Back Street Heroes is a monthly UK custom bike magazine that helped to popularize a "new breed" of custom motorcycle

Custom motorcycle

A custom motorcycle is a motorcycle that is highly stylized or which treats aspects such as frame geometry, engine design, or paintwork in an unusual way compared to standard manufacturing. Custom motorcycles are unique or individually produced in a very limited quantity, as opposed to "stock"...

, distinct from previous choppers

Chopper (motorcycle)

A chopper is a type of motorcycle that was either modified from an original motorcycle design or built from scratch to have a hand-crafted appearance. The main features of a chopper that make it stand out are its longer frame design accompanied by a stretch front end...

 because they combined rat bike

Rat bike

Rat bikes are motorcycles that have fallen apart over time but been kept on the road and maintained for little or no cost by employing kludge fixes...

-influenced utilitarian

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

 and minimalist

Minimalism

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...

 design with greater use of high tech gadgetry, but catering to an upscale

Luxury good

Luxury goods are products and services that are not considered essential and associated with affluence.The concept of luxury has been present in various forms since the beginning of civilization. Its role was just as important in ancient western and eastern empires as it is in modern societies...

 buyer in the Robb Report

Robb Report

The Robb Report is an American, English-language, luxury-lifestyle magazine featuring products — including automobiles, real estate and watches — for affluent connoisseurs.-History:...

demographic.

Back Street Heroes "celebrates the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, black leather, long hair and open exhausts aspect of motorcycling," targeting, like its US counterpart Easyriders

Easyriders

Easyriders is an American motorcycle magazine, founded in 1971. It is published monthly by Paisano Publications, LLC.In addition to its coverage of motorcycles and related activities, Easyriders is also known for including pictures of nude or topless women and paintings by David Mann who was a...

, the "hardcore" niche. It is one of a handful of biker magazines that include fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

. The magazine tied together geographically isolated enthusiasts of biker culture by keeping them up to date on custom bike mechanical techniques and styles, and motorcycle rallies, as well related culture, such as biker music and their music. All this earned the magazine credibility with the mainstream press on the subject of outlaw motorcycle club

Outlaw motorcycle club

An outlaw motorcycle club is a type of motorcycle club that is part of a subculture with roots in the post-World War II USA, centered on cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and choppers, and a set of ideals celebrating freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture, and loyalty to the...

s.

The late Ian 'Maz' Harris, PhD, founder of the Bulldog Bash

Bulldog Bash

The Bulldog Bash is considered to be one of Europe's most popular, annual, motorcycle festivals with a reported attendance of 50,000 people in 2007...

 rally and spokesman for the Hells Angels

Hells Angels

The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is a worldwide one-percenter motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation. Their primary motto...

, was a regular contributor. Another Hells Angel, the late Brian 'Moke' Thompson, was also featured in the magazine. L. J. K. Setright

L. J. K. Setright

Leonard John Kensell Setright was an English motoring journalist and author.Born of Australian parents in London, his father Henry Roy Setright, was an engineer who invented the Setright ticket machine used on buses and trams. Setright studied Law at the University of London and practised for a...

 contributed technical articles, and Paul Sample

Paul Sample (cartoonist)

Paul Sample is a British cartoonist and illustrator best known for his cartoon strip Ogri, and for the covers of Tom Sharpe's Wilt and Flann O’Brien paperbacks, posters for BBC Radio Two and advertisements for The Post Office, Ford, Dunlop, and British Airways...

's Ogri

Ogri

Ogri is a cartoon character of a British rocker-style biker created by English cartoonist and illustrator Paul Sample in the 1970s for Bike magazine in the UK until January 2009, when it was dropped but quickly taken up by Back Street Heroes, the custom motorcycle magazine. Four book collections of...

cartoon moved to Back Street Heroes in 2009, after 35 years at Bike.