This intriguing BSA-based ‘bobber’ draws on two classic traditions – and its owner’s predilections, as Steve Wilson discovers
Nick Hester, the creator of this M20 bobber, is also a master of his trade, which is carpentry. He is the fourth generation of a family that has worked with wood out of the same Oxfordshire village building yard. “I do woodwork and general carpentry, construction and interior,” Nick told me. But a beautiful wooden dovecot further down the village street lets you know he’s a craftsman and something of a perfectionist.
One of Nick’s other hobbies is building up motorcycles, mainly off-road oriented – he’s ridden green lanes and competed in trials, though never motocross. Nevertheless, he’s created a beautifully built BSA B50- based scrambler, and owns several more modern off-roaders as well as an alloy-tank BSA A10 650 twin adapted for trail work. So he did not come to the M20 project lacking experience.
Nick had found the makings in a nearby village, eight or nine years previously, in a friend’s old stable. His pal Matthew did shotblasting there and Nick spotted a cobwebbed frame standing on its end. Matthew told him it had been
brought in for blasting five or six years befor…
