Grottoes, Virginia, is a small town in the Shenandoah Valley of the Appalachian Mountains, and although it’s less than 200 miles from Washington DC, there is no pork barrelling or easy lobbyist cash to be made here. It’s a place where life will test you and every single dollar made has to be earned through blood, sweat and tears. For six generations that’s the way it’s been for the family of Jeremy Cupp, working metal with incredible talent, from old-school shaping to high-tech machining. But there is a new generation working alongside the master builder, and daughter Emmi worked hand in glove with her father in the LC Fabrications shop, to shape this tasty pair of Honda Scramblers.
You’ve got to have grit to survive in this part of the world and Jeremy Cupp has that in spades – but he’s also one hell of a metal worker and a bike builder. But Emmi knows her stuff too, she was our 2023 Young Builder of the Year and joins her old man who’s had plenty of Top Ten appearances, award-winning builds, and his one-off machine known as ‘Seven’ is in this scribe’s opinion, one of the best custom bikes ever built. But life throws up hurdles that can seem at the time impossible to overcome and sometimes the best medicine is a motorcycle. So, with two bikes to build on a budget and a long winter ahead, Jeremy and Emmi went into their studio, the metalwork shop that is LC Fabrications.
“I was certainly not in a place to do my best work, create some sort of masterpiece, I just needed to keep my hands busy,” Jeremy tells us. The two Honda’s were already part of their collection and both needed a hell of a lot of work. Emmi had purchased the ’82 CB125 with the intention of building it to be her daily ride, and Jeremy had scored the 1968 CL450 in a trade. He’d promised his oldest daughter Harleigh that before the next summer, the 450 would be ready for her to ride, so there was no time to waste in getting to the bottom of each bike’s problems, and then making them ride their best.
“At first we were almost in a sort ‘build off’ mode, we’d joke here and there and ride each other’s a bit and ask “aren’t you done yet?”, and “are you just gonna leave it that way?”. But we started to work on each other’s bikes because it was way more efficient to do two of everything than for each of us to do our own. This of course is what led to the idea of a matching pair, the big sister and the little sister Hondas,” Jeremy explains. And part of what helps to unify these siblings is the matching tanks, they already had one CL360 item in the shop and with it looking good on both bikes, Jeremy found another on eBay.
Meanwhile, Emmi was doing some tasty fab work, a pair of junked DT100s donated their fenders and the gun young builder known as ‘Shop Girl’, did her thing on modifying them to fit the Honda frames. The rest of the fabrication work is minimal compared to the usual LC build, with the frames de-tabbed, smoothed out and relieved of any of the factory guff that was no longer needed. Both were then stripped down for paint and the choice of hue is inspired, with the Subaru Grey perfect for the classic vibe and also a brilliant choice for a scrambler with understated looks. To keep that theme flowing, a mix of gloss and satin black completes the paint and it was time to shift to the mechanicals.
Each bike had its fair share of unique problems to overcome and although the 450 ran ok, Jeremy knew what to do to really make her purr. The bike now runs a fresh set of Mikuni carbs to ensure the fuelling is spot on and spark is handled by an electronic ignition. A bunch of seals and gaskets have gone in and the old girl sports a new clutch too. Emmi’s CB on the other hand had thrown a rod and slammed the piston into the side of the bore. The cases were split so all the shrapnel could be removed and cleaned out before a brand-new piston had the compression back to its best. The bike still runs the stock CDI, but to ensure crisp fuelling, a tried and true round slide Mikuni goes on.
But even when Jeremy is doing what he considers a very simple build, his metalwork skills are going to shine through and with some stainless steel bought in, he hand-fabricated three mufflers from scratch. Two go on the CL and one for the CB, with both bikes running his high side pipes from the exhaust ports back, perfect welds as always and a neat set of heat shields are finished in black for each beast. With the running gear back in, the bikes had to get rolling and the 450s forks were stuffed and no replacement could be found. So, back to eBay and a set of CB750 tubes were purchased before Jeremy knocked out a set of triple clamps to suit.
“I re-laced the stock wheels with stainless spokes after powder coating came back and we were able to find Shinkos that matched and would fit the front and rear of both bikes.” Each rider sits on a classic scrambler-style seat and reaches forward to a new set of Pro Taper bars. “Then we topped the bikes off with matching accessories from Lowbrow customs; headlights, taillights, grips etc.” The hidden electrics keep both machines uber neat and Emmi added her custom touch to the CB’s fuel cap. “These bikes were just what we needed to keep us close together and get us through the first winter of our new life,” Jeremy explains. And with spring breathing new air into the valley, this family of Appalachian ace builders have two stunning scramblers to tear up the fresh green grass.
[ LC Fabrications | Photography by Gabriel Alexander ]