FEATURE BUILDER INTERVIEW - Lance Anderson

Low-Fi Rides talks to Rattlers member Lance Anderson about his Ill Eagle build.

LFR-ezine: Tell us a little about yourself?

I'm living in Dairy Flat down the end of a typically rough, windy country road and enjoy the freedom of being able to ride when I want. I grew up in West Auckland around the Royal Heights area but spent some of my younger years in Australia before returning to live in Auckland. My interest in motoring started at high school with a passion for rotary cars. I currently still own a Mazda that I've had for nine years, although I've now totally lost interest in the Jap car scene overall. I guess over time you get interested in other things, its just a natural progression. 

LFR-ezine: How and when did you make the switch from rotaries to bikes?

Lance: As part of my car habit I was buying associated magazines, which now and then featured the odd bike. Then one day a friend said 'check this out', and handed me a Horse Magazine. There was a Triumph bobber in there that definitely got my interest and I guess I knew from that point on that I was going to build something. Around that same time I became interested in the Biker Build-off shows on Discovery and realised the things that they were doing on there were not out of my range of abilities. This gave me confidence to go ahead with this bike. I've also collected a good range of books on bike building and really admire these particular builders: Trevalene, Billy Lane, Hank Young, Chica and Jesse James. I read my books and mags cover to cover, gleaning every bit of useful information I can.

LFR-ezine: Tells us about the donor bike and the time frame of the build.

Lance: I'd been to the Kumeu Show a few times and managed to pick up some choice bits and pieces and thought that I'd like to ride my own home-built bike down there to put on display. So I started building November of 2007 and completed it and rode to the Kumeu Show 09. I was lucky enough to pick up the SR400 donor bike, ninety percent complete, and with a spare frame, from a mate's father for $300. The build took place at GR Engineering thanks to my former boss Greg. He allowed me work space and access to the shop whenever I wanted and kindly donated materials. He is also responsible for overseeing a lot of the technical details of the build and I always bounced ideas off him, and he always bounced better ones back. His experience as an engineer was especially useful when ordering materials such as tube and pointing out the best way to gusset where required. 

LFR-ezine: You have some pretty trick parts on this build, tell us about them.

Lance: The exhaust system I'm especially proud of, with its detachable muffler. The crazy twisted muffler was donated to the project by a friend who thought it would suit, and it really finishes the whole thing off nice.

I used a lot of re-bar on this bike, I have an old 1970's exercycle pedal for the kicker, a speedo with cracked glass, antique headlight, 50 calibre bullet cartridges and a seat that I hand made with my first attempt on the english wheel. I do intend to cover the seat in the near future as it freezes my arse.

LFR-ezine: Any plans to make this bike actually legal?

Lance: Yes, definitely. The rego is currently on hold, I've just gotta hunt around for the right warrant guy and it should be sweet.

LFR-ezine: What else are you into beside bikes?

Lance: Wrestling, Star Wars, comics, old school style bikes, any mechanical endeavours.  I'm looking forward to riding this coming summer with like-minded people.

Lance would like to say a special thanks to the following people for their input and support: Greg, Boomer, Karen, T-Nuts, and the boys at RI Unkovich. 

Stock image in cover photo courtesy of Richard X Thripp www.richardxthripp.thripp.com

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