So you want to be a champion custom bike builder? It’s a dream many aspire to, and who can blame them? But how many truly understand the incredible sacrifices required, the years of hard slog, and the financial hardship that are all part of the process? One young man who has lived the struggle and ridden the highs and lows, is 26-year-old Australian metal fabricator and panel beater, Cody Jermyn. As a kid, he watched the Biker Build-Off on TV, in his early teens, he tinkered with bikes, and by seventeen, he had one foot in the industry. Now, nine years later, he can show the world his first trophy-winning, incredible creation: a 1992 Harley-Davidson XL1200 Sportster, which he has totally transformed into one seriously slick sled.

Like many of the best chopper builders in the business, Cody started with a simple job as a teenage apprentice doing oil changes at a small mechanical workshop. After a few years of spinning spanners, the opportunity arose for him to start his apprenticeship as a fabricator. He used his spare time to learn the old art of the English Wheel by shaping scrap metal. During the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, he completed a street tracker build of a WR450 and soon realised that custom bike building was truly for him. He next finished his apprenticeship and landed a gig at one of Australia’s premier Hot Rod builders, Downtown Kustoms, as a fabricator and coach builder.

This was a whole new world; he had entered the realm of the elite. However, with the shop located in small town Australia, the lure of the local pub during his downtime was hard to resist. What Cody needed was another build project. With his mate selling a Sporty, he pooled what little money he had, sold his other bikes, and got his hands on the Harley. It wasn’t long before he had the roller running. “It had sat in the shop for all of ten minutes before the front end was yanked out and a mock-up springer was shoehorned in.” There was no turning back. “I’d had an idea for a tank floating around in my mind for about a year and a half, featuring a hollowed-out V-shaped centre. This ultimately set the tone for the build, and every handcrafted piece flowed from this,” Cody explains.

A buck was made, and now with access to a power hammer and shrinking dies, Cody started to pound the metal. It was a time-consuming process, and the tank underwent several iterations, but eventually, the entire top section was perfectly shaped from a single piece. The central thesis of Cody’s work was ‘flow’; from the lines of each individual part, to the way they interact with each other, everything had to look like it was working in harmony. From the centrepiece at the top of the tank to the sweeping lines of the sides that glide rearward, the finish resembles water droplets shaped by the air.

But no, it’s solid steel he’s working with, and the oil tank is yet another miraculous creation. Showing off all his skills, the lines were created using wire and masking tape until the young Jedi transformed metal into that picture-perfect shape. The headlight is another of his incredible creations, featuring a metal-shaped body with a 0.7mm stainless steel trim panel made in four pieces, tig-welded and file-finished to house the blow-moulded acrylic lens cap. The tail light and rear fender are also Cody’s brilliant handiwork, and the Candy Red finish covering it all was laid down in-house, with one day in the booth reaching a sweltering 47 degrees Celsius.

The hellish hue runs over the frame too, which is obviously no stock unit, with a Paughco Rigid serving as the foundation of the build. It has been given a beautiful aesthetic makeover, including those gorgeous motor mounts that hold the Sporty engine in place. On the inside, the motor is relatively stock, with a top-end rebuild and Andrews N2 cams. “For the intake, it’s running a standard CV carb with a polished inlet and SPREADCHEESE velocity stack. The wiring is uber neat too, with a Daytona Twin Tec ignition and a Hypnic Jerk points cover. But that exhaust system is no bolt-on item taken from a parts supplier.

Having always wanted to try sand bending, Cody picked up a bunch of stainless steel tubing. And while a few hundred dollars’ worth of pipe was ruined, resulting in more baked bean dinners, the finished result speaks for itself, and it’s easy to see why there will be a line-up of others wanting these seriously hot pipes. Knowing he wanted a foot clutch, there are more than eighty hours of work in fabricating the incredible round bar foot controls from stainless steel. Then came all the polishing work to get them looking a million dollars. The shifter itself is a Hurst stick taken from a HQ Holden and modified to fit, with the handle positioned just where you’d want it.

The chain conversion was a must for Cody, and he also made the seat base before having Bad Arse Trim Co knock it out of the park with the upholstery. There are endless other parts and pieces to this incredible chopper, but 18 months into the build, an invitation arrived for the Choppaggedon show. A reasonable person would have decided there just wasn’t time to finish, but even with a trip to the US stealing more valuable days, Cody set out to get it done. The clock was ticking, more cans of Baked Beans were being consumed, and when he arrived home jet-lagged, the bike was laid out on his bed in his small apartment for the final assembly. How he got to the show in time with a build this good is anyone’s guess. But four trophies, including Best in Show, tell the tale, and Cody Jermyn’s future as a world-class builder burns bright; shit meals and sacrifices are all part of the process in becoming the best.

[ Photography by Tristan Tolley ]