This is a Game by Nick Waterhouse

Just heard this song on BBC 6 Music and fell in love with it. I was sure it was an obscurity from the late-50s, but it's brand new. Seems Nick Waterhouse is doing a massive tour of North America so keep an eye out if you're over there. G
nickwaterhouse.com

Carnivale De Velo

Deus LA tomorrow (Sat 1st Feb)

The Stags

Tonight in Bristol! i'll be there. BP

Jane Motorcycles, Brooklyn

Jane Motorcycles in Brooklyn, NY now stocks Sideburn magazine.

If your establishment would like to become a Sideburn stockist, please drop us an email at dirt at sideburnmagazine.com

Frank Gillespie Stylist

Frank Gillespie riding Gaskill built, Sachs-KTM engined, Penton 360? 1974? Santa Fe? BP

Noyes Camp UK

If you follow the blog you'll have seen a few posts about Kenny Noyes. He's a former Moto2 rider and US national dirt track champ. He kicked ass at the recent Superprestigio. He's a top fella and pictured above, testing Guy's Co-Built in Spain.

From Anthony at the DTRA...

The DTRA is excited to announce a Pre-Season Training day with Kenny Noyes. The day is aimed at seasoned racers and beginners alike who wish to practise their skills on their own bike. 

Entries to training day are restricted to 20 riders only so each individual gets plenty of track time and advice. 
Venue: Rye House Speedway 
Date: 13 April 2014 
Schedule: 
8.30 onwards - Arrival and unload 
9.00am - Sign on and introduction 
10.00am - 3.00pm Track time inc: Free ride and warm up sessions 
 Basic Principles 
 Cornering Drills 
 Bike Setup Clinic 
 Filmed Laps (for feedback purposes) 
 Free ride track time 
 3.00pm onwards- Drinks in the Pub and feedback from the day. 

Cost per rider DTRA member = £100 Non Member = £120
Go to DTRA to sign up. 

Superprestigio - Super Slo-mo

This raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
#9 is Kenny Noyes (from the Noyes Camp in Spain)
#93 is Marc Marquez
#41 is Aleix Espargaro
#7 is Alessandro Baldassari
#30 is Alan Birtwistle
#1 is Brad Baker
#53 is Tito Rabat.

Watch how the holes on the corner entry unsettle Marquez's bike, but not Marquez. G

UPDATE: We have some exciting Kenny Noyes/ DTRA news coming up later today.

M&M's Street Scramblers

Bultaco Frontera 250

Honda 90 Scrambler

Kawasaki 250TR

M&M's in Japan consistently turn out the neatest street trackers and street scramblers. Nothing too flash or fancy, just handsome and tidy.
We have a full feature on M&M's in Sideburn 6 (of which there are only a few left). G

Dirt Quake USA

We've hinted about it for a while, now here is the poster for Dirt Quake USA.
The event is over the weekend May 31- June 1, with flat track racing for regular racers on Saturday, beer and music Saturday night and all the Dirt Quake daftness, inappropriate road bikes and chopper dirt track on Sunday. We're doing it in conjunction with the good people at See See Motorcycles.
The race is the GNC track at Castle Rock, WA (an hour north of Portland).
More details to come, but it's going to be fun. G
Poster art by Adi Gilbert

Mert Lawwill by Ryan Quickfall

We have a few of these beautiful, hand-pulled screen-printed posters up in the shop. This image was originally created for Sideburn 13, by English artist Ryan Quickfall.

The artwork measures 500 x 380mm. Each one is hand-numbered and signed by Ryan. Limited edition of 45.

They look good on a computer screen, but they look amazing in real life. Mine's going to the framer's today.

They're £40 plus post from the Sideburn Webshop. G

Hi-Tech No-Tech

Socks will still function with a few holes (and I'm not much of a darner), Computers not so well. I wrung the last KB of memory out of my old G5 Apple Mac, just managing a final re-boot to salvage my iTunes, before it completely blacked out two years ago. An up-grade to my wife's hand-me-down MiniMac was welcome, but after a new hard-drive transplant didn't exactly put a spring back in its step, I went back to the trendy Apple Store and was told by a yoof it was "vintage" and they wouldn't touch it - 2006 vintage!?

Desperately gasping for the last 4GB of breathing space to finish off producing SB#16, was akin to the Staw Wars Garbage Compactor 3263827 scene, but even with constant re-starting even C3PO wasn't going to be able to save me and it kept crashing. So I've bought a new MiniMac.
Even the basic model has warehouse spacious 500GB. As Western Computers where I bought it, offers a to dispose of space junk I took them the weighty G5 that was gathering dust under the stairs, but concerned with personal security I asked if they could somehow zap it sterile, just incase the NSA could still read the dead hard-drive, otherwise I would take it home and hit it with a sledge hammer. "We can do that, and give you the hard-drive as proof" They informed me. I presumed they meant zapping, so I was surprised when I heard a WHACK-WHACK-THUD from the back room and they reappeared with a dented metal box.

When I got home I gave it a few extra, most satisfying, sadistic blows. BP

Champion Ossa (street legal!) For Sale in UK

This looks like it would be a great fun race bike, but I'm not sure I'd want it as a road bike. Thanks to Ross for the tip-off. Follow this link to UK eBay (not a) Champion Ossa. The reserve is £2600.
UPDATE: Spurious title on eBay. I should've read it more carefully. It's not a Champions frame. Still neat, but not a desirable (to me at least). G

Harley Street 750 On Ice

The extreme sports juggernaut that is the X Games is considering including motorcycle ice racing in future event. Concurrently, Harley Davidson are pushing their new entry level liquid-cooled Street 750 (called, the, er, Street 750) and enrolled Brad Baker and Mr and Mrs Mees to promote the cause.

They want fans to tweet their opinions with the hashtag - #XGIceRace. We've never been to a X Games, but if it turns people onto flat track in some way, it can't be a bad thing. Twits should tweet something encouraging, but don't forget the hashtag.

Talking to AMA Pro Racing about the Street 750, Jared Mees said, “The Harley-Davidson Street 750 definitely gets up and runs. The throttle response is more instant and it’s definitely a lot snappier and has a lower center of gravity than the Harley-Davidson XR750. I think Harley-Davidson should consider this bike to compete at the Grand National level at some point. I would be all for this decision.” G

Star Twin Norton

This came in from Wieger at Star Twin, Netherlands

Came across this project from a few years ago, as you can see we made the stainless system for it. .
Take care, Vriendelijke groeten, Wieger

Sideburn 16 - Pre Order

Sideburn 16 is at the printer. It's a goodie!

100 finely printed pages of wholesome goodness, including:
El Solitario Petardo
The history of the Harley XR750
1970s Florida flat track memories
Jim Rice
Kenny Roberts
Suzuki Savage LS650 tracker
Modified Royal Enfields going wild in the Himalayas
450cc Formula 2 Speedway prototypes
The Barbara Fritchie Classic
Bixente BSA
Travis's poetry...

Pre-order yours at the Sideburn webshop. It'll be sent out on or before January 31.

New Sticker (and record) Pack

Five stickers and The Stags 7in vinyl single (released on Sideburn records) and a programme from Dirt Quake I for £5 (plus post).

You don't have a record player? Don't worry, this cultural artefact is so beautiful you'll want to leave it on coffee table/ floor/ cell bunk purely to fondle during idle moments or as a handy conversation starter with:
A) Old people, 'I haven't seen one of those for years. I've never heard of this band though. Are they like Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass?'
Or
B) Young people: 'What's this a coaster? Eh? Like a digital download from the Roman Empire. Oh, cool. Here take a tenner for it, I bet it's worth a fortune.'

Get yours at the Sideburn webshop. G

Oh yeah, and those new stickers are Chris Watson's interpretations of me (Gary) racing my Wood Rotax in the DTRA and Ben 'Poncho' Part racing his Yamaha XS650 chopper at Dirt Quake. Self-indulgent, I know, but we've given up waiting for our Arai replica lid, Vans signature shoe or even our name on the side of can of Diet Coke, so we did it ourselves.

Slacker by Paul Bryant Photography

Photographer Paul Bryant took these shots of the Stevie Gee project bike (Sideburn 15 cover bike) for us to send The Bike Shed website. He's built a photo studio with an infinity cove and is offering a service of shooting owner's bikes for them to have pro quality shots of their bike, scooter, whatever. The photos are delivered hi-res on disc, for the owner to them have prints made or Paul can get prints made at a good price.

The price of a shoot starts at £125 plus VAT. For that you get a variety of angles of the bike and detail shots. The bikes are all professionally lit.

He is based in Bourne, Lincolnshire. Contact him through paul @ paulbryantphotography.com

I've worked with Paul for magazines around the world for nearly ten years and he is the man. I can't recommend him highly enough. Below are other examples of Paul's studio-style shots (but not all in his studio). G

Mablethorpe Beach Races, 2014 Report

Sunday mornings are normally taken up watching my boy play football, but this week's was cancelled due to a waterlogged pitch, so we trucked up to Mablethorpe for our annual beach racing pilgrimage. There were plenty of neat bikes, like this Honda XL250 (I think) below.

This DT125 was a favourite too.

Camera-shy Carl of CFM (who has built all Sideburn's project bikes) on his all-conquering TDR250. He won his class again yesterday. He'll be 250 road bike champ this season.

 Family affair.

The grasstracker class is impressive.

The 200 road bike class. There are a bunch of road bike classes up to the mutants in the unlimited class. 

There are classes for everything on the beach including MX bikes. I liked this older gen Kawasaki. Some of the MX fellas get a bit carried away with it all, though. There was a 20-man brawl in the pits just before the end of the meeting (not involving anyone in these photos). Knobheads. 

Unlimited road bike sand racers are like no other race bike in the UK. Built for nothing and raced on the cheap. It's as close as I've seen to punk rock motorcycle racing anywhere in the world. They really don't give a f***.

 

Neil Tuxworth, boss of Honda Racing UK, raced on the beach for decades and his neat Honda XL250 spawned a bunch of replicas and racers inspired by his bike, including these.

Young Tom was flying on his Africa Twin, built by CFM. Full gas, full lock.

Our mate Russ was back from Afghanistan and straight into another potentially dangerous sandy situation. This one a little colder.

Russ wheelieing. Carl clearing off.

 Mablethorpe. Where the sea meets the sky.