Oily Rag are a British company better known for the quality of their clothing and apparel, but owner, Dave Sutton isn’t about just creating a hollow brand. He wanted to show where his true passions lay, and what better way to show people what you are all about than to build yourself a brand flagship in the form of a Triumph bobber.
The headstock says it all. “I built the bike because I love creating and I didn’t want Oily Rag Clothing to be another company pretending to be something its not…” “…we have bike building credentials and love to get our hands dirty.”
Dave’s passion began at age 16 when he got that first moped, and 30 years he completed an engineering apprenticeship so he clearly understand metals and machining processes. For the last 20 odd years he’s been more involved in design and graphics, but as we all know, these skills are highly transportable – whether it’s about designing a part or a logo.
And the engineering also shows through in this builds. Check out the upside down front forks, machined top clamp and the radial monobloc front brake. This one bobber with a very large anchor.
“A few years back I stripped a 78 XL250, cleaned everything up and putting it back together again, she turned out great but to be honest she was too good to put back on the dirt! next was something that would be a little more testing and where I could make some nice custom parts.”
“Ive always wanted to own an old Triumph and when I noticed a 1970 frame on Ebay the project started. I had an idea on how I wanted the bike to look from looking at bobbers on Google it was then a matter of making every area of the bike the best I could. The aim was to keep the bike simple with nothing on the bike that wasn’t really needed and show off some nice welds, fabrication and machining.”
The bike now gets put to work on trade stands and is rewarded with hard riding and bike meets, where we are sure she gets plenty of attention. Thanks for sharing Dave.
from the bike shed
