Dirt Quake Ladies Final

There's quite a bit before and after that you can skip through, but this is a good onboard taste of the 2016's Dirt Quake Davida Helmets Ladies final shot by first time racer Katrina James. If you don't skip through it, it's an example of exactly what it's like to compete in a six-lap amateur flat track race from leaving the pits to getting back in one piece.

'Hurricane' Katrina takes a brave, wide line on her Kawasaki ZXR400 (not the ideal dirt tracker, but totally proves Dirt Quake's ethos).

Up ahead is Vikki from the Bike Shed with Kiki coming up strong on El Solitario's Zaeta. Watching this makes me think, Who wouldn't want to compete in Dirt Quake? It reminds me why entries sold out in a week.

The top three in the Ladies class are being awarded special Davida DQV Classic Jet helmets. Like all Davida helmets, they're made in England and hand painted in the Birkenhead factory by the company's staff. These special editions use elements of Lennard Schuurman's Dirt Quake poster. Davida do things properly. G

El Solitario at Dirt Quake

David El Solitario rode from Spain to King's Lynn to compete in his third Dirt Quake. He rode and raced his very trick Zaeta, the bike named Pluto (more on that bike in a future Sideburn). He also loaned it to two lady racers in distress, one crashed it, one won on it, then he rode it home again.

He travelled with top photographer Gonzalo Arroya.

You can see their mahoosive report at El Solitario Dirt Quake. Thanks El Solitario! G

El Rollo Report

This post is now over two weeks late for a variety of reasons, one being that I inadvertently deleted it after nearly finishing it. The other being Dirt Quake USA, new magazine, book to write, Greenfield TT to race...

Anyway, A couple of weeks ago the excellent Wheels and Waves festival of stylish motorcycling took place in Biarritz. Every year the event has developed, introducing the Punks Peak hillclimb a few years ago, the Village dealer area and, for 2016, Vincent and the Southsiders wanted to introduce a flat track race. They contacted Sideburn to help make it happen.

The Wheels and Waves organisers employed Spanish motorsports promo company, Fly Group, to create the track and staff the event. Fly Group are more used to running international MX events and spectacles like Red Bull X Fighters, but both agreed they wanted some grassroots dirt track involvement and expertise and that's where Sideburn came in.

Wheels and Waves has expanded from a 2-3-day event into one that runs from Wednesday to Sunday.  The El Rollo flat track race was set to open the event on Wednesday. I arrived in Biarritz on Tuesday evening. It was the first time I'd been back to Wheels and Waves since 2013 and there seemed to be more bikes in town on this Tuesday night than at the height of the 2013 event. It really has grown massively. That growth has led to the organisers using venues all over the basque region. This year more happened in Northern Spain than in Biarritz.

The El Rollo race was held on a brand new track formed within the middle of a mile-long horse track at San Sebastien's Hippodromo. On a good run the track was just 40 minutes on the autoroute from the centre of Biarritz, but the motorway often gets chewed up with lorries stuck in the toll booths and at the border. I had been loaned a fire-breathing BMW S1000XR for the couple of days I was in town. This is the unholy alliance of S1000RR superbike engine and R1200GS ergonomics. Wicked machine. I met up with UK DTRA regular Frank Chatokhine, his mate Treust and the Bike Shed's Ross Sharp who were all racing. I followed their van and we were the second racers to arrive at the track, shortly after 8am.

There were slightly too many cooks with Fly, various Southsiders and Sideburn all trying to make the right decisions and sometimes standing on each others toes, unintentionally, but for a first event, on a track that didn't exist two weeks previously, it went pretty smoothly. The classes could have been organised a little better, but the Southsiders had specific ideas on that and it was a fun race. Riders came from all over the world and seemed to enjoy themselves. Everyone deemed it a success and it was good to be a part of it.

Early arrivals - Cristian from Yamaha, Ale from Deus Milano and Jason from Leicester. Jason's tasty TR6C.

 Neat Yam 500

 And another

Thor from See See was a guest of Harley-Davidson. He rode the gorgeous Shaw H-D Mert Lawwill replica harder than anyone should be able to.

Tasty Trackmaster Triumph had just been imported from the US.

 BMW beast

 El Solitario's girder fork Zaeta.

 Sideburn 21 cover bike, Olivier's 1949 WR racer.

 Roland Sands was over racing one of his Indian hooligan bikes. Read all about them in Sideburn 24.

 Jason, ready to race. He was second vintage race bike in the combined race bike final.

 Hugo from Blitz and Treust.

 Road legal XR750 from Italy - Wild Hogs/ Holy Freedom team.

 Yamaha Faster Sons promo girl. Notice the Sideburn logo on her shirt arm.

 Jacopo Monti on the New Brutalist KTM 690 Duke we featured in Sideburn 21

 The setting was glorious. The weather baking hot.

 I got to race Go from Bratstyle in the Faster Sons Yamaha race.

Marco Belli race this Yamaha XSR700 twin. He and Thor had a hell of a race, Marco just edged it. Here Marco is getting a man hug from an emotional Jason.

 Good bikes, great people, fine times. Thanks Wheels and Waves. G

Zaeta by MANI

Remember our post about artist Mani? He just sent this email through.

I just customized a motorcycle tank for Zaeta motorcycles.
Just thought if you like it, in the link below you can see more images: www.fiumani.it hugs from Lisbon mate
Keep riding
Mani

PS I'll be live painting at Arte and Moto, Lisbon

Zaeta by Moritz Bree

Paolo at Zaeta sent us snaps of their latest custom (with 60hp at the rear wheel!), designed by little Moritz Bree (pictured below at this year's Motor Bike Expo, Verona after buying an armful of Sideburn merch). This is what Moritz says...

Zaeta - sounds like the name of a monster. Thinking of it, I saw a green monster with three eyes. When I received the tank, I was holding it up and had a close look. And then I thought "Wow, looks like a head". So wouldn’t it be funny to have a three-eyed monster staring up at you while riding? The mudguards are the monster’s tongues and on the sides of the tank there are the names of the monsters written in red. Like the monster would shout out their names as a warning. At the moment I am drawing a 32 Zaeta-monster Happy family. T-shirts and tattoos would also be really awesome. Or a comic. We’ll see. I mean, somehow I still have to go to school sometime.

Pitch Drop, Italy

We mentioned Pitch Drop a few weeks ago when they had a Zaeta event. The shop, in the small town of Piove di Sacco, betweenVenice and Padova/Padua sent us these photos so we could introduce them as a stockist.

If your shop wants to stock Sideburn get in touch and we'll make it very easy for you. G

Zaeta x Ornamental Conifer at Pitch drop

Italian street tracker manufacturer, Zaeta had Ornamental Conifer paint one of their gorgeous 530 DTs. They showed the stunning bike for the first time at men's clothing shop, Pitch drop in the small town of Piove di Sacco.
Looks like they had a good turn-out.
Raffaele Paolucci was there and took these photos.

Dirt Quake hero, Simone, turned up on the Gilera he raced at DQII and DQIII. After this year's DQ he and his girlfriend went on a month-long tour of Europe on this single.

Zaeta's founder, Paolo C. 

Read why he started his own, fully EU homologated, motorcycle company in Sideburn 11. 

See the Maxwell Paternoster Zaeta in Sideburn 17.