Sideburn en Paris (numero 1)

Getting out of bed at 4.30, to ride the Ducati 175 miles to the Channel Tunnel didn't seem like a good idea when the alarm went off last Friday. I met up with Ben and Red Max Steve at 8am, locked the bike to a lamppost and jumped in the Red Max van heading for le capital de France. A few hours later we were trawling Paris for a parking spot. We had a van load of stuff to try sell, otherwise we'd have been on bikes. Next year, we will be.
We route-marched to the HQ of Ateliers Ruby helmets to meet the man behind the luxury lids, Jerome Costé. We had an afternoon of talking and reading Jerome's books and mags, pawing his helmets. Then it was downstairs to the bar for drinks. Met up with Bertie B and his wife SR Labo (who shot KR's A&A TZ750 for Sideburn 2) and a bunch of other good people, before going to stay at Sonic Seb's flat in Clichy. The next day we went to the great garage Seb shares with some of his Fat Club mates (see the montage. What a bloody montage, eh, Steve?). It has a dyno, tyre changer, loads of room, tools, beer pump, office It's better equipped than a lot of pro bikes garages.
Seb has just finished a great XS650 we'll feature in a future issue.
Then it was over to Dimitri's... GI
TO BE CONTINUED
Sonic Seb

Seb's XS

SR Labo and Bertie B. Crap photo by GI.

0.5 facts about Seb's XS

In Sideburn 7 we have Dimitri Coste's great shots of Seb Lorentz's beautiful XS650. The story is 6.5 Facts about Seb's bike. Why 6.5? Because it's a 650. And we like doing things differently. If we followed all the rules we'd look just like a normal newsstand bike magazine. We have nothing against them, but we aren't one. So, sometimes Ben makes strange design decisions and sometimes we cut a story mid-sentence. So, here's the missing 0.5 of a fact. To get the first 6.5, buy Sideburn 7.

...master cylinder (maybe foot controlled). I would love also to find a spool hub when I do not use the front brake for a cleaner look.
Another DT360 tank is in preparation with a special paint but also a new seat so I will be able to swap them quickly and to change the complete look of the bike very quickly.
Why not having also a 2 into 2 low exit RHS mufflers ?
Dream for the XS would be a 750 or 1000 side car cross tuned engine or a 270° Heiden Tuning modified engine to put it on wheelie easily and burn the Firestone rear rubber faster!

Check out Seb's blog - Ze Last Chance Garage. It's formidable! G

Cafe Racer Festival, Montlhery

August? It's August already? What! I don't seem to have had two minutes to relax this year. June was the craziest. Two trips to the Isle of Man (one on a rubber dinghy); Dirt Quake II, Wheels and Waves and this event, the brilliant Cafe Racer Festival and the historic Monlhery circuit on the outskirts of Paris.
Both Ben and I work for Cafe Racer magazine (the French one) and have big admiration for its boss, Bertrand, so when we were invited, we made our second long trip to France in a week, having just returned from Biarritz.
I'm so glad we did. It was great.

The event was all centred around the amazing speed bowl track, that dates back to the 1920s. For something like 100 euro, you could have sessions riding it as fast and high as you dare. The photo above shows the scale. Articulated lorries fit through that tunnel. The speck is a bike coming down from the steepest, tallest section of banking.

There was a 'street' of dealers, bike builders, kit sellers and painters too. The Sideburn stand was manned by me (Gary) and Dave Taylor, who spent Saturday and Sunday spinning fantastic tunes too. The browsing spectators loved them, the insurance company opposite us, didn't.

We were next to Mr Martini (from Italy) and a classic bike racing club from England. Sideburn stockists, Motokouture (above) came from Belgium. Star Twin came from the Netherlands...

Radical Ducati drove up from Madrid with a ton of great bikes, including this 350...

SR500 specialists Kedo came from Germany...

One of Krugger's bikes came from Belgium. Bertrand the event organiser did a mid-week flit from Paris to the neighbouring country to pick up this reverse-head Honda. Fred Krugger was supposed to be there but his leg had been broken by a flying race bike that went out of control at the Isle of Man TT and cartwheeled down Bray Hill. The world famous custom builder was stood in the garden it landed in. He was lucky he wasn't killed.

This dude is a famous French actor, called Pio Marmaï. He's a big deal, but I didn't realise till I looked him up when I got him. He was here drinking beer and racing his scruffy XS650 chop. That's when he wasn't taking his cat, Mr Pickles, for a walk.

Bertrand, the boss of Cafe Racer - editor, publisher, writer, everything. He also organised this great event, with help from a small team. Here he is getting in some crucial Gallic shrug practice while talking to the one and only Sonic Seb.

If I saw these two fellas walking round in England I'd be wondering where they parked their slammed VW Golf, but they owned and built these two stunners. 

GSX-R1100 with drum brakes. Er, ooookayyy...

Mr Martini, Bertrand B, me. Hats for sale at the Sideburn shop.

Hauler.

Neat KTM LC4 road racer.

Cool French cats in their Lewis Leathers.

Awesome road and race bikes were everywhere you looked. Like this Dick Mann replica.

And this XR750 road racer.

Norton George was over from the UK too, with his amazing bobber (running modern discs)

Variety. Neat ancient Peugeot...

And this Zen Buell, meant it was my kind of event.

Met loads of cool people from great companies, like David and his wife from Pure Motorcycles.

Pull Your Finger Out

Me and Renia from the Chatokhine Crew.

Seb and Laurens.

Neat Sportster tracker.

Triton, Vans and Church of Choppers sticker.

A few XR1200s turned up.

Bertrand lent me his Trackmaster Triumph (that featured in the recently sold out SB12) to race in the sprint. I did alright till I starting missing gears... (Photo by Renia1)
What an amazing event. If they do it next year, be there. We will be. G

Glemseck snaps

What with the chunnel and roadworks it was a 14 hour schlep from home to the Glemseck cafe racer sprint - but worth it. Trying to digest a very phallic Brätwurst washed down with a 1litre tankard of beer at 10am is quite daunting but we had fun.

Gary's Black Arrow was hot to trot.

- or if post-industrial GSX-R is not to your taste how about rear-as-front 16" white-wall tyres and drum brakes?

Seb's BM was sporting some new bling - including nitrous, and a new paint job.

Guy Martin: "SIDEBURN, the bloody best motorbike magazine on the planet....And not just because I'm on the cover"

Nutty Target 320, based on a KTM 690.

Nick's fugly but purposeful Honda Magna mongrel.

Frank Chatokhine's Triumph with lovely mesh fly-screen.

Kraftstoffschmiede R90S

BMW Roadster concept with impressive machined aluminium tail piece

Germans do like Trannies, this Feuerwehr was a minter. BP