelhead almost exactly twenty years ago.

The brake system is by Performance Machine, though the back disc is Tolle. Bars are drags on three-inch risers. Legendary East Anglian bike wrench John Gibson does a lot of work for Krazy Horse, and he can claimthe credit for the putting-together-ness and final fettling. The paint was the work of Ty Lawer at Pageant in Wymondham in Norfolk.

‘I like the look of the Jesse James, West Coast Choppers bikes’, Bren says, ‘They have a kit bike called El Diablo – meaning The Devil. I liked that as a name so I call this El Rojo, meaning The Red One.’

El Rojo was finished in July 2003 but its virgin journey on the highways of Suffolk was delayed by the hideous hassle of getting it insured; ‘I had massive problems getting it insured. Equity Red Star told me they wouldn’t cover it as it wasn’t road safe – because it didn’t have indicators. I told him to put his glasses on; what where those things in the ends of the ’bars? They tried to charge me £1,000 a year, with a £1,500 excess and a 2,000 annual mileage limit.

‘They did insist on an immobiliser being fitted. Steve tried to find one tiny enough to fit unobtrusively, and that added a further four weeks. Then, a few days later, the immobiliser failed at speed and cut the engine. Moments later it re-ignited and the petrol in the carbs went bang. I could have been totalled by my anti-theft device.’

The bike is registered as a Krazy Horse PYO; I thought those initials stood for ‘pick your own’, as in raspberries, daffodils and noses, but in this case it means Paul Yaffe Original.

Bren went to lots of shows with the Softail and won dozens of trophies, and although he has won prizes at Littleport and the NCC Cambridge Show with the red one, he says he’s not going to show it around too much; ‘I’ll do one next year, maybe two – but no more than that. I just want to enjoy it. I’ve finally got what I was looking for – it is my ultimate, and it rides like a dream. In bike terms there’s nowhere else to go for me.’

Bren says that this is it; this is the bike that he always wanted and he’s going to keep forever. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if young Gabriel Pateman, born in October this year, hasn’t already got his eyes on it as part of his inheritance.

There’s one other thing about this bike which gives Bren great pleasure, but it’s a bit difficult to be too precise about it. You remember that messy divorce just ahead of him giving Steve the green light? Well, as things turned out, his ex-wife paid for this bike. She doesn’t know it, and she’d be furious if she did know, but in ways we can’t go into she picked up the bills. And for Bren that’s just the bright red cherry on top of a particularly splendid cake.