Caption Competition

For those of you not still dormant after excess turkey and trimmings (what do Americans eat on Christmas day if turkey is reserved for Thanksgiving? - which bizarrely enough although an American institution, was invented by English pilgrims)... Here is a little word game for the prize of some assorted stickers. BP

Happy Christmas from Sideburn

Big thanks to Tim Beaumont Designs for the artwork.
Keep coming back, we're posting everyday. G

ForkCo Oil Filter covers

Tom at ForkCo distributes Sideburn in Japan. He also makes lovely motorcycle parts that have an understated style all of their own. These are his latest creations, a range of three SR400/500 oil filter covers: Radial fin, Emboss and Luxe. Subarashi! G

SDEBUM

From Jason...

Private number plates. Great aren’t they? What better way of showing off to the driving public that your intials are JC and are 37 years old or perhaps live at number 37.
If I had £49,995 spare I’d definatley spend it on JC 37. And they say you can’t buy cool.

I guess it’s the modern equivelant of that story in the Bible, where Michael Palin puts a really fat donkey in his garden, yet has no food in his fridge. What a show off.

Here in England you can’t just have any old letters and numbers, you have to choose from a list, which means a certain amount of inginuety is required, aswell as pots of cash. For example if I wanted to tell the world exactly what car I drive, I’d have to spend £22,000 on 4UDI. Or indeed how about the very popular lady at the end of my street, who has, SHAG5 4 $. What if I were a Hedge Fund Manager? I’d have G4RDEN. No, silly that’s not really what a Hedge Fund Manager does, I’d probably have TH1EF. However I am not a Hedge Fund Manager, but infact a bit of a retard and as a consquence do not have much money, which would of been OK if my name was Kaz, Taz or Maz and my lucky number 5431, then £350 would suffice. But it is not, well, 5431 is my lucky number but my name is not Kaz.

So how do I cash in on this ultimate expression of individualisum with just £10? Take a bow Mr BMW 110T. Whats so special about that? Well let me tell you, this clever fellow put a black bolt inbetween the, one’s, which made it read BMW HOT, what an ingenius genius.

Tadarrrrrrrr.......My Triumph’s 985 EBM is instantly transformed into SIDEBURN if you squint a bit. OK SDEBUM anyway, but what do you expect for £3? and enough change to make a plate for my house. RO5E CO77AGE.

Jason

Ze Garage du Bubblevisor

Found this art on the Bubblevisor blog. It was created by Dutch artist, Lennard Schuurmans, who runs the blog, and the top one was inspired by Sideburn 1. Lovely. Bubblevisor is the totally unpretentious archive of a certain kind of lo-fi custom and cafe racer that Lennard finds on his searches of all four corners of the blog and web universe. It looks like it's going to be in an exhibition in Luxembourg.
'The first of March 2010 is the opening of my solo exhibition in EXTRABOLD in Luxembourg. Working title for ze exhibition:
Ze Garage du Bubblevisor (inspired of course by the amazing blog "Ze Last Chance Garage Du 78")'.
You always wanted to go to Luxembourg? Here's your excuse. GI

Mean BSA

This looks a real weapon. From Quality Custom Cycles blog via Show and GO blog.
The seat, the pipe, the modern forks (NOPE, see comments)... Mean. GI

London Calling?

Something about these really wound me up. What is the point? I'm not getting on my high-horse about collaborations or people trying to earn a living or anything like that, but this is SO cynical and so opposed what (I thought) The Clash stood for I don't know how much further we can descend. Who approved this? What next Ramones edition Schott jackets? Johnny Rotten edition Dr Martens? Yup, probably. GI

Alternative Fuel

There's been a lot of hype in the motorcycling press about the TTXGP. But the only 'sustainable' energy (fuel) being considered as an alternative to the evils of petrol, is battery power. The electric bikes make a quiet Star Wars pod-racer whine, but don't tell me the batteries are made out of flour and yeast, or are even 1% biodegradable at the end of their working life.
Ben Wilson is an internationally acclaimed industrial designer. Together with the genetic scientist Dave The Roofer, he has developed the bio-mechanical XTSNOODLER HYBREED 4X4. It runs on a liquified mix of Pedigree Chum (39%), left-overs (21%); pizza or soggy Weetabix preferred, and water (40%). Snoodlers are bred domestically in Taiwan, the mechanical sections are assembled using 100% recycled parts. The noise it makes, is an intermittent but inoffensive 9Db "yap yap". The team are boycotting both the eGrandPrix and the notorious FIM backed e-Power world series in 2010, and will instead enter their true alternative fuel vehicle into the UK Short Track; Thunder Bike class, in the coming season. And are hoping to sign Stevie Coles as factory rider. BP

UPDATE:
Another beauty of the afore mentioned HYBREED hybrid, is its simple manufacture. No need for expensive tooling, or set-up costs for new model variants. Building such a vehicle in ones own shed; or kitchen even, could be a real possibility in the very near future. To illustrate the speed at which their factory can change tack due to market winds, Wilson and Roofer have just produced a Harley-Davidson™ variant to comply with the All American Twins rules for 2010 - a mere 48 hours after having received news of this new race series. This new variant also makes use of obsolete AMF stock and should retail at approximately half the price of a Fat Bob. BP

Century Cycle

From Norm at Motorcycho, who has just done a dream trip of great California bike shops. He's a man of few words. He's also one of the Scorpions. See the updates of his road trip at Motorcycho.

'Great wall - o- pics at Century Cycle in Cal.' Norm

JoMoCo Triumphs

Dan Walsh, turned us on to these modern Triumphs built by JoMoCo. I think they're the same people who were a Melrose Avenue T-shirt brand, who bought the trading name from Bud Ekins, and made the best motorcycle book I've ever seen (40 Summers Ago), but I'm not sure. They don't mention any of that modern stuff in their history.
I think the bikes look great, but how many more times is Steve McQueen going to be wheeled out to sell retro stuff?
Anyway, we wish them luck. GI