Dell'Ortos Suck

Not just the standard carb on chunky Italian roadbikes, but once popular on American and Japanese flat trackers too. I'm guessing this is a 38mm pumper on Jeff Haney's Honda. Read all about the development of the CX500 powered NS750 into it's successor, the RS750 in Sideburn #7. BP

We Love Animal Boat

Animal Boat don't make distinctions, they love all bikes. And they've been scrambling. We love Animal Boat. Read all about them in Sideburn 7. G

0.5 facts about Seb's XS

In Sideburn 7 we have Dimitri Coste's great shots of Seb Lorentz's beautiful XS650. The story is 6.5 Facts about Seb's bike. Why 6.5? Because it's a 650. And we like doing things differently. If we followed all the rules we'd look just like a normal newsstand bike magazine. We have nothing against them, but we aren't one. So, sometimes Ben makes strange design decisions and sometimes we cut a story mid-sentence. So, here's the missing 0.5 of a fact. To get the first 6.5, buy Sideburn 7.

...master cylinder (maybe foot controlled). I would love also to find a spool hub when I do not use the front brake for a cleaner look.
Another DT360 tank is in preparation with a special paint but also a new seat so I will be able to swap them quickly and to change the complete look of the bike very quickly.
Why not having also a 2 into 2 low exit RHS mufflers ?
Dream for the XS would be a 750 or 1000 side car cross tuned engine or a 270° Heiden Tuning modified engine to put it on wheelie easily and burn the Firestone rear rubber faster!

Check out Seb's blog - Ze Last Chance Garage. It's formidable! G

Jack Russell Terriers 1 - Sideburn United 0

Loveless rabid dog mauled SB#7. If you are still awaiting your copy of SB#7 to arrive, please ensure your pet is well fed at all times. Or maybe even fence-off the entire doormat area. BP

Extended Repertoire

The Stevie Gee gig was rammed, I knew more people there that at my own brother's wedding. Good to meet you Stevie. A great evening topped off with an excellent Thai from Cây Tre on Old Street, then a dash for the last tube west to Shepherds Bush with Sideburn regulars James Chappell, and Maxwell Paternoster. James has illustrated SB#7's Who? What? When?... of Eddie Lawson (and our Sandy and Nora stickers), and has also added wooden spoon carving and pop-up cards to his creative repertoire. BP

Apology

Sorry, but the green T-shirt combo has been held up. We were expecting them yesterday. They're promised for the next day or so. The packages are already labeled to be sent out. Those of you who did pre-order the shirts did the right thing. We've sold out of some sizes. Thanks for all your support. Spread the word - Sideburn 7 is out. G

Underdog

SB#7 cover story. The first time in the history of flat track racing that a Kawasaki has won a national Mile race. And Bryan Smith didn't stop his record racing there...BP

Cold Enough to Freeze the Nuts Off a Danish Monkee

The internet is the studio shoot of reality. Hygienic and warm. Sideburn magazine insists motorcycles are to be got dirty in their natural habital. The Wrench Monkees risked frostbite to their nether regions to photograph their latest, a Kawasaki Z970, out into the snow especially for SB#7. BP

The Art of Carby Tuckwell

Like crazed Jacko fans, we at Sideburn start ‘queuing’ at 4am when a new Tuckwell artwork is going to be released, but one day, not long ago, realised we knew sod-all about the man. So we did something about it and asked him to open up about himself, his work and the company of which he’s a founding father; Deus Ex Machina. Full feature in Sideburn #7. It's HERE, start screaming now! GI

That Bike

Most people know the story about the infamous Castro Triumph with the intergalactic Fiberglas Works bodywork that got banned by the AMA, but SB#7 has the inside story from Metro Racing's Don Miller who restored the Redline framed bike to it's former glory. And I've bet you've never seen up it's megga end pipe. BP

Julie Wood

Just as we had a comic book story from the English Tiger Boys Annual 1975 in SB#5, SB#7 has a 1976 Julie Wood story from the French comic book artiste Jean Graton who was better know for his car racing character Michel Vaillant.Funky Kimtabs on this Redline Norton.Check out the size of the original pen-and-ink artwork. BP

Flatplan

After Gary's lovely post on Sideburn 7 at the printer's, I thought I'd cough up this artefact from the building of the mag. As our regulars know, Sideburn is distilled out of the ether that covers a triangle with its points in Spalding (GI), Bristol (BP) and Rome (MP). Given that Sideburn work fits in around our day jobs, and that its words and pics bounce thousands of miles between us time and again, it's easy for things to get messy and we all have our ways of wrestling the greased Sideburn pig into its pen.

This is my incarnation of the flatplan and it marks a glorious moment just before #7 was finished, with only the merchandise page to be ticked off. About an hour later I was lying on the floor next to my desk at home in a pool of my own urine, surrounded by empty wine bottles and squashed pasta. Nothing to do with Sideburn, it's just a bad habit I've got into.

Anyway, here you go, a bit of Sideburn belly button fluff. MP

At The Printers

The East German sheet-fed printer is the business.

Plain paper in this end. That's a huge stack of it on that pallet. Each station is a different colour, plus a fixer and machine in the middle to turn the paper to print the other side.
Sideburn! You're up.
CMYK.
This fella loves printing and motorbikes. He gives Sideburn special attention. His desk scans the colours and shows the parameters on the computer screen. Then it's tweaked till it's as lush as possible without being over-saturated.

The colours are super-rich and you can see individual MetalFlake flakes on the Krook Street Racer's tank and every weld on the Metro Racing Outlaw. That's down to the paper and the print quality. This is a 32-page section before folding, binding and trimming. There are three 32-page sections and a cover in every 100-page issue.

I called in at the printers yesterday. I've worked in publishing for 15 or 16 years and I've never seen a magazine I've been involved with being printed. It's a good feeling.
We could easily get Sideburn printed for at least 20% cheaper than we do, but the printers we use now are brilliant, miles better than our original printers (in our experience). And we have to pay for that. But after spending six months on and off, working on the magazine and a lifetime to regret cutting corners we're willing to do that. With this in mind, the photo below made me laugh. G

Click

Roger Falasco a regular-joe race fan shares his happy track-side memories of the 70s and 80s in SB#7. It's such an honor to be given these personal photo albums to reproduce. My fave snap is this factory backed CX500 ridden by Mike Kidd. Here's another. How many did they build? BP

Svelte Swede

Ever sucked water from a fist-full of mountain snow? David Andersson took a Husqvarna 570 and did the same. It's so pure and refined it makes a coat-hanger seem over-complicated. Read the full story on the Krook Street tracker in SB#7. BP

Sideburn 7 - Pre-order NOW!

THIS IS FOR PRE-ORDERS ONLY UNTIL FEBRUARY 22, 2011.

Sideburn 7 is at the printers. It will be mailed out on Tuesday February 22. Like we have done with the last two issues we’ve made a limited edition T-shirt we’re offering as a Sideburn 7 and T-shirt combo.
It has two-colour front and back and inspired by Mr Eddie Lawson. The T-shirts are at our normal printers right now. They’re bright, Japanese motorcycle green on a high quality Gildan shirt (like we always use). One run, never to be repeated, yada, yada.
Order now to avoid disappointment.
[If any subscribers want them they should email asap and I'll sort them out with a deal].

The magazine is 100 full colour pages printed in England on top quality silk paper, perfect bound, laminated and topped with a spot-varnished cover. Posted first class in a bubble envelope to ensure its crispy freshness.

Get yours at the Sideburn webshop

Animal Bloated

All the while BratStyle have been getting respected airtime for their take on street trackers, and virtually coining a new genre with their dumped SR bobbers (they pretty much started the fetish of recent years for the zig-zag Firestones didn't they?), Animal Boat have kept a more quiet sub-radar profile. Beavering away on a different tangent we wanted to know more about their FAT tyre street trackers and their looney high bared MX/trackers (the Honda 'XM' (XL), that Mr Martini built looks like it must be related). Matt Roberts has made an in-depth photostory for SB#7. BP

Homer Knapp Feature

Two-and-a-bit years to put a name to a face in a snap-shot from an unknown photographer and to arrange a photo-story. It was worth the effort. Our sharp shooter Troy Critchlow flew down to LA from Seattle to meet up with Andrew Gray who wrote the story on the legendary Homer Knapp and his legendary JD Harley. SB#7 is at the printers! BP

Work Wear

11:49 and the front door bell goes; we have a zero tolerance policy on hawkers, bible / UPVC double-glazing salesmen, and any charity, after my wife nearly fell prey to a scammer who was supposedly collecting for 'a sponsored donkey in Africa' but when he demanded to have her bank details there and then on the door-step, the game was up. So anyway, ready with my curt "No", it turns out that the shabby-chic couple standing there are actually inquiring about the house next door which is for sale. They apologize for "getting me out of bed" - as I am still dressed in my pijamas. I explain that although I went to bed at 03:30, I've actually been up since 07:14 thanks to my kids, and it's not that I'm too lazy to get dressed, I'm just too damn busy finishing off SB#7 before it goes off to the printers. BP

toweling bathrobe - The White Company
T-shirt - Death Spray Custom, but with a spelling mistake that makes it more rare and valuable than a print error Penny Black.
pin-stripe PJs - John Lewis
Joseph Beuys felt slippers - Birkenstocks
coffee perculator - Omegna

WM 970

Ok, Sideburn 7 will be on sale on February 28. It doesn't get any easier making this magazine, but we have some great stuff in the next issue including an exclusive shoot and story on Per Wrench Monkees' own personal big-bore Z750 B. Just listen to it rev. It's had some work...

Subscribers! If you think your address is out of date or you don't know if your 3-issue sub has run out, email us dirt @ Sideburnmagazine.com (take out the spaces. We put them in so the evil Spambots don't fill up our boxes with even more unnecessary shite). G