We’ve featured the work of Court House Custom’s Jason Stritenberger and D.J. Jenkins on a couple of previous occasions and their combination of affordable customs and one-off high-style rides from the same shop definitely appealed to a lot of readers. Now, they’ve upped the custom ante a bit with this tough little bastard of a Brit bobber. Not only is this Triumph a real rider (check out the plates, it’s registered), but it’s a looker too. No, not some crazy custom looker, but something that might have been done back when this bike was a few years old and the new was not so new anymore. With a welded-on hardtail, sorta mini-apes, a repaint you know wasn’t factory, and a hot-rod engine, this bike looks like it could have been built in the ‘70s and squired away until recently.
CHC’s Triumph certainly does look the period piece when customizers had more enthusiasm than sheer dollars and did what they could without affecting (or affecting) the everyday use of the bike as transportation. If people had a custom bike back in the day, they rode it no matter how radical it might have been because that’s what you did with a motorcycle ─ ride the damn thing. To school, to work, to pick up chicks, to nowhere in particular, just like those two guys crossing the country in that Easy Rider movie did. If your front end was extended 18-inches-over, you rode it because that was your bike. If your bike had a Sporty peanut tank that only held a gallon at the radical angle you mounted it at and made you look for a gas station right after you filled up, you rode it because that was your bike. The concept of owning two or more bikes (unless your other ride was a dirt bike) was pretty foreign then so what you customized you rode and maybe paid a price for doing it, but you rode it because that was your bike.
What all of that blather is leading up to is that I really like Court House Custom’s Triumph as a cool little bobber that’s sure to bring a lot of questions to its owner. I can’t help but guess that this was more of a fun rideable showcase for Jason’s engraving talents that he picked up from C.J. Allan’s engraving class. Take a good look at the engine’s sidecovers in the photo gallery or click on this link and you’ll se what I’m referring to. It reminds me more of metal tattooing than deep-cut engraving and that’s okay by me, I like the tattoo look a lot. This new engraving offering enables Jason and D.J. to have one more option of keeping all their work in-house.
All in all, this Court House Custom Triumph bobber just looks like a hell of a lot of fun to me. It’s light, it’s quick, it’s loud, it’s kinda comfy, it’s eye catching, and it should be a blast to ride whether you were just cruising and looking at the flowers or cutting up on a twisty back road. D.J. and Jason, along with the rest of the CHC crew, should take a short bow for making a Triumph custom that not only looks right (and gets better and better the closer you get) and rides too. If you’d like to find out more of what the CHC boys are up to, check out their web site www.chcustom.com.