Influx: Alt.Bikers - notes from the new wave

Thinking man's automotive blog/web-thing, Influx is back after something of a hiatus.
They returned with a love letter to Ford's Dagneham plant and Ford Britain - getting Billy Bragg on board to write for them and star in a video.

Next up is 'Alt.Bikers - notes from the new wave'. They asked me to write a couple of pieces, one was about the mainstream 'co-optation of the alt. bike scene' (their phrase not mine). It's an insider's view, only lightly edited and barely dumbed down for the masses. That's why I like Influx so much.

The other piece I wrote for them is an interview with Bruce Brown, director of On Any Sunday.

There is also a feature on the Old Empire x ODFU Osprey by Influx head honcho, Mike Fordham, and a list of ten influential bike builders written by Bike Exif founder, Chris Hunter.

Heading up all this wordy stuff is Influx's own short and sweet video (above) shot at Dirt Quake III last year, featuring Sideburn's own entertainments officer, Dave Skooter Farm and other familiar faces.

Don't forget Dirt Quake IV is Friday-Saturday,  July 17-18.
Dirt Quake USA is Saturday-Sunday, June 20-21

You can read the articles at influx.co.uk, but here's a taster...

'For the first time since the British working class streetfighter scene of the mid-1990s – a sub-culture that spawned the definitive Triumph Speed Triple and every subsequent ‘hyper-naked’: Aprilia Tuono; KTM SuperDuke, Ducati Streetfighter… – it is motorcycle customisers, not solely racing or in-house design departments, that are leading development with their vitality. The crucial difference between the neo café racers and the streetfighters is the 21st century scene is clean-cut and affluent enough for boardroom inhabitants to relate to. There’s nothing illegal about the new scene. These people don’t look, or behave, like wrong ‘uns. They are ABC1s. Tasteful and urbane. The defining events do not take place outside a Midlands bike shop or on a wind-battered disused runway – but in hip, cultural magnets – Biarritz, Portland, East London’s Shoreditch.' G