Scramble Me

Ernie and Nick, Icon's go to stunt fellas, have been recruited by Triumph North America to put a couple of the new generation Scramblers through their paces.
It looks like the forks have twice as much travel as a stock Scrambler, and Progressive are named check at the end, so I'd guess the shocks were uprated too, but it's still a great advert for this new bike.
And a brave move on Triumph's part to put out such a full-on video, that could easily pass for one of Icon's.
Good work fellas! G

2000ft over the canyon… but 6 inches UNDER the media radar.

Earlier this week we posted about the recreation of Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump, well, Eddie Braun successfully ‘jumped’ over the infamous 1400 ft canyon.

The launch was scheduled for today, September 17^th….but the EVEL SPIRIT team opted to do it yesterday, possibly because of better weather conditions. There seemed to be virtually no crowd watching.

It looked like a textbook exercise and everybody is smiling. Hats off to the team but this is possibly one of the most under-publicised events in recent history. I don’t know why this newsworthy event failed to get any media coverage. It was rather badly covered by a local TV news crew and (so far) captured with a couple of quite frankly, terrible amateur Youtube clips. I sincerely hope that this occasion has been properly documented.  

I acknowledge that times have maybe changed and everybody these days is ‘Extremed-Out’ but I can’t help but think that this just shows what a showman and entrepreneur Knievel was. Always able to ‘Bring the Circus to town’ in what seemed an effortless and flamboyant way, hawking his stunts on a global scale.

I read that Braun Spent $1.5 million of his own money to make this happen. Perhaps the EVEL SPIRIT team invested all their combined resources and energy into the mechanics of making a successful jump, maybe overlooking the pre-event publicity and build up. Or maybe the mainstream media just don’t care about an ongoing 42-year-old story. Either way, it seems criminal that this wasn’t presented ‘live’ on satellite TV and it didn’t make ‘News at Ten’. I found a picture of a tattoo belonging to an English chap who made the pilgrimage to Twin Falls Idaho to witness the jump. Ironically, this tattoo could possibly make a bigger internet splash than the jump itself.

In other news it seems Rocket Sky-Cycles are just like buses…you wait 42 years for one and then two turn up together. Apparently, on October 18^th , self-taught rocket scientist ‘Mad Mike Hughes’ will climb aboard his own version of Evel Knievel’s X-2 Sky-Cycle and endeavour to jump over the ghost town of Amboy in California. You couldn’t make it up!

Dave Skooter Farm

All photos: AP

Never Go Back: Snake River Canyon

Dave Skooter Farm reports...

In this modern age, there seems to be an insatiable quest to revisit the good old days. The ‘rebooting’ of classic movies, old bands you thought you would never, ever get to see, reforming and long-discontinued chocolate bars once again available in the newsagents. However, maybe some things should be left in the nostalgic mind’s eye.

On September 17th 2016, as tribute to his childhood idol Evel Knievel, Hollywood stuntman Eddie Bruan will attempt to recreate Evel’s 1974 career highpoint (pun intended) and jump the Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls, Idaho. Regular readers of Sideblog won’t need me to point out how Knievel’s effort played out.

Bruan will be piloting an exact replica of EK’s ‘X-2 Sky-Cycle’ built to vintage blue-prints belonging to the builder of the original, NASA rocket scientist Bob Truax. The new version of the Sky-Cycle has been co-built by the late Bob Truax’s son, Scott. The craft has been christened ‘Evel Spirit’

Just like Evel’s ‘bike’, it’s steam-powered. 

Steam is superheated to precise temperature and pressure and when released, produces 6,000 pounds of thrust and 10,000 Horsepower! Expected maximum speed is in excess of 400 mph in 3.0 seconds with a calculated altitude of 3,000 feet. 

In keeping with exact specifications of Evel's X2 Sky-cycle, all of that temperature and pressure is being held in the rocket by THE LID OF A DOG-FOOD CAN!

'Evel used it—so we're using it! That's right, we actually cut off the tops of dog food cans (just like Evel did) and place the lid inside the rocket engine to keep all the pressure at bay until we are ready to release it!' 

For some reason, live spectators at the launch site have been limited to 500 people. We could speculate that it may have something to do with Evel (above) leaving behind a trail of unpaid bills with vendors and the local services his team used during their stay 42 years ago. A city councillor in Twin Falls said the town was wiser about what to expect from a daredevil attempting to jump their canyon.

Happy landings to the ‘Evel Spirit’ team.

Dave Skooter Farm

(Above) This post's author, Dave Skooter Farm, with the original Sky-Cycle in 1999. It prompted me to ask, 'Where was the photo of you taken? And why do you look like you’ve just taken one to the nuts?'

Dave replied, 'Daytona Bike week 1999, Met Evel that day too. Can’t explain why I’m in that position….soz'

Wall of Death!

This makes my knees go weak. Properly crackers. G

Unknown Industries

Those who have ever ridden, or even tried to lift a big twin Harley off its sidestand might well have more respect for skills of the guys in these videos that those who haven't. The Bullitt-style San Fran jump is particularly jawdropping. Mad skillz. G

The Vicious Cycles and One-Off Wednesday

The Vicious Cycles have a new video out. These guys knocked our socks off at the first Dirt Quake USA. Billy is riding Motorcycho Norm's Honda CB550 that he's had since brand new. Both Ben and Norm raced it at DQ USA II in 2015.

We've sold a few of the Vicious Cycles vinyl LPS and we have ONE left on the shelf. It comes with a free digital download code.
This song is on the record.
Grab it fast at the Sideburn webstore.

The Wind and the Dull Roar

This video features a big jump on a heavy XR1200 and was made to promote Saint, a new Australian clothing company that makes Kevlar-reinforced denim, among other stuff. The company is headed up, I believe, by one of Church of Choppers' regular contributors, Micro. G

Based On A True Story?

Someone's been watching too many David Lynch films...

Every time you buy a Belstaff jacket (currently £600 for a waxed cotton Trialmaster, made in the Far East) you are financing stuff like this. I'm not judging, just saying.

I just saw they're selling an 'Outlaw' range plain white cotton 'Fornham' T-shirt for £60. Sounds like a price plucked out of thin air but, the website says, it's:

'Inspired by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, David Beckham brings this effortless icon to the Belstaff collection. Definitive as a timeless essential, a t-shirt is the classic choice to wear under a leather biker jacket.'

Thanks for the info Belstaff website! Bargain.

Nice to see a Biltwell Gringo feature throughout though... G

Vote Drake

This is Drake McElroy, Sideburn 20 cover star, freestyle MX pioneer, Smoking Seagull, the greatest travel show presenter in history and friend of our mag.

He's in some kind of video competition with other freestyle stars on the X Games website. This is a screengrab from his entry, because we can't embed it. So it doesn't matter how many times you click the little arrow on the naked FMX dude, it won't play on our blog, you have to go to X Games Drake McElroy

Please go and watch it, then vote for it. You don't have to sign up, or be on facebook or any of that crap. And it's a fun video (but you got that idea, right?).

Read Drake's own writing about his cafe racer/supermoto/dirt track Honda CRF450 in Sideburn 20.

UPDATE: I just noticed he has a Sideburn rub-on sticker on the clocks of this bike. G

Bike Surfing

I know that some people who regularly check the Sideburn blog aren't totally plugged into the whole social media thing, so they might have missed out on this video that set the internet on fire last night.
It is completely mind-blowing.
I interviewed Robbie Maddison in Spain, at the World Premiere of One Any Sunday: The Next Chapter. I will try dig out the interview and put it on the blog later this week, if I can find the time. G

Stomach-churning (in a good way)

Cameron Airshow 2014 from Aero Media Group on Vimeo.
This is the most nuts video I've seen in ages. It being the Cameron Air Show in Missouri, it is mainly planes, but a bit of motorcycle too.
Stomach-churning in a good way.

Thanks to Roger F for forwarding... G

Stalion

Nothing beats the eroticism of a simple stand-up wheelie. Here, Jim Odom. BP

New Kids Shirts

This new kids shirt has just arrived (or 'dropped' as the cool crowd say).
Available in three age ranges and two colours, all printed on lovely soft, 100% guaranteed organic cotton.

The illustration is spewed forth, via an inky pen, from the twisted melon of Mr Maxwell Paternoster.

Blue or red.
5-6
7-8
9-10
Limited numbers of each.
Order soon to avoid heart-broken children and spousal disappointment, from the Sideburn shop.

NOTE: Sizing is supplied by manufacturer and on the smaller side, so please click the photos to see a size chart

Ornamental Conifer x Ken Block

I like Ken Block's YouTube sensational Gymkhanas. I watch them with my boy, but I wouldn't normally post them on the blog and wouldn't have done this new one if Mr Block wasn't wearing an Ornamental Conifer jacket!

Nico, Mr Ornamental Conifer, is now based in LA and concentrating more on art art than commercial art. So fewer jackets, fewer helmets, fewer petrol tanks, more framed work and objets d'art (painted bottles, slingshots)…

Read about the Royal Enfield Ornamental Conifer painted for us back in 2011 (after Sideburn was turned onto the then barely known painter by Death Spray Custom) in Sideburn 10.

The film is well worth your tea break. G

Drop-In

In case you haven't already seen it. This is from On Any Sunday: The Next Chapter, but Skullcandy's edit (they're one of Robbie Maddison's sponsors).
Awesome.
He's dropping the equivalent of a 20-storey building.
Keep an eye out of the seamless tyre change.

Thanks to Dael for the tip-off. G

Circle Rut

Best moto GIF ever? From Death Spray Custom. And just in case you thought it was just natty Photoshop, check Shane Watts showing you how to DIY on his KTM. BP

How to load a bike into a pick-up

 Jack Field is a hero! G

Mad Max in Sideburn #17

In the latest issue of Sideburn, we run two pieces on the first, the rough and the dirty... Mad Max. We interviewed key players in the film's making, including the director George Miller, cinematographer David Eggby, Hugh Keays-Byrne (bike gang leader The Toecutter) and Bertrand Cadart, who made the fairings for the (mainly) Kawasaki Z1000s. We even managed to talk to Dale Bensch, reputedly killed when the infamous bridge stunt went wrong (see clip below). He seemed remarkably chatty for a bloke 36 years dead.

On top of that, in a separate feature we asked Repo Man and Straight To Hell director Alex Cox for his views on what has become a post-apocalyptic benchmark, shot on a budget, featuring Melbourne bike gang members as stunt men and that only made it to the screen thanks to long nights and hard graft by a couple of blokes with a vision. There you go, just two reasons of many to pick up Sideburn #17. MP