With a BSA you're faster far from home

Rage Against the Machine

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by Eric Johnson



Motorcycle racing is full of myth, folklore and larger than life legends. However, in the eyes of plenty, one of the greatest stories ever told took place in the summer of 1975 on a mile-long dirt oval in Indianapolis, Indiana.

image by mike stuhler

That year, Kenny Roberts was doing his best to beat back a number of beastly Harley-Davidsons that were trying to steal away his Grand National number one plate. Far more powerful, the Harley XRs were omnipotent and all seemed lost. Or was it? Before the race scheduled for the Indy Fairgrounds, Roberts and his mechanic took a huge gamble and shoehorned an engine far too powerful and potent for the bike into the spindly frame of his Champion Yamaha 750. When his mechanic asked him how fast he needed to go to win, Roberts replied, "About one thirty should be enough.”

image by mike stuhler

The 25-mile main event all came down to the final white flag lap. Having come from far behind, Roberts astride an evil-handling, ill-tempered motorcycle had taken huge chances and rode with extraordinary courage to reel in the two leading Harley-Davidsons of teammates Jay Springsteen and Korky Keener. With just three turns to go, Roberts rode the rim, pinned the throttle to the stops and was actually skimming the concrete retaining wall and skipping off hay bales.

image by mike stuhler

"I still remember seeing hay scattering in the air as Kenny came out of turn four,” reflected Robert’s’ mechanic of that night.

Roberts refused to lose and at the finish line, won the race by two feet. When he caught his breath and his hands stopped shaking, he uttered the words, "They don't pay me enough to ride that thing.”

All images by mike stuhler via : superbikeplanet

Sheldon's EMU

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Cybermotorcycle.com is a collection of articles, letters and emails about European Motorcycles - the result of research and correspondence dating back to 1994. The site now encompasses pages on some 500 different marques and numerous galleries containing thousands of images of contemporary, vintage, veteran and classic motorcycles and scooters, sidecars and minicars.



There are several active forums on specific British, Italian and German motorcycles with a host of resources for restorers and historians.



Please take time to visit this Great website here : Sheldon's EMU

"The King" Kenny Roberts To Ride Again

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Via the AMA PRO FLAT TRACK

AMA Pro Racing and Yamaha Motor Corporation to Pay Tribute to Motorcycle Hall of Famer and Legend Kenny Roberts at the Lucas Oil Indy Mile.

Time Set For "King Kenny" Roberts to Ride Again During the Legendary
Lucas Oil Indy Mile This Weekend.





AMA Pro Racing and Yamaha Motor Corporation will pay tribute and honor Kenny Roberts in recognition of the historic last lap win at the 1975 Indy mile on the Yamaha TZ750 that ultimately proved to be one of the most famous wins in American Dirt Track history.



Known as the King, Kenny Roberts a 2-time AMA Grand National Champion and 3-time World 500cc Champion, will take several hot laps, between the final Pro and Expert Main races, on the infamous Yamaha TZ-750 powered dirt tracker during the Lucas Oil Indy Mile AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National this weekend at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on Saturday night, August 29th.

Brand X

The whole day went incredibly well.
It was amazing. The best cafe racer went to Osamu Koyama and his Yamaha SR500 loaded with one-off and Japan-only parts. He's a jewelry designer and member of the Kaminari, a NY bosozoku-style biker gang of ex-pat Japanese artists and musicians. You can see Osa's work here : http://completetechnique.com/
The event had over 3000 artists, bikers, hipsters, designers Real Estate Magnates, Investment Bankers, etc.
Taka's performance was an amazing old-style "happening" with Free Jazz, Japanese Noise Rock, splatter-painting, power tools and a chorus of vintage 2-stroke and 4-stroke racers facing off across the layed-out canvas that covered the street.
Here is a few pics Grant took during the event.

Osamu on his white and red Yamaha SR500

Music on the move with the Peugeot Speedfight 3

Just got details the latest accessory for the ever popular Speedfight 3 scooter. I think this one could be a big accessory hit?

Its an integrated audio system, the Mega Watt MP3 connection kit enables any music fan to plug in their MP3 player and enjoy their favourite tunes while on the move on their Speedfight 3.

Fitting under seat storage compartment, the Mega Watt MP3 connection kit includes an amplifier, control unit and 7-inch 30W sub woofer. Two further 20W speakers mount directly into the existing dummy air intakes on either side of the tail section, so no modification of the bodywork is necessary.

Ride safe.


Jon Booth
Email: webmaster@inter-bike.co.uk
Blog: http://inter-bike.blogspot.com/
Swicki: http://motorcycling-swicki.eurekster.com/

Black Suzuki Gladius 650

Suzuki GB have announced that their twin cylinder middleweight the Suzuki Gladius 650 will be available in Black in the UK market.

Ride safe.


Jon Booth
Email: webmaster@inter-bike.co.uk
Blog: http://inter-bike.blogspot.com/
Swicki: http://motorcycling-swicki.eurekster.com/

Aero Leather

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All front quarter chrome tanned horsehide jackets carry the following lifetime guarantee, the leather and stitching on your front quarter chrome tanned horsehide jacket is guaranteed for life by Aero.



All other Aero Leather jackets have a lifetime guarantee on stitching and should at any time repair work be required on a lining, zip, stitching or any part of your jacket, it should be returned to the factory to have this work correctly carried out by one of the tailors originally responsible for manufacture of the jacket.



Aeroleather Clothing Ltd, based in Scotland, have been sole distributors for the world famous Aero leather jackets since 1983, although the basis of the company dates back to 1975, founded as a trading company specialising in original WWII flying jackets and vinatge US work wear leather jackets.

1973 Honda RC250 Works Bike

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By the 1970s, two-strokes reigned as the kings of motocross racing. And Honda wanted the crown.
Trouble was, the company, which had built its U.S. reputation on four-stroke streetbikes, didn’t have anything to compete against the light and powerful oil-burners of its competitors.

So Honda built a two-stroke, breaking with 14 years of U.S. four-stroke tradition to produce the now-legendary Elsinore motocross bike. And aimed right at the heart of the AMA National Motocross Championship was the trickest one of them all, this works RC250 racer, now on display in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum at AMA headquarters in Pickerington, Ohio.
Besides the state-of-the-art, 249cc two-stroke motor that delivered the explosive power that motocross demanded, the bike was loaded with unobtainium parts, including magnesium hubs, electronic ignition and reed-valve induction.





The only thing missing was the rider, so Honda hired defending AMA 250cc Champion Gary Jones away from Yamaha and headed to the track. By the third race of the season, in Florida, Jones had won on the new machine. He went on to win five more races, including the last three of the season, to collect Honda’s first-ever MX championship.
Still, riding such a new machine did have its challenges.



The main one was all those trick factory race bits. When the ’73 motocross season began, Jones’ works bike was full of them. But as the season wore on, many of those parts couldn’t handle the strain. So Jones, working with his father and tuner, Don, wound up putting more and more production parts into the works bike to make it more reliable.



But the result was clear: Honda won the championship. And that did much to cement the image of the Elsinore as a thoroughbred, helping to sell countless versions of the production bike to amateur racers—and jump-starting the brand’s motocross racing reputation.

© 2009, Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum

Baked Harley

Let cool before serving. I miss those old Hi-Fi colors.

The Starship Enterprise

and a Mighty Mini

A new reader of the blog who goes by Mingal sent an email and included some photos.

Chris....feel free to post it... the guy I bought the photo from , said that the owner of the body work had brought it around to the local H-D shop and they displayed it for a week, trying to get some sales for it.

The captain is ready for blast off!

I've seen similar pictures that describe it as an "Enterprise" and I think it was from 1961. Just thought you might get a giggle out it for your blog, which I might ad, is very well done.

Here's another cool photo, taken of me on a 1969 Honda Mini-Trail with a mid 60's 650 Triumph engine in it. Starts on the first kick, makes a lot of noise and grabs a lot of attention.......yeah, it's "only" a single carb. :)

I'm surprised how well the engine fits. In addition to the down tubes and lower frame rails, I'd guess the backbone is also stretched some. -C.K.

Carlsbad Motorcycle Grand Prix 1970

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In 1970 after the Elsinore Grand Prix our local AMA District 38 dirt bike club, the Brush Barons, decided that it would be fun to host an Elsinore-like, multi-surface, dirt bike event at Carlsbad


via vintagemxr

Jeff Leighton’s Unit Custom

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Via Four Aces Cycle



Jeff Leighton’s Unit Custom. Jeff came to the shop wanting a unit construction hardtailed bike and left with a great bike and a part-time job. Jeff did what is probably the best thing you can do when talking to your bike builder. He told me, “I like clubman handle bars and low pipes.” I was to do the rest of the thinking and the building. I remembered doing the “Slimbo” bike several years back at the height of the wide-tired chopper era. I did Slimbo as a protest against all that is fat. I took the general idea of that bike and made something almost as slim, but with some more personality.



Jeff is heavily tattooed and he has several choice spiderwebs so we went with a spiderweb theme on this tank, fender and oil bag. Rick grindle painted the bike and laid down some really cool webs after Jeff’s tattoo artist drew them out on the tank. Rick also hand lettered the “Triumph” logo in yellow to match the black and yellow California license plate we had painted up for the bike. I used Jeff’s exhaust pipes as my prototype, soon to be Biltwell produced, exhaust tips on this bike. The result is a slim, trim sleek bike with lots of personality. Check the pipe extensions out at www.biltwellinc.com.

For Irish Rich, Elvis' Liberator

Had to put these up for Rich after finding he's an out of the closet Liberator fan. Go to his Applied Machete blog for more info on these little seen beasts.

This shot was taken at Graceland. I believe it's a '76. Yup, that's a Stutz. The King had impeccable taste.

I believe it's now on display at a Harley dealer.

1971 Titanium Husqvarna

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Via the AMA motorcycle hall of fame


When Swedish MX star Lars Larsson lined up on this bike for the 1971 Indian Dunes motocross race in Southern California, his competition thought he was on a regular Husqvarna.



But Larsson knew better. He was aboard one of the rarest machines in the history of American motocross: a 400cc Husqvarna with a frame made of titanium. And he used it to win both motos and dominate the Inter-AMA series support class that year.
“Of course, my fellow racers came around wondering what kind of Husky I had,” recalls Larsson, who was instrumental in establishing Husqvarna in the U.S. and later went on to start Torsten Hallman Original Racewear, now known as Thor.

He told them: Hallman Racing had commissioned Pro-Fab to make a small run of light, strong and expensive titanium frames to accept Husky engines. Other weight-saving tweaks included titanium fork crowns, handlebars and axles. The fenders and seat base were thin plastic, the gas tank was aluminum, and various parts—including the brake pedal and ignition cover—were drilled to lighten them further.
The result weighed in at an amazing 189 pounds, or 25 pounds lighter than a comparable production Husqvarna.
The machine helped Larsson win four of six rounds of the Inter-AMA motocross series.
“It was a dream to ride,” Larsson remembers. “But what bike isn’t when you’re winning? ” Though legal when it was made, the frame was disallowed for the 1972 season by AMA officials, who feared titanium would escalate racing costs.

As it turned out, Larsson didn’t need a trick bike to win. He went on to earn a gold medal at the 1971 International Six Days Trials, riding for the U.S. in Czechoslovakia, and he remained a top enduro rider through the ’70s. He was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002.
His titanium Husky, refitted with a 250cc engine after the original 400cc motor was destroyed in a car crash, is on display as part of the Museum’s “Motocross America” exhibit.

A Good Dresser is Hard to Find

I recently received an email from Tjebbe of the ZZChop blog explaining how ever since my post on dressers, he's been hooked, but being a chopper guy, doesn't want to be!

He went on to say how he's been hunting the internet for those elusive dresser photos.

Good pictures of dressers are a lot tougher than choppers to find. Maybe that's partly what makes them interesting.


Hopefully these beast will help him cope with his new found addiction.

1956 Corvette SR-2

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via the tamsoldracecarsite


Corvette expert Jim Gessner contributed these photos & info on this experimental Corvette, the precursor to the legendary "Corvette SS".



"In March 1956 Fred Warner, General Motors PR man for Chevrolet and racer himself, delivers the Corvette SR-2 to Road America. Harley Earl gave the car to his son Jerry to race. Jerry had been racing Ferraris until he received this car and GM frowned on that activity."



The car in the dusty pit area at Road America. "The SR-2 acronym stood for "Sebring Racer" or alternatively "Sports Racing." Starting with a Sebring Corvette chassis, the SR-2 sprouted a rear fin, two small racing windscreens, air scoops on the side coves and an extended front end with driving lights that gave the machine a purposeful appearance. "



Another look at the SR-2 at Road America. "Corvette repeated as the GT class champion at the 1957 Sebring enduro -- although it was a production model, not one of the sleek SR-2s, that took the honors. The SR-2 redeemed itself by winning the Sports Car Club of America's class B-Modified championship in 1957."

5 Ball Racing Art by the Numbers

A behind the scenes look at how I do a painting

The following article will be featured on Bikernet.com but I wanted to give my loyal blog readers the first look at it. Also, remember to click on the images for a better view. Large image views will only be possible on this blog version of the story.

I've always been interested in how other artists work or achieve certain effects and I've read a few step-by-step articles by artists documenting their processes. With that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to document, and share, how I went about painting this project.

The project started on fairly short notice. Keith Ball asked me if I was interested in displaying some art at Michael Litcher's Stay Gold tribute to Johnny Chop in Sturgis last year. I had a couple of finished paintings on hand, but Keith hoped I'd do something new that would complement the Salt Shaker which was included in the show. Since time was short and I needed to frame the other two paintings, doing a painting of the Salt Shaker would be pushing it. I needed to do something a bit simpler and decided to paint a version of the 5 Ball Racing logo. I wanted to paint a color version of that logo since designing it, and It would also show a slightly different side of my work.

The painting would be based on this t-shirt/decal design.

A few things to keep in mind before we start - I don't necessarily work exactly the same way on every project. It's hard to stop and shoot each and every step. Some of the colors of the art may not look exactly the same since the photos were shot over a period of time and the lighting conditions or camera settings varied.


Before painting, a color study of the art was done in Photoshop to work out the color palette. Keith used it to advertise Thursdays News.


Here's the paints I use. They are water based acrylic paints that were developed for cell animation. The pros: They are more opaque (similar to Gouache), than traditional artist acrylics, yet permanent, bright, won't fade, and come in convenient squeeze bottles. The cons: They dry so fast they need to be constantly rewetted on the palette, can be difficult to airbrush, and don't flow as well as oil based paints or lettering enamels.


From this mess, somehow a painting will emerge.


1. For several years, I've been gluing drawings (or copies of them), on illustration board and fiberboard panels. That way, I don't have to spend the time carbon transferring or redrawing the art on the final surface. I found a cool frame in my stash, so the painting's size was determined by the frame. After printing out the art from my computer, I made a bunch of different sized Xerox copies to see which would best fit the frame. When making copies, I make sure there's plenty of extra paper around the design to trim later. Crop marks are included on the image as a rough sizing guide and to keep the design straight for final trimming.

2. Next, I cut a slightly oversized piece of 1/8" fiberboard. The reason - it's very difficult to paste the design exactly where you want it.


3. Working fast and starting at the top, I begin by brushing the top 1/3 section of the board with a generous amount of acrylic medium. Because it dries and soaks up fast, I only lay down the top 1/3 of the drawing, while holding the rest of it up, and roll down that portion before painting more medium. I quickly brush down more medium and roll the next portion down, and repeat until it's all down. Then, I quickly roll out the whole surface with increased pressure making sure to press out the excess medium and any air pockets. If there are any stubborn air pockets or wrinkles, I cut a slit in them and roll or brush them down with more medium.


4. After it's dry, I cut the board to the desired size by repeatedly scoring a line with an x-acto knife until it cuts completely through the board. The rough edges are then cleaned up with sandpaper. You can see that the crop marks on the right actually ended up being inside the trim size.

5. Next I paint the entire surface with more acrylic medium which gives the surface a brush stroke texture (tooth).


6. I then paint over the whole image with Gesso, just thick enough to give it a good working surface but letting the image show through. The gesso acts as a primer which helps the top coats of paint adhere to the acrylic medium. It also creates a bright undersurface that brightens the lighter colors like yellow.


7. Under painting. I start putting down paint without too much care about any one thing. The idea is to just start covering as much of the white surface as possible so that you can build upon that and make choices in regards to color and shade. I started with the yellow areas first since yellow is light and tends to be a bit transparent. It can later be easily painted over with orange and out lined later with black. Notice how you can still see the words Bikernet.com through the yellow paint. I also started some basic mottling and shading of the skull and bones. The black outlines were painted in places so I don't loose the image as I paint. I don't worry too much about how crisp or perfect the lines are as I can then work within those areas and always go back and touch up the outlines later.


8. More under painting. Since it gets kind of boring, I tend to hop around a bit. The background color is built up by painting over it again. More skull and bone mottling was added and I have blocked in the colors of the torch. I also experimented more on how the lighter areas of the blue outline glow will look.


9. At this point, the woman, checkered flags, and the grinder are about 90% done. Later I'll come back and retouch most everything - things like enhance the shading, add highlights, tighten up outlines, etc. Also, at about this stage, I found my deadline was moved up several days earlier than originally planned. Keith now told me, he had to drive everything up to Northern California the following day so, it could make it on a truck that was headed for Sturgis.


10. Detail of the woman. For Keith a pin up is mandatory for Bikernet art


11. Detail of the grinder area. You can also see how the black outlines of the tips of the banner will need to be touched up.


12. The lettering is now complete and the torch has been highlighted and finished. The skull, bones, and the blue and black outlines still need some work.


13. Most everything has been re-outlined or touched up. The skull and bones are more refined, the helmet's seam received a highlight, and the number 5 and a highlight were added to the ball as well. Keith reminded me I had until midnight since he was leaving early the next morning. So, like it or not, I stopped and considered it done. I stuck it in the frame, boxed it up, and got to Keith's place about 10:45 p.m.


14. Here's how it looked framed for the show.


15. After the art returned from Sturgis, I thought it looked a bit flat in places. To improve it, shading was added under the woman and around the edges of the helmet. A large primary highlight (by the B in Bikernet), and several smaller secondary highlights were added as well. To give it more form, the helmet's seam is now shaded and more highlights were added. Note, the pinstripes on the helmet's scallops are still in progress and not complete on it's right side. Shading and more highlights were added to the 5 ball, the woman has been retouched, and some re-working of the blue glowing out lines is in process as well.


16. To better match the color study and for added drama, the outer edges of the panel were airbrushed with black. This was the only airbrushing done.


17. Finally, to protect the art, the entire image was clear coated with Krylon Satin Acrylic spray. It uniforms the sheen of surface and enhances the contrast. It's a little scary, since it does affect the warmth and contrast of the colors. If you don't like the way something now looks, it makes any further retouching very difficult, as you now would have to guess how the colors will look when it's re-cleared. Compare this image with the one in step 13.


18. The finished art now framed once again.