Deus Ex Machina opens franchise in Britain

I wish! Scouring the internet for a place to call home - France didn't work out, I came across this Victorian pub for sale in Bristol which reminded me of the original D.E.M. Camperdown shop and I got all over excited. Once equated with a wife and two kids and not loads of money, this little fantasy will probably transpire into a two-up-two-down reality, but at least my floorboards wont reek of last night's / last century's beer. I'm still going to have a look at it next week though.
BP

Bubba Shobert

eg. make one of these...
Oh Mrs! put those stone-wash jeans back on P leaze
BP

Super-rare Honda on UK eBay

Boy oh Boy this Honda XLV750R would make something interesting. "Too nice to cut up? Mr Black". "No way, Mr Decker."
Only a day to go. Thanks to Tom B for the lead.

The Evidence

Some great shots, action, static bikes and details, of yesterday's race from Taelstar and his brother Dave... check their flat track flickr1 and flat track flickr 2.
And here is the video of me beating Boastie.

He was trying!
I'm milking this one, because it is unlikely to ever happen again.
Thanks to Ben Charlton for the video. GI

Oh man, what a day

First round of the UK Short Track Series at King's Lynn, Norfolk yesterday. For those who don't know there are two classes - short track and thunderbike. The short track is dominated by DTX bikes, modern 450s with lowered supsension (sometimes forks from 600cc supersports bikes) and 19in wheels with Maxxis DTR-1 tyres. The Thunderbike class is for framers with either air-cooled singles, any kind of multis and homebuilt crackpots. Oh, and there are juniors, quads and minibikes.
Since the introduction of the Thunderbike class entries have hovered between about 8 and 14 bikes. Yesterday there were 24, two full grids. The pits and car park were packed with racers, bikes and their haulers. The sun was shining, everyone felt good.
There's been a move from evening races to Sunday day in an effort to attract more fans, families on a day out, bikers on a ride. And it seemed to work. The racing was intense. Semis looked like finals. The ambulance carted off a couple of unfortunates with cracked bones, but nothing too serious (maybe I wouldn't say that is it had been me).

Some of the newcomers were super-fast and loose. Like Wayne Drake, 72R, on this XS. He has old Halvarssons leathers that reeked of grasstrack class, so I wasn't too surprised to see him hanging it out. Didn't get chance to photograph them or talk to him, but I will.

Luca came with Marco from Italy. Which, in turn, encouraged Ben C to drive all the way from Dorset (5 hours one way) to spectate. This is Luca's new Circle F framed Rotax. (This is practice, so that's why there's no one in the stands)

Paul Sheldon brought along his CCM 710 based Flatliner on 17s. It looked mean, but it took some starting compared to the DTX bike he's used to.

And this crazy cutdown GSX-R750 turned up. I didn't see it race. I hope it comes back.

Glyn P - from Helmets4U - turned up with his finished and rejuvenated TL1000. One session was enough to let him know why he was the third owner in about six months. It's brutal, but if anyone can ride it - in the UK - it'll be him. He's one of the most stylish riders we have.

Proud parents Anthony (of the DBA blogspot) and Geoff turned up with their beautiful homebuilt Co-Built Rotax. They have a jig for this bike now. It could be the most cost effective way to get a framer racebike in the UK.


Sideburn reader Paul Baleta turned up on a Ducati Monster, he highsided in testing yesterday. He went well and cut a dash in those old RS Tacihi leathers.
There were some shocks. The Wainfleet Megabowl's own Justin Hargate beating Marco Belli. Andy Moore winning the Dash for Cash on his Rotax. And Sideburn's own GI (me!) winning two heats from holeshot to flag, including beating Peter Boast in a straight race. If anyone has ever seen me and Boastie race together will find this hard to believe, but there were witnesses. The standing ovation from the pit was something special.
Less of a shock, but still a great result was Skooter Farm's Captain Highside winning the Red Max Thunderbike final (I placed a proud 4th). Next race is a two-dayer at the BMF, Peterborough. Can hardly wait.

Team Skooter Farm (L-R) - Joe (team tactician), Captain Highside, Gary, Dave (shadow is cheerleader Louise)

cyclenut48

Google Images used to be my crack, but I managed to ween myself off it with regular doses of Flickr. It's unbelievable the gold you can gleen. This shot of Willie Hardin popping his 'Bultaco Killer' Suzi; and the rest of the album, is too good to just cast into the ether. We need to get some printed up in SB magazine; all his stories included. BP

[The photographer] Manuel Burton always showed up at either Elsinore or Perris for Saturday night races. During practice one night, I really pitched the TS185 in the corner where he was standing. He got this shot with my front wheel off the ground. The cut Pirelli MT53's didn't have enough tread to hold me up on this occasion. Had to replace a clutch lever before the heat races. Neat picture though. Willie.

ink

Even in this hi-tech age, you still can't beat a bit of scratchy pen and ink to tickle the eyeballs. This is from Will Pierce's Flickr album. BP

pedal power

€10 impulse buy. Wouldn't have given it the time of day, but those lugs gave me the hots and I couldn't walk away. I'm going to join the fashionista and make a fixie out of it + they just built an all-wood turn left board-track velodrome 15 minutes from where I'm living, so now there's no excuse. BP

Gary's Euro adventure

Blog regulars will have read that I was driving around Europe in a fancy Audi. Turns out, with the extras, it was worth £110,000. I did 2200 miles in three days. Well, anyway, I've given it back now. I've written the story and I've caught up on the Sidbeurn mailing. This afternoon I'm going to put a drawing of a Gateshead multi-storey car park in a frame, take more Sideburn orders to the post office and get my stuff ready for the race on Sunday. I should invoice for all the fuel that V10 drank.

On the way out to Germany I remembered there was a hot rod show, SINS in Weize, Belgium. I met up with the Flying Dutchman - who has contributed to Sideburn 2 and 3. He is one of the coolest and nicest fellas ever. He works for the Dutch air force fixing F-16s, but he's also a great photographer. He builds and rides his 60s style Panhead all over, he travels to America and shoots stories. He loves loads of different things, so he's not one of the narrow-minded types you sometime come across at hot rod shows. That's him in the middle. He liked the Audi. The Flying Dutchman blog was one of the first I really got into and it's still one of my favourites.

I also met the Jenny the Trophy Queen lady. She makes neat handbags and stuff. She used to be involved with the Ventura Outlaw Short track races. She loves Sideburn.
I bumped into Matt from Dice and his wife. I have every issue of Dice, so it was good to chat to one of the men behind it. In fact, I was surprised how many people I knew since I don't really have any hot rod connections. Simon from The Paintbox. Laurent from Powerglide magazine. Ivan from Exotica, Paris. This is his blue van. How cool?

There were only a handful of bikes, but they were the 50s-60s style I like so there weren't any bad ones. I loved the Chinese Honda Monkey bike engine in the Schwinn-style hardtail work in progress. I could do with learning how to use the Canon I bought off Ben, rather than the Olympus I got free with my Macbook though.

Short Track in Giavera, Italy

The Italians really bring something to UK dirt track. Marco Belli is one of the hardest racers out there. He broke his collarbone the day before the last race decider, last October, and still did enough the next day to retain his title. It's about a 1600-mile round journey for every race the Italians compete in England.
Luca T is coming to race as many round as possible and Dario, on his homemade KTM, featured in issue 1, so he'll always have a place in our heart. I don't know who the girl on the supermoto is.
Marco and Luca will be at King's Lynn on Sunday. You should be there too.
Thanks to Jan-Willem for pointing us to these great Italian short track shots. There's a short track video of their practice here too.