850 Nail

2006 and Sideburn isn't even a wayward spermatazoa on the dancefloor of motorcycling magazines; or blogs, but Chris Watson is already sketching dusky maidens on oil weeping street tackers in his sleep. BP

It lives!

We bought a non-runner, we paid non-runner money, we got a runner! Disconnected battery, drained float, cleaned plug, sloshed in some fresh fuel, connected jump leads up to the Porsche... Sideburn project bike is go! GI

OB2 The Resurrection

Having been around the block and come back with a proverbial Cheshire Cat grin on the first test-run of OB1, Sean 'Bones' Bryant [here in the dark blue over-alls] traded in his own 900SS Ducati for another Guzzi donor. Together we built the OB1 Guzzi for Ewan McGregor who was then playing Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars.
Never to do things by halves, Sean went for an ex-Charlie Rice Lemon IV as the starting point for his own project, rather than a mangy dog T3, or SP which is the usual route. But Mr Rice had pushed the envelope over the edge, and the Lemon was so hairy, it was almost unridable on the street.
Bones chucked a lot of time, money, and bloodied knuckles at it, and it has actually been 90% finished for the past 5 years but moth-balled since for various reasons.
I made the original tank mould; based on a Ducati NCR, and the seat hump; based on a Magni Australia. That's carcinogenic P38 body-filler dust on my face not Elizabethan powder make-up in case you're wondering. The aluminium panel beating was then done by the wizard Peter Kyte in Hereford UK, and Cassius in Rotterdam NL made the fairing.
On Monday we blew out the cobwebs with a trip to Nico Bakker; Holland's famous frame builder, to have the Captain Nemo / Corbin Warbird fairing fitted. New one-off fork yokes machined, topped off with board-track style bars. The engine and gearbox are being breathed on by Race Co UK's Amedeo Castelani and hopefully he can sanitise the power somewhat....BP

Golden Age

via Cris Hunter of EXIF, via Brian Awitan of House Industries, we've been sent a lovely set of vintage Indian snaps. Still trying to trace who amassed them (there are hundreds) - so far all we know is she's called Betty. Anybody have any ideas or recognise them? BP

More Monkee Magic

SB#4 is still a twinkle in the sky, but we are busy in the back room. There's more to putting a magazine together than a Christmas Panto, but we're just as excited. Most stories are already penciled in - including another one on the ever stylee Wrench Monkees' and their take on an XLCH. Dem hairy boys done good again. BP

Cheat Death

When I was at the TT I caught up with Mark Miller, the US real road racer. I met Mark at the Centenary TT, then the Macau GP, followed by last year's TT, then Macau again, and most recently caught up with him at the TT again. I spoke to him a few times during the race week and was keeping an eye out for him in the Senior at the Creg-ny-Baa. I knew he wanted a top 10 and it sounded, from the radio commentary, like he was on for it. Then at the bottom of Bray Hill... GI

'I was flying, riding smooth, knifing all the committed blind fast sections near perfect, leaping the fastest jumps with confidence in the bike’s setup, I was strong in the arms and was blowing through all of the same lads that had given us fits in the first Superbike race a week before. Every piece of the puzzle was working on top form.
'By the end of the 4th lap and our 2nd pitstop, we were sitting in 8th place out of 70 starters. If you remember, a top ten at the Isle of Man TT, and leaving there with the fastest ever laptime by an American, was the goal. By this point, I had smashed my previous lap record on the second lap with a 125.5mph average and was sitting comfortable with a 16 second lead in front of multi-time Macau GP winner Michael Rutter.
'We topped the race fuel up to the absolute brim, I started the bike in first gear, ripped out of our #24 pit slot, exited the pit lane chin down as always, entered onto the front straight, held it wide open down Bray Hill like I was fighting a bucking bronco– btw, this was the first time I felt comfortable enough on the 1000cc racebike to do that scary down-hill section wide open. I nailed the full suspension compression at the bottom of the intersection carrying more RPM than ever, wheelied full tuck in 6th gear over Ago’s Leap, wheelied the second of the two sharp rises, popped out of the bubble with light braking for two downshifts, blap blap, for this awkward little eccentric whipple-jump; a place on the track where you simply slow a bit for an indentation at the crest of a super fast hill, then roll on the gas a bit.
'The rear tire was very worn by this point in the race (the factory bikes have quick-change equipment but this year I had to go all six laps on one set of tires). I was more than happy to just slide the shit out of this harder rear tire up to this point, but when I wobbled over this indentation at the crest of the hill the bike instantly snapped sideways and highsided straight out from underneath me at 130mph! There was nothing I could do it ripped the handlebars right out of my hands.
'I clearly remember saying to myself before hitting the ground, “You’re going to crash out of this race? THIS is how the story is going to end? You’re kidding me.” Then I hit the ground. I was in a serious mindset to finish out two more laps of the six and wasn’t expecting this to happen at all. That’s when things turned really serious.
'As I came down, I kinda landed on top of the bike for just a moment, then the next thing I know I’m asses and elbows. I love when I hear young racers say things like, “Yaz got tuh learn how ta fall, tuck and roll, go limp and stuff.” Rubbish. You hit the ground at over a hundred miles per hour and you have no say in the matter, you are an unwilling participant along for the ride.
'I couldn’t believe it. I’ve crashed a roadrace bike once in 4 years. Now, I had to endure that awful ensuing silence and instant lack of vibration which comes from going flat out chest on the tank, to, the sound of your bike scraping alongside next to you and the sound of your breath being physically forced out of your lungs at a high velocity. Bouncing along the ground doesn’t always necessarily make you go, “Dough! Dough! Dough!” It more often makes you do primitive grunts, and a kind that can scare you upon hearing them. Cause you can’t help yourself.
'So, I hit the ground then see that one of the several light poles in my runoff area - wrapped in a thin foam layer of a Dainese fox logo, of course - is positioned directly in the path of my body’s projected trajectory, coming soon to a theatre near you at 100mph+. True story. But, my body gets spun around I am shortly there after sliding on my back, head first.
'The pole is coming. I am going to hit the thing and explode like hamburger inside of my leathers. It’s not a romantic fantasy, It’s no longer pleasurable for me to write this part of the story to you, to be the center of attention for seven more minutes, my body is very simply now going to hit a pole at 100mph and I’m going to die.
Sliding backwards…. I flex my stomach and calmly say to myself, “You’re going to experience this death of yours whether you like it or not, you might as well pay close attention to see how it feels to die from a blunt impact hitting something hard at the Isle of Man TT. You are going to feel something soon, something awful, its going to sound awful, you’ll probably go black instantly from it, here it comes, almost there, its going to come sooner than you’ll want it to when it does, its just now, now, now now (I’m skidding on my back head first and can’t see a thing). Now. Now. Just then, now, now now, shit, now? This sucks.” I fucking missed the pole but my bike hit it and exploded right next to me.
I slid to a stop a good 80 yards from where I hit the ground, my bike actually touched the barrier at the runoff of Quarter Bridge, all the way down the hill, maybe 120 yards from where I came off the thing. The bike was a complete and utter write off, rear magnesium wheel smashed to tin foil, the rear tire coming completely off and rolling itself away to safety, tank, forks, titanium exhaust, everything. I jumped up 100%, perfectly fine.
Um. Hmmm.
Rrrrrrrright.......
Whot?
'So, that’s me crashing out of 8th place in the 2009 Senior TT. [pause] God dammit.'

Wow. Mark, you're a legend.

By the way, here's something I wrote for Hell for Leather about the TTX. GI

SB Project Bike Question of Cubes

Bubble Visor [far right; cowboy hat and full-face] our Amsterdam connection concerning all things Japanese and colourful, sent us a query about our project bike...
Hi Ben,
i saw on SideBlog you bought a FT500, cool! i did some research on the bike and i found out it has a twin brother.. the VT500 Ascot [shown above]. is there a reason why you went for the single cylinder, instead of the twin with more power...? Styling-wise there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between the two [standard bikes]. The FT would be a little lighter which would make some sense :)
cheers Lenny

Dear Mr Bubble,
the FT passed under our balcony like a maiden in the night, and we couldn't resist her charms. Basically. BP.

XS650 questions

These photos and question or only loosely related. The shots are of a killer XS built by Big Moon, Japan and shown to us by the excellent Speed Junkies blog. Now here's a question from a reader about XS650s...

> Could you please spare some time to answer a couple of questions and help me out? I have checked google and I am finding a lot of conflicting information.
> I am looking interested in converting my motorcycle to get the flat tracker look. It is an xs650 of 12/78 build.
> Is it possible to put a 19inch rear wheel on this frame/swingarm, and if not what would need to be done to do this? Would it just be a matter of bolting on an earlier swingarm or is it a major project? It currently has a 16inch rear wheel with disc brake.
> Lastly, will a 19inch front wheel bolt straight on (it currently has an 18inch front).
> Thanks for your time>
> Brian

Mule, are you out there? Can you help this man? GI

Nick and Miles

The 2009 Isle of Man TT will be memorable for a number of reasons. I was there to work, and I worked, but the whole trip was great. Fine roast chicken, chili Yorkshire puddings (yes) and homemade jaffa cakes at Dan and George's Manchester Sanctuary on the way there; a deserted ride to a packed 2am ferry; the 5am lap; sleeping on the sofa in the Red Torpedo house; stories of working for Marco Pierre White and Damien Hirst at Quo Vadis from Kev; fetching fuel with Guy Martin on the morning of the Senior; a leisurely night out in Peel with my mate Rupert...
But bumping into these two fellas was the highlight. I was walking up Nobles Park at the back of the pits when I spotted Nick, with the shaved head. He was wearing a 4Q Conditioning sweatshirt. Miles was sporting a Ken Howard T-shirt. I went to introduce myself and try to turn them onto Sideburn when they saw a Sideburn sticker on my notepad. 'Hey, you've got a Sideburn sticker,' said Nick. I told him who I was and he said he was wearing his Sideburn T-shirt.
The three of us talked about the tattoos (they're both tattooists, Nick co-owns Cult Classic in Essex, Miles works there and at the famous Frith Street Tattoo in London). Miles has McQueen's Bell helmets and On Any Sunday inked on his gut. We spoke about broody parrots, bikes, cars, boots, kinky judges, Australian bike gangs, Deus Ex Machina... We talked for about two and a half hours. Fellas, if you're reading this, it was a pleasure. GI

Jason's C&J Rotax v2

A couple of weeks ago I traveled down to the Amman Valley race with Jason. It was a great journey punctuated by a crappy race, as far as I was concerned. We laughed most of the way there and back. There wasn't a lot of laughing at the track. I rode badly, the rough track really putting me off. Then when I did get up to speed (well, my idea of speed) I was knocked off on the slick, slithery startline and couldn't bump-start the bike so I failed to qualify for the final. Jason had it worse, his Rotax engine cases split in half. Still, it was better than not going. Watching the fast guys race was great, and Skooter Farm had another good day.
This is what Jason's C&J looks like now. The Sideburn on the seat unit is signwritten by hand, not laser cut. This is what it looked like last year. GI