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Clay Rathburn and his wife Erin founded Atom Bomb Custom Motorcycles in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in 2008. Clay is the son of a hot rodder, so it was only natural he grew up with a torch in his hand. After time spent as an automotive technician and a successful career as a race car fabricator and engine builder, Clay turned his professional attention to creating award-winning hot rods. In late 2007, Clay rediscovered his childhood love of motorcycles, and began building the black BSA. Clay’s style, mixing the elegance of simplicity and an obsessive attention to detail, proved well suited to motorcycles. The success of the Black Bike has led to several other commissioned builds, including Dr. Who, the 1962 Triumph 6T pre unit which you see here.

The owner of Dr. Who, Rob Greene of Connecticut, approached Clay after seeing his black BSA. “Initially Rob wanted me to do a running mockup which he would then disassemble and paint,” Clay explained. “From there, we decided the engine and trans should be rebuilt and it should leave with a painted frame so the engine and trans didn’t have to come back out. Sometime around July of 2009, Rob said ‘Maybe you should go ahead and paint the tins and make it an Atom Bomb bike.’ “And that’s exactly what Clay did. Having built seven bikes already, he was more than up to the task. The Dr. Who bike has turned out to be a favorite of Clay’s. He’s put about a hundred miles on it himself, and is happy with the way it rides. “I really like this bike, for a lot of different reasons,” he said. “Most of my builds are later unit Triumphs; this is the only pre-unit that I have built. A lot of my other bikes tend to mix in a lot of Japanese dirt bike parts from the ’70s, I kept that to a minimum on this build, so it’s probably the “oldest” looking bike I’ve done … as long as you don’t pay attention to the belt drive hanging out of the primary!”

But no bike build is without its quirks. For Dr. Who it was the alternator and oil tank that gave him pause. “Fitting the alternator and belt drive under the stock primary cover was a bear. I ended up cutting a huge hole in the cover and covering it with a hammered aluminum blister which is attached with aircraft rivets,” Clay said. “The oil tank was a bit of trouble simply because I had built the frame to mount a typical round oil tank. During final assembly I decided I hated it, so I made the aluminum one to sort of resemble a stock Triumph tank, and then had to figure out how to mount it to an already finished and painted frame.”

In building Dr. Who, Clay set out to build a clean, functional ride. “I like to build bikes that look simple and mechanical, and as clean as possible without really hiding anything,” he said. “The particular details usually aren’t planned, they just happen during the build.” Clay said he was very pleased with the way the tank turned out. “It was initially going to leave the shop in bare metal, so great care was taken during narrowing it,” he explained. “When we decided to paint the tins, the tank needed only two coats of primer before paint. Atom Bomb is sort of known for quality metal work, but it’s cool to see that it only takes a little bit of primer to make it perfect. The primary cover also turned out really well.” Clay and Erin really enjoyed working with their client on Dr. Who, who gave them free reign. “I think that my absolute favorite thing about building this bike was that my wife and I became great friends with the bike’s owner Rob Greene and his family. Paychecks are great and all, but I really like the personal interaction that happens during a build for a customer.”

So what’s next for Clay and Atom Bomb Custom Motorcycles? “I’m building custom Triumphs 6 days a week!” he said. Check out more about Dr. Who (which is for sale) and Atom Bomb’s Black Bike, Forty Miles to Vegas, and other builds as well as bikes in progress, and also services such as engine rebuilds and custom frames, by clicking over to Clay’s website at Atom Bomb Custom Motorcycles.