Dirt Quake V by Motor Rausch

See more of the German photographer's Dirt Quake V album. Thanks for the great photos, Motor Rausch.

(above) Sideburn 26 cover bike, El Solitario's Pluto, and Sideburn blog contributor, Hubert 'Marge' Bastie.

Lovely Dimitri on his way to win the W&W Harley class on the gorgeous Shaw's Mert Lawwill Sportster. 

 Michael Herman's Kawasaki stroker

 Don't forget to get our questions in for the next instalment of Ask Guy

 Dirt Quake virgin, Carl Fogarty

 Sideburn ed remembering to put keep his elbow up

Blog contributor, John Harrison

Richard Rowden and Drogo Michie, plus one of the Greenfield Girls, on DTRA Friday.

 The Stags' Conway Castle, letting his hair down

 Happy punters

 The Brinkmobile

Hubert v David El Solitario

Blueprint: Dimitri BSA B50

The latest bike to be immortalised in our blueprint series is the hardtail B50 of amateur racer, Dimitri Coste. Read how the Frenchman ended up owning the bike and why a 1970s machine has a hardtail anyway in Sideburn 25. Artwork, as always, by Mick Ofield.

If you want to read about the other bikes in the blueprint series, here is the list and the issues they feature in.

Sideburn 13 Wood Norton (sold out)
Sideburn 14 Bultaco Astro
Sideburn 15 Yamaha TZ700/TZ750 (sold out)
Sideburn 16 Harley XR750
Sideburn 17 Trackmaster BSA A70 (sold out)
Sideburn 18 Bonneville Performance 2014 (sold out)
Sideburn 20 1930 Norton DT
Sideburn 22 Wood Rotax
Sideburn 24 Honda RS750D

We have a bunch of different blueprints for sale. Go to the Sideburn Art Print department.

We also have limited numbers of the XR750 blueprint T-shirt for £18 plus post. G

Photo: Dimitri Coste

Sideburn 25: Pre-Order

Sideburn has reached 25 and to celebrate we've slapped on a silver foil logo on a full-fat 116 pages.
Sideburn 25 is now available for pre-order, and will be sent out soon or close to 20 June. Anything you order at the same time as issue 25 will be sent out together on the same day.

Cover star: Mark 'The Rusty Butcher' Atkins

BIKES: Mule Triumph Bonneville; Asterisk Harley XG750; Yamaha XS650 budget desert racers; BSA B50MX short tracker; 1991 Harley Sportster Hooligan racer; One Down Four Up SR500 & DT400

EVENTS: Country Mile Race; Yorkshire Ride-Out

HOW TO: Perfect your body English with Chris Carr

PEOPLE: Matt 'Arctic Monkey' Helders; Nuke-Leah Tokelove; Hank Scott; Dimitri Coste; Rusty Butcher

PORTFOLIO: The photography of Preston Burroughs

ADVENTURE: Royal Enfield Himalayan tested in the mountains

Plus the regular blueprints, poetry, trophy queens, interviews and wonderful illustrations...

Order yours from Sideburn.bigcartel.com

 

Barstow Goggles; OSFA Edition

Regular Sideburn contributor, photographer Dimitri Coste has a long relationship with 100% goggles, shooting ad campaigns for them and others in the motocross industry. Now 100% have created a collaboration goggle that promotes Dimitri's OSFA project.

OSFA stands for One Size Fits All and is based around his 1967 Triumph TR6C. The idea is to race as many different disciplines with one bike, only changing wheels, tyres and handlebars. He's race the Catalina GP, Pikes Peak, short track, mile and motocross (maybe more that I've forgotten).

Find out more about the goggles and how to find them at The Barstow OSFA.

You can read about the first time Sideburn met Dimitri and his Triumph in Sideburn 5 (which we have a very small amount of very slight seconds on sale) and his about Pikes Peak race in Sideburn 10 or a portfolio of his work in Sideburn 20. And click the label with his name below to see lots of posts about this enthusiastic racer, photographer, father, do-er. Vive le Coste. G

Barbarella

We've featured artists and photographers since the very early days of Sideburn, but since issue 20 we've introduced regular portfolios of artists and photographers who influence us, or have worked with us or both.

Sideburn 20 Dimitri Coste (photos)
Sideburn 21 Vince Perraud (photos)
Sideburn 22 Emroca (art)

And for issue 23 we have UK artist, Raid71. One of his pieces we chose to feature is Jane Fonda as Barbarella.
See more of his great work in Sideburn 23 out now. G

Coste Contemplation

Sideburn first met Dimitri when Ben, Steve Redmax and I went over to Paris to visit Ruby Helmets, not long after they'd just launched, and attend a local bike club meet (that turned out to be crap, but we became good friends with Sonic Seb through it).

Dimitri visited the offices of Ruby (his brother is the founder) and we got along so well he invited us to lunch at his house the next day. He had just bought a Triumph TR6C that wasn't running right. Steve Redmax tuned it up and made it fly and Ben shot a feature for Sideburn 5 there and then, perhaps the first on Dimitri Coste and his motorcycle passion.

Since then we've raced together, and the 'French Steve McQueen' has contributed a number of stories and attended all the UK Dirt Quakes, plus become a regular DTRA racer, and raced all over the world.

First and foremost, he's a great photographer and, for Sideburn 20, we have an eight-page portfolio on some of his favourite recent images.

If you want to see that first feature on Dimitri and his Triumph, you can read it in Sideburn 5. We have a very limited amount of this issue in our Back Issue Deal.

There is also a feature on Dimitri racing Pikes Peak in Sideburn 10 (available individually or as part of the back issue deal)

Above is a short video made at Dirt Quake III in 2014, featuring his two children. G

Jean-Michel Bayle Honda 750NS El Mirage

Dimitri Coste made some great photos of Jean-Michele Bayle riding a Honda 750NS at El Mirage for Cafe Racer magazine - also run in Riders magazine. This is a short video clip he made at the same time. BP

You can read about the development of this bike into the 750RS in the Bubba Shobert article in SB#9

Dirt Quake III Film by Moto Journal

DIRTQUAKE : Serge Nuques, Guy Martin, des... by moto-journal

Great video from the famous French moto media company, Moto Journal.
We know there are a few Dirt Quake III videos in production, but this is the first to be released.
Moto Journal are the fellas who brought Serge Nuques.
Merci bien.

There's some vey hot DTRA action in there too.

You can click to watch in HD. G

Coste x Monark

See this man racing at Rye House this Sunday. Free to spectate.
Here's the story behind this short film from Dimitri...

I wanted to share with you the result of a nice day of riding in Normandy back in june. I've been asked by Herve Coutin the editor of the independent magazine "Bad To The Bone" to shoot a fashion story for its latest issue. he wanted off road riding and a vintage motorcycle. 

Fabrice Bazire, let me ride his beautiful Monark 500 GP for the day, and like every time I ride this Swedish beauty I had an amazing time. Herve Coutin shot in black & white film for the 10 page story. 

The day before, I was working on the edit of a short video with the tiny amount of footage I had from my JMB photoshoot, and Julien Faucher, the editor I was working on asked me if I could call him next time i go riding because he was interested into filming motorcycling. I then realized that i had to ride the following day. 

I gave him a ride to Normandy, he shot what he could while Herve was snapping photos, and he came back to me today with this cool video. I hope you like it even if there isn't any sideways action. just casual riding in the fields of Normandy.

Gary's Leicester DTRA Report

As promised, here are some of my own snaps from the first DTRA round at Leicester. 

The weather forecast didn't look great, but, in Britain, you've just got to saddle up and go. Sometimes you waste a tank of diesel for a rain-off, but not very often. As it turned out, it rained for about one-minute all day and I got a sunburnt nose.

I was so excited to be back out racing I couldn't sleep the night before. I stormed the first heat, winning by a few bikes lengths from some very good riders. Even then I was thinking, The season can only go downhill from here. I was right, but at least I proved I can still win a 12-man heat.

Oily Rob, above, has retired his home-built Ducati Monster race bike and bought a DTX bike. He felt a bit conformist, so he made this new painted and studded race jacket. 

Leicester had the biggest entry of any UK dirt track race ever (except the Dirt Quakes). Two grids of Thunderbikes, two grids of novices, Pro class, restricted, Juniors and the new Vintage class. Above is Bon Zorro who competed in his very first dirt track race on his old Triumph road bike, after bringing it to the track in the back of a people carrier. He had a blast.

Also in the five-man inaugural Vintage class was DTRA regular John Boddy on his 750 Triumph twin (feature on this bike coming soon). Below is the seat, giving a pep talk before every race...

Frank Chatokhine and his Metisse Triumph, both featured in Sideburn 17, dominated the class, but he was hounded all day by his good friend...

Dimitri Coste, who was in his normal all-action mode before stalling on the line in the final and gifting second to...

Nick Ashley, who was riding a Cheney Triumph. Yes, it has a front brake disc and caliper, but the lever was removed so it didn't work. This is his road bike.

 Me and Drogo in our new FTWCo team kit.

 There were some new bikes, and some older ones given make-overs, like Adam Waller's Husqvarna.

Before the race, Ross Herrod was trying to cut some life into his wrecked rear tyre (the UK importer were out of the Maxxis CD5 compound he wanted). He looked like he didn't know what he was doing, and admitted as much, then won the Restricted final. Classy.

Dimitri's trailblazing, coming over from France to race, then raving about it, has generated a mini-French invasion. One French rider who debuted at Leicester was Christophe Decombard on his tidy, home-built Suzuki DR600. He went very well, but slid off while leading his novice class.

Another Frenchman making his DTRA debut was Hubert Bastie. Hubert raced at last year's Dirt Quake, riding his TW200 road bike and making a lot of friends. He came back with a 450 DTX, stayed in Sheffield with friends he made at Dirt Quake and rode like a demon.
It's great to see Dirt Quake acting as a feeder for the DTRA, like it did with Ross Herrod and Oily Rob before.

Tom Neave turned up with this Chinese-made WK in DTX trim, it's based on the £3999 450RX, to put on display. Tom is road racing a WK 650  (ER6-alike) and doing very well on it. More details on this bike when we get it.

A spectator turned up on this lovely Norton P11, taking advantage of free entry.

And this Dirt Quake hopeful turned up for approval too. You're in. Get your entry in now.

Health and Safety: Carb strip with a fag on?
Next race is 18 May at Coventry. GI