As well as having a name straight from the Danish Book of Baby Names, Lars is tall, solid and bearded. The man’s a proper Dane. A Viking. Not the skinny sets of leg you’ll spot in Kødbyen on a Friday night struggling under the weight of their own cheekbones and scarves. No surprises, he’s as nice as they come too. He’d spent some time working in Australia and like most Danes, had seen more of my country than I had. He asked me to cut lengths of metal tube for the DIY custom seat kits they sell through their website. Again, not a great deal of skill involved but after measuring a dozen or so times, I thought I could use the time to think. I quickly discovered you don’t want to drift off while operating ancient machinery donated to a motorcycle garage. I say ‘donated’ and so did Lars. It seems it had actually been left there by the previous occupant and been reclassified ‘donated’ rather than ‘abandoned’.

Lars explained the eccentricities of the machines. They sounded like grumpy old men, quite literally at times. As well as the emphysemic metal splutters they let out at any sign of having to move, if you forced them or pushed them too hard they gave up on you. A cutting blade came loose a few times so I steadied the pace and listened for their geriatric objections. I mentioned to Lars that I couldn’t seem to get the guides to hold a measurement but he already knew. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s approximate. This is custom motorcycles,” he reminds me with that same grin.

His ‘Philosophy of the Approximate’ sounded like something he expected of other people rather than anything he had chosen to live by. It was an easy assessment to make as you ran your eyes over the bike he had built by himself now sitting in the garage (and tattooed to his own chest). Persuading a fuel injected 2005 Triumph engine into a 1954 Norton Featherbed frame takes dedication, patience and technical mastery, not the heavy handedness he seemed to imply. Not being an original Monkee, Lars took care of a lot of the wiring on the later bikes. It should be noted that anyone who enjoys working with the electronics of motorbikes is either a perfectionist or a sadist. Lars I suspect is for most parts the former.