High Noon Scramble: Coming Soon

From Norm Motorcycho...

High Noon, the wild west, dirt, grime, spit, shit... For some people, motorcycles are utilitarian - it's all-about gas mileage, economy and practicality. Others it's more about speed, horsepower and go fast gizmos. There are, of course, the weekend warriors, the brand specific urban outlaws. And finally, those of us who sum motorcycles up in one simple word - Fun!

Whether it be rolling some canyon highway on vintage tin with a bunch of buddies; exploring the back roads, two up on a sport tourer, cruising the back alley on minibikes keeping careful watch for cops like you did when you were 11 years old, or dressing up in bad costumes and riding crappy enduros with a bunch of like-minded hooligans at the local sand dunes. Motorcycles are fun! 

The High Noon Scramble was the brainchild of the Filth Mode Dirt Club. They ran their first HNS in 2008 just after the big stock market crash. Times were tough. Ducatis and Harleys were sold for quick cash. Cheap '70s and '80s enduros, with the XT500 quickly becoming their "Tesus", were bought to satisfy the urge to ride. "Dirt First" soon became their moto. 1% Outlaw - 99% Dirt Enthusiast. The HNS is the celebration of this re-birth.

The race itself is simple. Drag out whatever dirt bike you have and try to complete nine laps of sandy, hilly, bumpy torture. Teams are encouraged to make the race bearable. Hydration in necessary to keep the body going. Friends cheer you on as you quietly pray your bike doesn't blowup. Utter exhaustion determines your fate. By the end of it nobody really knows, or cares, who won. The fact that you attempted it at all is worthy of all the accolades. 

Photos by Blaine Connolly

Read all about Filth Mode in Sideburn 24.

Check out Norm's Motorcycho blog.

The next High Noon Scramble is coming up on October 30.

Rye House Practice and BSMC Launch

The new DTRA season kicks off this Sunday at Rye House. It's free to spectate. Racing all day from 10am.
The club has attracted FIFTY new members this year. There are over 100 entries for this race, at a time when other motorcycle race series are struggling for enough numbers to continue.

These shots are my phone snaps from a practice at Rye House eight days ago.

Above, and at the top of the page, is Jon Bell's TT500. Jon raced in the Short Track UK series (forerunner to the DTRA) on a modern KTM a good few years ago and was very quick. He's come back with big-bore Yamaha XT/TT. It looks the part, with the aftermarket alloy swingarm and Jemco-style pipe. Jon converted it from dry sump to wet sump (not sure why) and it seemed to cause some problems on the practice day.

Darren and his Ossa Vintage class stroker.

Survivor Mike on one of the CCM road bikes he converts into race bikes. There will be four or five of these racing in the DTRA this year.

Guy and Norm Joss are sharing this gorgeous Trackmaster Triumph twin. They have two between them, so I think fastest rider gets to choose first. 

DTRA main man, Anthony Brown debuted his Death Spray village fete colours on his Honda 450.

Even my lad Max was out practicing on his XR100. 

Don't forget, Sideburn and the DTRA are having a launch this Saturday afternoon, the day before the first DTRA race. We've arranged with the track that riders can park within the Rye House track, get the train to Liverpool Street and visit the Bike Shed, then come back to the track to watch the Rye House Rockets Premier league speedway fixture, against Ipswich Witches, that night (adults £15, under-16s are £5).

The train takes 38 minutes and it means you don't have to take your van or trailer into London. 

Train times 

Return ticket is something like £20. 

Liverpool St to Bike Shed walking route. It takes 12 minutes. 

There will be :

A display of dirt track race bikes

DTRA organisers to talk to

Sideburn stuff to buy and editor to talk to

The impressive Bike Shed to look around

Good food to buy

Bike Shed's own stock of clobber or accessories

The chance of a good haircut in the on-site barbers

Drinks to be drunk (both acholic and non)

Great people to meet.

All the times and location details are on the poster. G

Northern Lights Optic Yamaha Snow Bike

Northern Lights Optic 2015 from Northern Lights Optic on Vimeo.
Great idea for marketing a new sunglasses company was to built this bike and put it in a video.

The bike is a turned XT500 in a Framecrafters chassis. Read more at Bike Exif.

The sunglass company in questions is Northern Lights Optic. G

Prototype Yamaha TT 500

Interesting story of how this 420cc prototype, no. 043-0-001, skipped crusher row. As told in detail by Mulligan Machine. BP

i found out about it a while back thru november/december 08(i think) issue of motorcycle classics. i skipped over it my first read, and a few months later out of boredom picked it back up again. Low and behold the saga.....

The Missing Link: Yamaha's first 4-stroke thumper “Around 1974 or so, I got a call from the retail dealer in Buena Park [Calif.]. He said there was a guy asking for parts for an unusual engine. A light went on, and I asked the dealer to find out where he had got it. The guy clammed up. That’s the last I heard of it until I saw it at the Hanford meet.” — Bill Stewart, retired, Yamaha Motor USA Testing Department Manager.
The course of engine development is not always smooth. What seems like a good idea on a computer screen does not always translate well to reality. And in the old days of drafting tables, the process of moving from two to three dimensions was even more fraught with unforeseen obstacles. Prototypes demonstrate in a concrete form the process of development of the production motorcycle. But since factories don’t want rival companies — or journalists — to get their hands on a prototype, they’re almost always destroyed.
The occasional prototype does survive, and when it does, it’s usually very valuable. Glenn Bator, a well known California-based restorer and vintage bike broker, found this engine and, through a lucky break, learned its history.
In the early 1970s, the Yamaha testing facility (then in Buena Park) got rid of unwanted pre-production motorcycles and other test machinery twice a year. Bill Stewart remembers they would call in a scrap metal company, who agreed to grind everything they got into little bits in exchange for free scrap. “Somehow, this engine slipped through — someone took it out of the scrap yard or they stole it,” Bill says. The engine Bill is talking about, no. 043-0-001, is the missing link between Yamaha’s offroad 2-strokes and its popular and successful TT500 4-stroke thumper.
In 1973 or 1974, Bill and his crew opened a crate from Japan and pulled out an offroad motorcycle powered by a 4-stroke, single-cylinder engine. The engine, marked with serial no. 043-0-001, had sand cast cases clearly derived from the 500cc 2-stroke SC500 Yamaha was then making.
The valves (45mm intake, 37mm exhaust) were operated by an overhead cam with the cam chain running on the left side. The spark plug was on the right. The piston was a flat top, 3-ring style typical for the era, with small reliefs for the valves. The cam sprocket and crankshaft flywheels were special construction billet steel marked with red layout dye and scribe lines. The connecting rod was a production level forging with “043” embossed on the surface. Lubrication was wet sump. The cam gear and oil pump gear were machined billet steel, while the oil pump was a special sand cast unit.
The clutch, transmission and cycle parts were from the ancestral SC500, as was the frame, although modified to hold the 4-stroke engine. A cable operated compression release was automatically operated by the kickstarter.
Crankcase breathing and oil control seem to have been the principal challenges to the Yamaha engineers. The cases appear to have been repeatedly reworked by welding and epoxy filling to prevent oil ventilation to atmosphere during the piston’s down stroke (which pressurizes the crankcase) and to control oil pickup by the flywheels. There’s also evidence that the cylinder studs and carburetor mounting were moved at least once.
Despite all this work, no. 043-0-001 wasn’t going to win any races. Bill remembers: “I had an old Ariel Red Hunter — it would ride rings around that thing. [The Yamaha] had a lot of problems. It was only 420 or 440cc [the engine as it now exists is actually 478cc, but it might have been bored out at some point], due to having to reduce the cylinder height to fit the 4-stroke conversion in the old 2-stroke frame. The motor was short stroke, and it needed a longer stroke to make any torque. The engineers knew it wouldn’t do the job — it was a Band-Aid until they could design a good motor.“
Meanwhile, someone owed Jack Davis money. Jack ran a business in the Los Angeles area making performance motorcycle and snowmobile parts, and often volunteered to help the Yamaha factory with offroad races. Jack was given this engine (missing rocker box and side covers) to clear the debt. It then sat under Davis’ bench for a number of years. Eventually, he gave it to Bob Gregg, another offroad enthusiast, who operated a foundry.
Bob had C&J Racing make a frame for it, but made the rocker box cover and side cover himself. Bob adorned the chassis with typical period offroad gear including Preston Petty fenders, Malcolm Smith handlebars and S&W shocks. Jack rode the completed bike and wasn’t impressed. Bob eventually gave the bike to Jack, who eventually sold it. It might have ended there, if not for Glenn Bator. On July 4, 2007, Glenn was watching a parade and chatting with a family standing next to him. The husband mentioned that his brother had a prototype Yamaha TT500 he wanted to sell. Glenn went to see it, liked it and bought it. “I used to work for a Yamaha dealership,” Glenn explains. “I used to work on TT500s when they were new.”
In an effort to give the bike more exposure and determine its history, Glenn brought the bike to the big vintage bike meet in Hanford, Calif. Bill happened to stop by, and saw the bike. “You know,” said Bill, “that motor shouldn’t exist.” The rest, as they say, is history.

Brandon becomes Art

When I saw the illustration above, by Stayano, I instantly recognised it.  Brandon P sent us the photo below as pre-approval for last year's Dirt Quake USA. It is a striking photo so we put it on the blog.

When I saw the illustration, it was so recognisable that I didn't even click the image had been reversed till I dug out the original shot. G

Bitten By The Dirty Bug

Since their skid about at Perris, Bill Biltwell and co have made a unanimous discussion to get dirt track bikes and go (more) crazy...BP

Ben,
Thanks for your info help! I just nabbed this XT on VFT  [always has interesting pedigree for sale], about five hours away for $2k. Gonna go pick it up Saturday. I can do tail section and glass tank right away and then grow into some more mods like better fork etc down the road. This at least gets me on the track.
The small ad claims: 'high performance engine, dual oil-feed, new Mikuni carb. Race-ready. Won the Sacramento Mile Vintage Class a few years ago'

And Otto just scored this CB450 out in Pennsylvania!

Triple H XT500

From Dirt Quake II sponsors, Triple H Motorcycles...

The XT500 Project Our concept of urban warfare motorcycling was born with a bike that – despite looking like it had been in a canal for 30 years – still grabbed our undivided attention. 
This ’81 XT500 now bombs through the streets with its raw torque and uncomplicated styling. Achieving this level of simplicity whilst preserving head-turning design isn’t easy, but we’ve achieved it through defining and then refining every aspect. This truly is a creation of of love and not an inch of hate.

Peter's Budget XT500

From Peter Jansen in the Netherlands

I have built a street flat tracker from a crashed XT500 using used parts to keep it low budget. Yamaha cross swing arm, Harley seat, FZ600 front fork, 17inch wheels from a Italian bike, homemade header with used Megaton exhaust, headlight from a bicycle, rear light Norton, shocks from an old Honda, the painting was the most expensive thing about 350 euro's. 
Pictures (copyright) are made by Eric Scholten. 
Thanks, Greetings Peter Jansen Bemmel Holland (a 50 year old bloke from Holland)

Erik's XT

From Erik in the Netherlands

Over the winter I have been working on my XT project. I have rebuilt the engine and in the process painted the casings and cylinder. The frame is modified to fit the Red Max XR seat unit and is now ready for a rattlecan paintjob. Hope you like it. Keep up the blog, it’s a joy to read about flattrack and the homemade stuff. 
Cheers, Erik

Vintage Supermoto

From Daniel in Chicago... We like new bikes, really like them, but we love it when old bikes show them a thing or two. GI

Seeing how Ben popped the cherry on his CCM, I figured I'd share my first vintage supermoto experience.
This is my '79 XT500 street tracker that I worked on all winter here in Chicago.
It's set up for flat track but I haven't made it to an FT oval yet. Most of my buddies ride supermoto so I skipped visiting the Springfield TT and took it to an SM track day last Saturday to scrub the rubber a bit.It turned out to be a great decision - the Goodyears hooked up well and my 31-year old bike was able to keep up with some of the more modern machinery.
Next step - a dirt oval. I can't wait.
Cheers~Daniel
P.S. Here's a short vid of me following my buddy Eddie:

Style

This cat has got a look to emulate. Fantastic frame rucksack full of essentials, ass-kicking boots, bubble visor, sleeping bag on the back and a brand new enduro spec XT500. G
Photo from the excellent MotorParade