Sideburn 33

A BIKER’S WORK IS

DONE

Sideburn is published four times a year by Inman Ink Ltd

Editor: Gary Inman Deputy editor: Mick Phillips Art editor: Kar Lee Entertainments officer: Dave Skooter Farm Poet/Test rider: Travis Newbold

For advertising/commercial enquiries please email: sideburnmag@gmail.com ©2018 Sideburn magazine ISSN 2040-8927

None of this magazine can be reproduced without publisher’s consent sideburnmag@gmail.com

The 116 pages in your hands are the result of a team effort that included these super folks: Adam Nickel; Jake Johnson; Yve Assad; JD Beach; Ed Syder; Todd Marella; Tom and Sally Bing; all at Temple, Leeds; Ryan Quickfall; Sonny Burres; Larry at NYMC; Scott Toepfer; Vir at Helmet Stories; Daniel at La Urbana; Brink; Rox; Andy and Evy at Hermanus; Dave Bevan; Dean at Clements Moto; Andrew Mansourov; Paul Bryant; Jeremy Melling; Sean at Gallery Oldham; Richard at Museum Crush; Gary Van Voorhis; Michael, Gene and Andrea at American Flat Track; all at Krazy Horse; Grant & Caylee; Nick at Harley-Davidson; James at Black Dots Video; Andy Benchdonkee; Ozzer; John at Brapp Snapps; All at CFM; Adi at 99 Seconds; Dirt Track Lelystad; the Hells Race crew; Anna and all at the DTRA; last, but never, ever least, all our loyal advertisers. They support the independents.

Cover illustration: Adam Nickel This page: Travis Newbold & Baja by Jon Wallace/Brapp Snapps

SIDEBURN 34 will be published in Summer 2018. To subscribe go to sideburn.bigcartel.com

Sand Blaster

See

Crazy

51 New Bikes

Regulars

Crazed

Free Way

N THE LAST three seasons I’ve raced a Ducati, Harley-Davidson XR750 and XG750R and a Kawasaki, and now the Estenson Racing Yamaha FZ-07. If I had to compare my 2018 Yamaha to those, I’d say the Yamaha feels most like the Kawasaki. Obviously, they’re both parallel twins, which makes for a smaller, compact package. I’m still learning every time I get on the Yamaha [Jake wrote this story after the second AFT round of 2018], so I’m still figuring out all the strengths and weaknesses. From what I’ve noticed so far, the Yamaha has great top-end speed, but lacks a bit of torque, or grunt, compared to the XR or Ducati. It’s more of a revver than a lugger, which makes it like the XG and Kawasaki. I like how slim and light the Yamaha feels. Some of the twins I’ve ridden in the past were a little wide between the knees and could have a bit of an awkward feel. I’ve not yet had a chance to ride an Indian FTR750, so I can’t really use it in any comparison.

We are currently using a J&M chassis, made in Pooleville, Maryland. Mike Owens at J&M builds a great chassis and I’ve ridden quite a few J&Ms over the years, from Rotaxes to XRs and 450s, but it’s the only Yamaha twin chassis I’ve ridden. Right now I’m just trying to get familiar with the whole combination. We have two different versions, a linkage-style shock chassis and a non-linkage chassis.1

You might notice the front forks are from the Yamaha R6, dating back to the late ’90s/early 2000s. These, and the old Honda CBR600 right-way-up forks, are still most everyone’s choice in pro flat track, even though they are a bit prehistoric when it comes to modern suspension technology. There are some uprated cartridge kits available to fit in these legs that improve the damping and make them a lot nicer, but I think the fork’s biggest selling point is feel. I believe it’s all about how they flex. I’ve tried some more modern, upside-down forks in the past but they don’t give you very much feel. Being such a larger diameter, they have a lot less flex and don’t give you much warning before the front end loses grip.

When I joined the team I changed some suspension settings, handlebars... and other comfort items have been changed. Other than that, I’m not really sure what has changed since 2017. I know the linkage-style chassis is new for this year but as far as engines and any other updates, I haven’t asked. We don’t have official support from Yamaha, but the folks there seem to be really excited about flat track right now and help out where they can.

Once I find a base chassis set-up that I’m comfortable with I really don’t alter it much from track to track,

1. Many monoshock flat track frames are non-linkage, the rear suspension unit (RSU, aka the rear shock, which in this case is a Penske) is bolted directly to the swingarm, usually a crossbrace. The shock movement is linear, directly correlated to the movement of the rear wheel. A linkage system is used on MX, DTX, road race and superbikes, among others. One end of the RSU is bolted to the frame, the other end to a linkage system connected to the swingarm. The benefit of this set-up is the linkage can be designed to ‘stiffen’ the suspension the more the wheel moves, for a given a spring rate, so it has a rising rate not linear action, meaning over small bumps it’s more compliant, but stiffens up the more the shock compresses, such as when hitting potholes or landing jumps.

Jake Johnson was 2010 and 2011 Grand National Champion (and Singles champ in ’06 and ’08). Here he’s battling with Harley young gun Jarod Vanderkooi

but we’ll play with suspension settings, tyre pressure and gearing to fine-tune for the conditions that day. We have a few different engine configurations, one for short tracks and TTs and another for half-miles and miles. We’ll also play with cam timing, ignition mapping and S&S exhaust systems depending on the track. I don’t really know all the ins and outs of the engine tune [Sideburn asked Estenson for some more details but they just confirmed Stauffer Motors carries out the work]. I’m sure it’s pretty much all of the obvious parts and pieces to make a fast, reliable race engine. Head work, valves, springs, cams, rods, pistons and a Barnett clutch. When it comes to the engine, I just give my feedback and the team does their best to give me what I need.

I’ve ridden for quite a few teams throughout my career, both factory and privateer. I’ve been with two factories (Suzuki and H-D) and both were quite a bit different. I’ve also been on a lot of privateer teams and they were all different. I really like where I’m at right now. Estenson Racing has been treating me very well and making me feel like a factory rider.

As far as the team staff goes, I’m working with Ted McDermitt, who was my mechanic back in 20102013 when we were at Zanotti Racing. Also, Mike Hacker, who I’ve worked with quite a bit throughout my career and who has been a great mentor of mine for many years.

Going back to last year, it wasn’t for lack of effort that I couldn’t get the Harley-Davidson XG750R to work as well as we’d hoped. We tried a lot of different things, but a lot of time was spent fixing and dealing with reliability issues. Developing an entry-level cruiser into a race machine is no easy task. 2 There were a lot of unforeseen problems that needed to be addressed throughout the season that slowed progress. I feel like time was our biggest enemy. Once the season got rolling we really had no time to test. We were trying to test and race at the same time, which is a really hard thing to do.

At time of going to press, Johnson had taken 6th, 8th and 10th in the first, second and fourth AFT Twins rounds, though an incredible multi-rider crash in the semi ended his hopes at the Texas Half-Mile

There are only a few AFT Twins riders using the Yamaha FZ-07 engine at the moment [most notably Jake; JD Beach – interviewed in this issue; Kayl Kolkman and Mikey Rush], but our sport is a lot of ‘monkey see monkey do’. When the XR750 was winning, everyone had XRs. Then the Honda RS, back to XRs, then Kawasakis, now the Indian. If a Yamaha starts winning, the rest will follow.

I think the bike is capable. The more time I get on it the better off we will be. A little more time and testing to fine-tune and I feel we can be in the hunt. I don’t think a rider needs to be on an Indian to beat Jared Mees to the title. The team that can get their shit together as well as Mees’ does has a shot. Yes, he has a great motorcycle, but he also has the entire package. That team runs like a clock. They’re smart, determined and want to win no matter what it takes. 3

I feel the miles are going to be my best chance of a win. The miles haven’t been my strongest point throughout my career, but from what I saw last season, they seem to be this bike’s biggest strength. I hope to have a chance at all of the tracks! Like I said, I’m still learning a lot every time I get on the bike, but I feel the miles are our best chance to shine. If I had to pick just one race I’ve got the best chance of winning it would be the TT at The Buffalo Chip, Sturgis. It was my best finish on the XG last season, so I’m really looking forward to that one.

2. H-D and Vance and Hines, who run the factory team for them, have admitted as much and have abandoned the initial plan of using most of a modified XG750 Street motor and have now adopted a DOHC head, among other changes, in a hope to be more competitive. With three races down it seems to be showing some improvement. 3. Jake wrote this before Mees was stripped of his Atlanta short track win by American Flat Track for ‘tyre doping’, using chemicals to alter the compound or performance of the spec Dunlop tyre. We’re sure he didn’t mean cheating when he wrote ‘want to win no matter what it takes’.

‘I DON’T THINK A RIDER NEEDS TO BE ON AN INDIAN TO BEAT MEES TO THE TITLE’

Jake Johnson, Atlanta, 7 April 2018.

‘I feel the miles are going to be my best chance of a win. They seem to be this bike’s biggest strength’

Who? What? When? Why? Where?

JD Beach

Hey JD,1 even though you’re a fulltime road racer, flat track fans are loving your style and results in wild-card races, but tell us, what was your first motorcycle race?

My dad and his older brother had raced flat track back when they were teenagers. When they got older my uncle went into the army and my dad kept racing off and on. In his 20s he took a break but came back in his 30s. When I was born he was still racing. So, my very first race was a bit unplanned, but it was at a flat track race. I had a JR50 that I had been riding around as a kid when I was three. My dad and I were at a race in Washington that he was competing at. I asked if I could race and since my mom wasn’t there, he signed me up.

When did you turn pro?

I got my pro licence in 2008 so I could get into races for free! I did my first pro race/national in 2009 at Daytona when AMA Pro started the new Pro Sport class.2

You are one of the most talented flat track racers in the world and you don’t even do it full time, when did you have to choose which type of racing you were going to concentrate on and what made you decide?

I would say I really chose road racing back in 2007 when I was racing the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup. That was the year I would have gone for the flat track Horizon Award but I had to skip it for races

Appendix

in Europe. At that time in flat track it was really important to put up a good showing for that, so at that point I knew I had to choose one or the other. At the end of the day though, flat track has a special place in my heart and I love the sport and want to help it grow. But I love road racing and have big goals in that sport that I want to achieve. If I had it my way, when I’m done road racing, I would love to make a full go at flat track.

What is the most memorable race of your career? Man, it would be hard to pinpoint it to just one race. I’ve been racing for a long time now and have had many great races. My first win in Europe in the Rookies Cup was awesome, my first win at the Peoria TT as a Pro was fun. Even getting to battle one of my heroes, Chris Carr, in his final race as a Pro in 2011. I’ve had so many, I feel very lucky and blessed.

What is your favourite dirt track and why?

I think my favourite flat track changes from year to year. The tracks can be so different each time depending on weather and track prep. But for sure Peoria TT, Springfield TT, Springfield Mile, and Indy Mile, to name a few.

What is your favourite track, dirt or road?

Umm, favourite track ever? Utah Motorsports Campus is pretty fun, so is Laguna Seca, but also

Sachsenring in Germany was a blast, too. Honestly, if I’m on a motorcycle, dirt or road, and I’m racing, it’s kind of hard to have a bad day.

What’s the best motorcycle you’ve ever raced?

I’ve ridden lot of bikes. I’m not sure. I do love my Yamaha R6 I get to race. My team has built a great bike and have fine tuned it for my riding style. I can ride it the way I think, smooth but on the edge, and really enjoy it.

What’s the best flat tracker you’ve ever raced?

I’m really, really enjoying the Yamaha FZ-073 I’ve been racing.

I would love to get it on a mile. It handles great and seems to have some very impressive top-end speed.

In 2010 I got to race one of Jared Mees’ Harleys in my first Expert mile race in Springfield. That thing was pretty bad ass.

And what’s the worst bike you’ve tried to race?

The worst bike? I don’t really recall one being that bad. One time back in, like, 2007, I was trying to race a TZ250 Yamaha road racer at a local race track. The bike wasn’t bad but we just couldn’t get it to run great all day.

You’ve had three great flat track results back to back, does any part of you think, Why don’t I go fulltime flat track and win this series?

I think that would always be in the back of your head, but putting

1 James Douglas, as no one calls him. 2 The forerunner to GNC2 and Singles classes as the main support class. 3 In the AFT Twins class, JD was second at the final round of 2017 and third in the first round of 2018.

a whole season together is a lot different to having a couple of good races. But, like I said before, when I’m done road racing I would love to come back to flat track and give it a proper go.

What does a rider need to be AFT champ?

By the looks of it, an Indian. Just kidding. I might not be the best person to ask because I haven’t won a championship, but for sure it’s putting a whole season together.

Being able to race on every size of track with every type of dirt. AFT is doing a great job at mixing up the series and having plenty of different races, so that’ll keep the riders on their toes.

It seems everyone wants an FTR750 now, but you’re getting results on a Yamaha that is quite early in its development. How good can that Yamaha become?

I think the Yamaha is a fantastic motorcycle and it still has a lot of room to grow. The bike I rode at Daytona had a stock motor and a heavy rear wheel, that’s it! I think there can be some stuff done to the motor to help out. Also, Yamaha Factory has a bike that I haven’t had a chance to ride yet and I think it’ll be super nice.

Lots of amateur racers read Sideburn, please give them one piece of flat track advice?

Advice that I give to any amateur racer is always to just have fun and enjoy racing and being at the track. That’s the whole reason why we started racing. It’s easy to forget that and get too focused on the results and everything. When I was a kid it was some of the most fun racing I ever had and I really enjoyed that. I think having less stress back then has made it easier to still be racing now.

What’s the best thing about being a pro bike racer?

Not having to clock in every day. I mean, I still work my butt off every day, but I truly enjoy my job and what I get to do. Also, being kind of in the spotlight, not because people know me, but because I can be a role model for kids. I think if it wasn’t for racing and the people I looked up to, my adult life could have been very different and I’m thankful for how it turned out. And with my stutter and having to talk on TV and everything it’s very warming when I get messages or people coming up to me at the races saying that I’ve helped them. It’s awesome.

What’s the worst thing?

There’s not really a worst thing, it’s just a give and take. At this level there’s no real off season. Once the MotoAmerica season is over there is always testing, training, travelling, always trying to improve yourself and the bike you are racing, but I love it. Then you might go to Europe to race or do dealer shows...

Who is the toughest flat track competitor you’ve raced against?

Growing up it was always Brad Baker, then I’d throw in Jacob Lehmann back home. Of course, once a year we would do the Amateur Nationals and race against the Gillims, Jeffrey Carver and PJ Jacobsen... But Brad and I really

helped each other grow as racers.

Since we were on 50s we’ve always wanted to beat each other. But it got to a point we would race each other so hard one of us would take the other one out. Instead of just racing away we would wait for the other to get up, start racing again and take them out again.

Who is the greatest flat tracker of all time?

There have been many greats: Springer, Graham, Parker, Carr... the list could go on and on. But I think right now we are getting to witness a future ‘Greatest Flat Tracker’ in Jared Mees. This guy has taken it to another level. In 2009 he won the championship without a single win; in 2017 he won the championship with the most wins ever. Then there are the championships in between.

American Flat Track is in a state of reinvention, but what is the one thing you’d still change about it, if you could do it with a click of the fingers?

I think that is hard to pinpoint. Every professional sport – ball sport or motorsport – is always changing to improve. AFT is doing a great job, they are always trying to make changes to make racing better for riders and fans. I think as long as they don’t sit back and think ‘well that’s good enough’ they will be fine.

Your nickname is Jiggy Dog, but what is a jiggy dog and does it need to be kept on a leash? Ha! I’m not sure what a jiggy dog is. But I would say if it was an animal and it was anything like me it probably wouldn’t need a leash. It would be in bed early and up with the sun and probably wouldn’t get into anything too bad, but would have a good time and enjoy life.

What’s next for you?

Round two of the AFT series in Atlanta [JD qualified fastest but a puncture ruined his day], then the weekend after it’s the MotoAmerica season opener. I really want to get that SuperSport title back in 2018!

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How to get into flat track racing

THE LURE OF flat track racing is a cunning and seductive force. It’ll ensnare you as subtly and surely as a Cold War Soviet spy. It gets to you on many levels. The sounds are like no other form of racing, particularly at club level, where you’ll hear an ominous symphony of rumbling four-strokes in concert with nasty swarms of sweet-scent two-strokes.

Visually, the effects can be equally disarming and beguiling, given the spectrum of bikes, leathers, helmets, the artistic manner with which they’re represented and the mystique created as a result. The accessibility of flat track racing as a fan, and the low cost to race (relative to other forms of racing), add to its attraction. All of these considerations, in addition to the speed and immediacy of the racing itself, weaken your chances of resisting the temptation. You’ll hear yourself say, as if it’s an involuntary reaction, ‘I wanna do that.’

So, you wanna race flat track? So did I, ever since my first trip to Ascot Park about 2000 Friday nights ago (give or take), where I experienced all of the sights and sounds described above. The difference between you and me? You don’t have to wait 40 some-odd years after you fell for it to go for it. I was 54 years old before I entered an organised flat track race. I’m not suggesting it’s ever too late to start, but why wait? I’ve just completed my first full indoor season at our local track in Salem, Oregon – fourth overall for the season. I’ll share with you some of the mistakes I made and make some suggestions to ease your start into racing flat track.

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF

Why are you doing this? Is it the speed? Is it the styling of the bikes? Because it looks easy? Only you know, so be sincere, as it will shape many of the decisions you make as you get into the sport. This is not stand-up paddle boarding, or skiing, which are both great, and while each is accompanied by a certain level of risk, flat track is a dangerous sport; you race at close quarters with a host of other riders who want to go faster than everyone else, on a very hard surface. Remember that speed and immediacy that drew you in? Trust me, it’s real. Still with me? Great.

FIND THE RIGHT BIKE

Do as I say, not necessarily as I do. I knew I wanted to race in the winter series and needed a bike. I looked on Craigslist and found one. I test rode it and ‘had to have it’. On so many levels it is not the right bike for me. I’m far too big for it, and it wasn’t as sound a machine as it appeared. I spent the better part of my first three races at Salem trying to keep my chain on the rear sprocket and the wheel lined up, as the adjusters where makeshift

at best. It’s served me, and I still love it, but I look like a parading Shriner on a minibike. Being honest, choose the class that most suits you. Take your time, as there are multitudes of bikes of all states of repair available. Are you able to do most of the work? Do you have the means to hire someone to repair/tune/improve the bike? Let your sincere, level head be your guide.

KNOW YOUR ABLITIES

Know your limitations, too. See part 1 again about honesty. In club races, particularly at beginner level, you’ll be riding with people of ability levels all over the spectrum. Much of racing is trusting the people around you. There’s an adage about ‘race as if there is no one else on the track’, but you’re depending on the riders immediately in front and to the side not to do anything completely unexpected, and they’re counting on the same from you.

GET GOOD GEAR

Things can go south very quickly (and they usually do), so protect yourself. Don’t be fooled or tempted to copy those riders you’ll see ripping around in jeans and a hoodie. Pad yourself where you can with the right stuff. Your style will determine some aspects of your choices, but let your personal safety be your primary guide. Thor Drake, an accomplished racer in several capacities, told me, ‘Rib injuries are the most prevalent kind in flat track’. I never race without my trunk protection. And yes, you’ll need a steel shoe for your left boot. If you can’t find one, or make one yourself, befriend a welder.

BE A STUDENT OF THE SPORT

Flat track is the oldest form of motorsport in America and has a rich history the world over. There is a great deal of information out there that will help you. Watch old races on YouTube, go to local races, and for goodness’ sakes, if you’ve not yet seen Bruce Brown’s classic film On Any Sunday, stop what you’re doing and watch it. Don’t forget about that community-building of flat track racers, mechanics and fans alike. Those relationships will prove invaluable. I’ve made a number of truly great friends through this sport, and you will, too.

GO RACING

You’ve been honest, done your homework, you’re geared up, with a little bit of practice under your belt and you’re at the starting line. Breathe. Within seconds, the flag will drop, the tape go up, or the light turn green. You probably won’t get the holeshot, but you’ll be racing! It will be exhilarating, frightening and as freeing as anything you’ve ever done. You’ll try to remember all the tips: right elbow up, roll on easy... You’ll never remember them all, but never forget this one: have fun. Dig.

HEADING OUT FROM Nottingham early one Sunday morning in February, the world outside the car seems to barely exist. We’re heading east, bound for the madcap sand bash that is beach racing at Mablethorpe, though which direction we’re actually headed in is mere guesswork at this point. The low-lying fog that is enveloping this part of the world is colliding with the internal fog of last night’s excesses and neither seem to be shifting anytime soon. The fact that we’re in a car in the first place and not riding our bikes east is testament to the less than clement conditions. I hate driving.

‘It’ll clear... the Lincolnshire sun will burn through and it’ll be a beautiful clear day on the beach,’ my copilot, Andy Benchdonkee, mutters from beside me, a man not known for his overtly sunny outlook on life.

‘In February?’ I reply incredulously, as we plough on through the soup. Sure enough, somewhere around Louth, a grey-white disk appears dangling on the horizon and the fogs start to disperse, I glance over at Andy, who simply shrugs.

The eastern seaboard of the UK in February is not for the weak nor faint-hearted. It is a wild, ragged and startlingly stark place. Mablethorpe, roughly halfway down the Lincolnshire coast, is no exception. Pulling up to the seafront, the fog has just about cleared and the palest of winter suns is struggling to illuminate a scene that wouldn’t look out of place in the cinematic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It is bleak.

Down on the beach, among the wagon-circle of Transporter and Transit vans and handmade sandpluggers up on their race stands, is a ragtag bunch of folks in patched-up leathers busy wrenching, shooting the shit and shivering. When viewed from the seawall above, it brings to mind General Custer’s last stand, albeit in a much colder, wetter environment. But as an eclectic mix of four- and twostroke death traps cough, splutter and, every once

(far left) Ex-Army waterproofs in the 125 road bike class; (left) Front sand tyre is essential for quick laps; (below) Carl next to eventual champ Andy Lee and his Kawasaki big-bore KLX250

in a while, bark into life, warming through the oil and metal, getting ready for the action, the seasonal bleakness is replaced by something approaching excitement; the expectation, camaraderie and fuel flow thick and fast.

Founded in 1970, The Mablethorpe Motor Cycle Sand Racing Club is the very last of an almost extinct breed and has single-handedly kept this most vital, accessible and righteously DIY form of racing running on these sands for nigh-on 50 years. It is testament to the dedication and hard work of the small and loyal group of members and regulars who turn up, chip in and go flat out, month in, month out throughout the long, miserable winter that this sort of racing happens here at all. And in a day and age of stifling corporate gentrification, smothering noise restrictions and health and safety regulations, never has the existence of something as elemental and downright fun as homemade motorcycles hooning ovals around a sand track, which changes shape, line and texture along with the whims of the North Sea, seemed so important.

Among the mish-mash of more agricultural-looking machinery, Carl Smith’s lean and mean, gunmetal grey Yamaha TDR250 stands out from the pack, looking fast simply stood still behind his blue CFM work van, but this is nothing compared how fast it looks up-close and personal, screaming blue-smoke murder down the long straights and bouncing and wrestling through the mangled, deeply rutted and sometimes underwater corners of the unforgiving sand track.

Carl is one of those dyed-in-the-wool bikers who grew up on and around two wheels and whose art and skill is in the bikes he makes, fixes, rides and races, rather than in posturing about them or himself. Humble doesn’t even begin to cover it.

‘My first experience of motorbikes was the summer 1976, when I was eight years old, riding pillion on my late uncle’s 1970 Bonneville. At 11, my dad

‘People talk about grassroots racing and I don’t think you can get anything more authentic than the Mablethorpe Sand Racing Club’

Mablethorpe doesn’t feel suffocated by health and safety, but racers must refuel in designated areas, like this Honda 400 Bros is doing

taught me to ride a Honda CD175, which he promised to me before selling it to a bloke at work for £40, the twat! Not to be deterred, I saved up my paper round money and bought a Bantam for £30 and haven’t been without a bike since. That was the start of my mechanical career; I remember taking the head off the Bantam to see how a two-stroke worked. I’m proud of the fact I’ve never had to pay anyone to fix any bikes that either myself or my wife, Frankie, have owned over the years.’

This self-taught reliance and skill, coupled with a complete lack of bullshit, goes a long way in this world, and Carl and his CFM garage and MOT centre in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, are no strangers to the strange and sideways Sideburn scene. He had a major fabricating hand in two Sideburn projects, the Colourblind Honda FT500C Ascot and the heavily modified Pull Your Finger Out Royal Enfield tracker, and as with those builds, this fit-for-purpose, beachrace-only TDR250 is a brutally functional creation full of inspired touches.

‘I got into supermoto around 18 years ago and after a while I thought I would have a go at racing one. I did a few meetings, then one day at Blyton I discovered it wasn’t quite as easy as I thought, when I woke up in the back of an ambulance after a massive crash. I’m told it catapulted my bike straight up into the air. I still have no memory of that smash, but that was enough of supermoto for me. Then I thought I’d try sand racing... it looked safer.

‘That first year I started out on a Honda XL500, then after a couple of seasons I moved on to a Honda NTV650 Bros [Hawk in some countries] that I built. I was shit to start with, one race I took a corner way too wide and me and the bike ended up in the sea,

Practice, when the sand has been left pristine by the morning tide, are the best laps in the world, but the beach quickly gets rutty

but liked it enough to keep going. People talk about grassroots racing and I don’t think you can get anything more authentic than the Mablethorpe Sand Racing Club. The size and condition of the track is decided by what’s there when the tide goes out and changes meeting to meeting and even changes loads from heat race to heat race.’

Because Mablethorpe is a seaside town, the racing is confined to the British winter. ‘Weather and conditions are harsh on riders and bikes,’ Carl continues, ‘but that’s one of the reasons I enjoy it so much. Getting my bike to finish every race at every meeting is equally as important as crossing the finish line first.

‘After a few years in the unlimited road bike class finishing mid pack, I decided to try the 250cc road bike class. This class was full of Honda XL250s because Neil Tuxworth [former Honda World Superbike team manager] won on one forever and everyone though it was the only way to go. So of course, I went out and bought a TDR250. I’d restored one and had a bunch of spares knocking about to turn into a beach racer. No one had won that class on a twostroke before and it took me a few seasons to get used to it and get it fully dialled-in,’ explains Carl, before going on to describe the modifications he’s made to make his Yamaha a fully competitive racer.

‘I cut the top frame tubes out and fitted a single tube, smaller tank and a comfy seat, to look after my kidneys. Changed the wheels to 21in front and 19in back; shortened the rear shock; lowered the right peg; I run the rear brake from the front master cylinder. I ported and polished transfers, skimmed the head, removed first gear and the oil pump and fitted those Jim Lomas pipes.’

Did it work? ‘I won my class championship for the five years. This year my class size was increased from 250 to 400cc and competition has been really close.’ Carl asked for the cc increase to encourage new racers, but it meant he didn’t win six titles in a row.

‘After 48 years, Mablethorpe is the last remaining sand race club in the country and is still going strong. I’m going to try my best to win the 50th anniversary season in a couple of years.’

Beach racing is about as heavy, humble and homespun a beast as motorsports has to offer and with folks like Carl and his TDR250 involved, the racing at Mablethorpe is in good hands.

‘I think the attraction is the fact that I can just chuck my bike in the back of my van and go and have fun in the sand with like-minded people,’ says Carl. ‘Simple, really.’

This sort of scene doesn’t just happen on its own, it needs constant time, energy and new blood/fresh meat on the beach to keep it alive and skidding to its 50th birthday and hopefully far beyond. Get yourself out east to the beach, get involved, and try not to crash into the sea.

WHAT DO YOU do when you call a halt to your AMA Pro Triumph racing programme and have a spare GNC chassis left over? If you’re Latus, who have both Triumph and Harley-Davidson dealerships in Oregon, and also finance their own MotoAmerica road racing and flat track teams, you use it as the core of a radical road bike.

The street tracker game has become much stronger in the ten years Sideburn has been in existence. Sure, now there are some factory ‘trackers’ that are not deserving of their self-proclaimed name; equally, there are road-legal race bikes that could tape up their lights and, with the right rider on board, make a GNC main. In between there is a Grand Canyonfilling diversity of flat track-inspired road bikes, being built in workshops from Indiana to Indonesia. Be in no doubt, this creation from Latus is from the GNCcapable end of the scale.

I first saw the bike among the feast of eye candy that is The One Motorcycle Show in Portland, 2017. I’d looked at it four or five times as I walked the halls of the almost derelict pickle factory, then got distracted by light reflecting off another shiny surface and chased it across the room like a cat. The fifth, perhaps sixth lap of the show saw me pass the Latus Triumph again and only then did the realisation dawn, this isn’t a race bike, it’s a gotdarn road-legal fun machine!

Playing the long game, when I returned to the Pacific North-West for 2018’s One Show, I arranged to arrive a day or two earlier and take it for a ride.

What we have here is a tuned Hinckley twin in a Bonneville Performance chassis. The Latus name has a long history in the Grand National Championship, most notably with fellow Pacific North-Westerner, Joe Kopp. After running Harleys, they made the decision to use Triumph motors.

The team fielded Johnn Lewis in 2013, Shayna Texter in 2014 and Brandon Robinson for the 2015 season. I was at the 2014 Springfield Mile and the headshake Shayna was dealing with down the grandstand straight in practice made my blood run cold. ‘For some reason the chassis didn’t like me,’ Shayna told Sideburn, ‘and it used to shake. I made four main events on it, which is crazy to think about now, but at the same time it made me a little bit afraid of riding motorcycles.’ Her best finish was 12th at Lima, in her first year as an Expert/GNC1 rider.

Robinson’s season was much brighter in comparison. He made the main in every twins race, as a rider of his standing should, with the highlights being a second at the Sac Mile, ‘Brandon came within inches of winning the Sacramento Mile. This was the first time a Triumph had been on the podium in about 30 years!’ says George Latus. Robinson finished the season sixth overall. This bike is a tribute to that podium finish.

The team started with the Bonneville Performance

GNC chassis, before swapping to J&M.

Latus Racing’s Mike Stegmann shows me around the bike. He takes humble and self-effacing to a new level. I point to the oil-cooler bracket that doubles up as the top engine mount. ‘That was all machined on a manual mill,’ he says. It’s a masterful example of hand/eye coordination, not a CNC-programmed operation (which itself is a skill, but different). Who machined it? I ask. ‘We did,’ he replies. Who is we? ‘Me.’ Mike really doesn’t have an ‘I’ problem. Even when prodded he didn’t want to take credit.

The engine has a Carpenter Racing performance kit that retains the standard 865cc capacity, but increases power from mid-50s bhp to a claimed 90 at the rear wheel. They do it with a CNC-ported head; custom-ground camshafts; new valve springs; titanium retainers; shim-under-bucket tappets and higher-compression 13:1 CP pistons.

Based on the opposite side of the continent, in New Jersey, Carpenter Racing build street-legal drag-race engines, sometimes using Triumph’s huge Rocket III to make obscenely quick, deceptively standardlooking two-wheeled cruiseliners. Think sub-9 quarter-miles – mad. They also built the Rocket III engines in the Streamliner with which Triumph are hoping Guy Martin will break the land speed record.

In his own corner of Latus’s huge workshop and service area, Mike has cleverly stirred road bolt-on

parts into the mix without diluting the race breeding. ‘The Daytona 675 sidestand bolted straight on,’ he says, smiling. Both wheels are Triumph Tiger 800 fronts, but the rear had its rim outers sliced off, then other rim sections welded on to achieve the desired width. It’s something racers did 30 years ago, when mag wheels weren’t so abundant. God only knows why you’d go to that bother now, but I admire the drive to do it. Custom Metal Spinning carried out the work and thick, Frankenstein scars that run the circumference of the wheel show what has been done. Road-legal Goldentyre flat track race rubber complete the set-up.

Suspension is GNC race spec; a multi-adjustable Penske rear shock and Yamaha R6 forks with Öhlins internals. The triple clamps are adjustable for offset and the bar clamps are pulled back and holding Vortex HB829K bars.

The details are stacked high on these bars. The lever perches are stock Triumph enhanced with aftermarket Triumph span-adjustable levers; fluid reservoirs are STM; switchgear is Motogadget, Mike

‘WHEN I DO WIND IT ON, IT’S DOING A HUNDRED AS STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW’

loves the stuff and has fitted a whole MBox keyless ignition and minidash. See the bar-end weights? They’re actually Motogadget indicators/blinkers. This really is a road bike.

‘We fitted stuff we had,’ says Mike. ‘The Arrow footrests, the tank was for a fuel-injected bike, the seat unit and the Saddleman seat pad…’

I’m itching to ride it. I wave the key fob over the sidepanel and the dash lights up. The choke on one of the two Keihin HSR42 flatslides is a little awkward to get to. ‘Yeah, we didn’t think about that,’ admits Mike, referring to the only chink in the bike’s armour.

It starts off the button, like a brand new road bike, but sounds like a terrifying natural disaster. The Werks exhaust is one of only two ever made and was fabricated in Oregon. It was a left over from the racing days. If you’re wondering, the two Robinson race bikes were sold as a pair to someone in Australia.

The bike doesn’t have a licence plate. ‘We know the cops well round here, but don’t go on the freeway.’ Anthony the photographer, Mr Enginethusiast, makes me go on the freeway.

For a bike that is perhaps only 10% short, in power terms, of being a serious GNC weapon, it’s properly civilised. Noisy. Hellish noisy. But it ticks over, blinks its orange bar ends at gawping truck drivers, sits on a steady throttle, the headlights are DOT-approved, not projectors. Even the mirrors work. When I do wind it on, it’s doing a hundred as straight as an arrow, no concerns of shake from the steep head angle. I’m not racing it, of course, ringing its neck on a loose surface to provoke the kind of tantrums Shayna had to deal with, but I’d like to try depsite the risks.

I don’t know if it’s coincidental that the bikes I want to feature are also the ones I feel most comfortable on. This one has got flat track race-bike ergonomics, but they’re also ideal for bar-hopping. Not many race bikes can say that. And bar-hopping ergonomics is where I’m at in life. It also has the advantage over American V-twin race bikes of not having exhausts or air filters, or both, right where I want to put my knees.

The ride is over too soon. The thought of a Brit, with no paperwork, trying to explain why he keeps riding the same on-ramp, past a man in a hat hiding in a bush (‘That’s Anthony, officer. We’re friends.’) was not very appealing, but this bike deserves to be ridden. It’s too good to be sat next to the salesman’s office gathering dust. Mike Stegmann didn’t lash it together to look pretty in the One Show, he built it with the care and thought that went into his race bikes, the machines young men and women were expected to pitch into corners at 125mph.

We featured a Bonneville Performance Bonneville framer in the first issue of Sideburn. It had a very similar, distinctive, almost gooseneck frame to this bike. For days after riding the Latus street tracker all I could think about was where that first-issue bike might have ended up and how could I get hold of it.

Blurred lines. A no bull race bike on the road, even mirrors that work. Mustard socks would not pass tech inspection

Brink meets the Sideburn shrink

ADAM ‘BRINK’ BRINKWORTH has, in this amateur psychologist’s opinion, a profoundly schizophrenic personality. The 50-something father of two is a quiet, thoughtful man, the kind who goes out of his way to talk to shy teenage lads stood on the periphery of scenes, to be inclusive, yet not the centre of attention; to often provide a party for all, but to rarely, if ever, take the limelight himself.

Brink and daughter Marnie loading up after a typical day’s racing. Goldsequined Muppet suits not shown

You might think you’ve got him pegged, only to look over your shoulder as a V8 rumble reaches crescendo to see Brink rolling into a dusty dirt track car park framed by the windscreen of a Chicano gangbanger’s wet dream. In the bed of his low, black, 1969 Chevy El Camino SS is a period-correct BSA framer and matching gold-sequinned Muppet suits for Brink and his eldest offspring, Marnie (who we featured in SB27) to race in. They didn’t teach me how to deal with this dichotomy, these contradictions, in my imaginary amateur psychology school in Zurich.

Adam, lie back please and tell me about your interest in flat track. Perhaps your mother pelted you with shale as a baby...

‘I had just broken my ankle at Brands Hatch after throwing my Ducati Desmosedici RR down the road again. Bonzorro1 and Death Spray invited me to a DTRA race meet at Rye House, where I saw Dimitri Coste’s BSA 2 with its red, blue and white pinstripe frame, and it made my hair stand on end. Everybody in the paddock was having a laugh and taking the piss out of each other. That night I went home and looked on VFT’s website where I saw Merlin Stoner’s 1970 BSA A65 flat track racer for sale. It took me two weeks of stalking to convince Merlin to sell the bike to me. I finally caught him off guard while he was out at a bar. His race number was 50 and I bought it as a 50th birthday present to myself. I said I would race it until I was 75, which was his age when he stopped racing the bike.

‘Death Spray did me a favour by taking the bike to his race mechanic in Wales to check it over. To my surprise, when I collected it he had painted the tank to match the paint job of my El Camino.’

Which brings us onto Brink’s race hauler of choice. Not an ex-AA yellow VW Transporter or white ’n’ rust Merc Vito, but a 49-year-old Chevrolet El Camino, which joins a number of other vehicles Brink has imported from the USA.

‘I used California Shipping to import the bike and Chevy for me. They had previously imported the Noise Cycles Panhead, Small City Cycles and Pangaea Speed Born Free bikes. The ’69 El Camino SS body shape is the one I lusted after, my favourite details are the rear cab incline and the rear arches, they give the appearance of leaning forward.

‘Death Spray worked his magic on the bonnet, utilising the B from the BSA logo (same B as I use for Brink) and made it symmetrical, creating two metalflake red and blue stripes running down the bonnet [that’s hood to our American readers]. He then made his own small logo, discreetly, by mixing the red and blue metal-flakes together. Genius!’

If you’ve been concentrating, you’ll have got the impression Brink has some kind of dream garage. That impression isn’t misplaced. He also owns and races a 1940s Harley Flathead and the Noise XG750 Hooligan we featured in SB29.

Brink living it up on the track. He’s pledged to race the BSA twin for the next 25 years, till he’s 75

‘Sometimes on race mornings I asked myself, What the bloody hell am I doing rolling 1942 and 1970 bikes onto a 1969 truck? Which one of these is going to break down today? But I have never, ever bought a vehicle and regretted it. So, so far so good.’

That doesn’t mean his vehicles don’t test him at times though…

‘My favourite road trip in the El Camino was the first time I used it, driving the 1800-mile round trip to the Italian Alps, through the Mont Blanc tunnel, to race at the first Snow Quake. I was deaf by the time I got back home.’

Brink is the owner of a world-renowned ‘design consultancy working across a range of disciplines including architecture, interior and experiential design’. It’s at the cutting edge of highend, high street interior design for

clients like Supreme, Fiorucci, Carhartt Europe, Heineken, Selfridges and Nike. So, Adam, just relax and tell us about this obsession with the old vehicles. Were you startled by a backfiring Knucklehead as a child?

‘It’s the sound and the mechanical nature of riding them. I play the drums, which requires four limbs, and I enjoy the same challenge of coordination on these vintage bikes. It’s not how fast it is, it’s how it feels. The reason I like American stuff is due to my dad taking me to the Chelsea cruise to watch the hot rods when I was a kid.’

So it is about your childhood. Very interesting. Please continue…

‘I like their road presence and with all that torque they seem to drive themselves down the road.’

So, you have the Desmosedici, the quiver of Born Free customs, the old Porsche, the El Camino and the BSA. But you seem happy and well-balanced. Surely, these are just accoutrements to fill a dark void in an empty soul; panaceas for the aching longing of an individual who can never truly be content.

Adam, you must see that…

‘Not really. Guy Bonzorro bought me a patch that he said reminded him of me, it reads: ‘Live it up, Laugh it up, Love it up’. That sums it up.

Mr Brinkworth, you are clearly in denial. I will see you here for your session at the same time next week.

the

FANTIC CABALLERO FLAT TRACK 125

B

IG BIKE SHOW, little bike go. Fantic’s new Caballero family takes platform sharing to the kind of incestuous extremes that the Japanese factories would never consider. Not only do the Flat Track and Scrambler derivatives share a whole slew of components, but all three engine sizes have common chassis and cycles parts. It’s a question of economies of scale. Fantic are not dealing with Yamaha numbers, but obviously think there’s a market for 125s, 250s and 500s (the latter is really a 450). It means the three bike brothers are hard to distinguish without a fairly intimate knowledge of the engines. Fantic have raised the 125 lump above the chassis rails, to locate the output shaft in the ideal position, but it has the added benefit of making the smaller motor fill the hole in the frame better.

All three engine sizes share the same suspension, brakes, bodywork, lights, bars, billet parts, even the same twin-exit Arrow stainless silencer. Fantic has made the unusual decision to launch their eagerly anticipated Caballero1 series with the 125. We suspect that is because it’s taken longer to refine the faster, heavier 500 and it’s been held up till they’re 100% happy with it. So, this is the smallest of the bunch and arguably the best looking 125 motorcycle ever built. 2

On the morning of the test, I’ve travelled four hours to ride a bike with an eighth of a litre cylinder capacity, but having looked at it for a while and sat on it for a couple of minutes waiting for the engine to warm, somehow I’ve forgotten. So when I ride off, it takes my feeble brain a second to compute that we’re going to be travelling a bit more sedately than we’re used to. I’ve been thrown off the scent due to the bike feeling so much like a full-grown flat tracker, because has the size and solidity of a full-grown flat tracker.

There are four miles on the clock, but I’m not here to run this thing in, so I start riding it like a road-legal 125 needs to be ridden if we’re going to get anywhere. The small capacity Cabs (half-Cabs? No?) are likely to endure a life of having their necks wrung. Luckily, the gearbox is light and accurate. I think we’ll be using it quite a lot.

The first quirk is the feel of the steering. It’s like the head bearings are badly notched. They’re not, but the

From this angle it’s hard to differentiate between the 125 and 500, a good selling point for the little bike that shouldn’t hurt the big one

(left to right from top) LCD clock has a rev counter around the outside; Chromoly frame and Italian billet parts. This is not your normal 125; Arrow silencer is shared across the range; Red Scrambler has different wheel sizes, seat, tyres; Nice stance, right? It was styled by SB31 cover star Riccardo Chiosi; Classic font; 56, 57, 58mph!; 125 is ABS equipped; Carbon; Flat Track spec Caballero is fitted with road-legal Mitas dirt track tyres

front is tyre is so wide for a road bike this size that more effort than normal is needed to initiate a turn. If this were your only bike it would quickly feel normal, and the next bike you rode would feel twitchy, but if you were swapping between bikes, it would feel odd every time you returned to it. It’s the result of wanting as authentic a flat track look as possible, and difficult to avoid, but nothing to worry about.

The Ollé upside-down forks are not adjustable and there are times on the ride when I think if I had the bike for longer I’d try adding more initial damping if they were. The front brake is powerful, at least on this 125, with a ByBre caliper, one of Brembo’s brands, and a 320mm disc. In contrast to the CCM Spitfire (the second of this issue’s new bike tests), the Caballero has gone through a rigorous homologation process, just like a Honda would have to, so even the 125 has ABS and everything else required by Euro 4 regulations.

UK importer Clements Moto says Fantic have used Italian when they can, so the controls are Domino and the machining is carried out in Italy, and there’s plenty of it for a small bike. The engine plates and triple clamps are much classier than I’d expect on a £5000 125. Nothing about the bike feels cheap. There’s also a splash of real carbon fibre in the shape of the exhaust heatshield. The small speedo is LCD with a tacho around the outside of the display (that was pointing north of 8000rpm every time I looked at it). Headlight is a funky LED and the front mudguard stays are a neat design.

Who are Fantic?

Fantic Caballero

The origin of the Caballero’s motors is brought up whenever someone sees them. The engine in this bike is from YamahaMinarelli, but the 250 and 500 have a Chinese motor built by the Piaggio/Zhongshen joint venture (Zhongshen make 1 million bikes per year, and are also reported to have links with Harley-Davidson). Not having tested the other engines, and this one only briefly, we can’t say how they’ll perform after 10,000 miles. I ride around the countryside; small lanes, blind bends, small villages, short straights and dry roads and the 125’s performance is pretty good. If you’re

The Italian manufacturer celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, but like almost every bike builder, certainly every Italian one, it has had numerous owners. The current bosses, since 2014, are VeNetWork, a consortium of Italian entrepreneurs. Fantic was formed in 1968 when its founders split from Garelli to make enduro bikes, minibikes and go-karts. The first Caballero 50 arrived in 1970, with hopes of selling 500. Production reached 10,000. The totally daft Chopper 50 and 125 followed. Trials characterised the company in the 1980s, with world titles for Thierry Michaud in ’85, ’86 and ’88. More recently, they’ve been building small-capacity enduro and supermoto machines and e-bikes. fanticmotor.it

new to riding, or restricted to nothing bigger, it certainly wouldn’t be a soul-destroying time. I’m having fun, seeing how late I can brake, how much momentum I can keep through the corners...

When I park up, someone describes the Caballero as retro. I screw my face up. OK, the curves and proportion of the tank are classical, but I don’t see this Flat Track as aping the original Caballeros in the way VW did with the Beetle or Triumph and their Bonneville. The motor is totally new, and not trying to look old or air-cooled. USD forks, monoshock... The tank badge is ripped from the old bike, so perhaps I’m blinded by its charms, or perhaps the modernity of the font on the side plate, those twin slash-cut pipes, curved almost-Monster M900 seat and scalloped swingarm put me off the scent. Sure, the red Scrambler, with its yellow oval side plate, is more retro.

The 125 has an appeal for learners and is a proper-sized motorcycle, with a much higher spec than bigger-capacity bikes at the same price point, but at £4899 on the road in the UK 3 it’s pretty costly. However, people are already buying them. Who? New riders not short of money; city riders with no desire to go beyond the outer ring road; people wanting a bike but without the time or willpower to jump through the UK’s Sisyphean test hoops... Nowadays, people pay £5000 for a bicycle they ride three or four times a month, so the price won’t put everyone off and I can’t think of another 125 that a welldressed ‘caballero’ of a certain age could ride that would have the same presence. It deserves to be a hit.

CCM SPITFIRE

IFORGIVE YOU.

The CCM Spitfire is an eyecatcher, no doubt, but coming face-to-face with it in the sunny Kent countryside, rather than the bike show setting where I previously saw it, gives a different perspective. The very first thought, and one I still can’t shake, is Woah, they really threw the kitchen sink at the design. Nothing has been spared. There is a multitude of finishes, colours, materials, design gimmicks and logos – stick on, etched and cut-out – vying for attention. It’s too much for me, but the UK-based manufacturer is onto something. The steel-framed single went from limited special with a hopeful target of 150 units to a production run of 1000 in a hurry as buyers clambered over each other to thrust deposits at CCM’s salesmen.

The initial 150 Spitfires, of which this is one of the very first to reach its owner, were followed by variations on the same basic theme, in releases of 250 at a time (deposits and, in many cases, full payments taken, but not many delivered as we went to print). First there was the Spitfire, then Spitfire Scrambler,

Yes, it’s a production bike, reaching nearly 1000 sales (across the range). We’re not sure how they make it for the price , but we’re glad they do

(left to right from top) Dash is held in a CNC-milled housing; Skunkwerx is a play on Lockheed’s secret Advanced Development Lab; Extreme detailing; BMW-derived engine has grown from 450 to 600cc; No birdshit welding here; Pillions not welcome; Seat hump features roundels inspired by WWII fighter planes; Start and stop buttons get pimped; Leather grips? Nein danke; Minimal mudguard, maximum design

Spitfire Café Racer, Spitfire Flat Track and the Spitfire Bobber.

Andrew, this Spitfire’s owner, waited a year for delivery. CCM have been dogged by fuel tank production problems. When he collected the bike from the Bolton factory in the north of England, rows of nearly completed bikes were waiting for theirs. This one has the alloy tank that caused the hold up when the third-party supplier couldn’t deliver a consistent product. Later models are likely to have a composite plastic tank.

The fob of the keyless ignition triggers its partner hidden in the seat. Just slide the coin-sized fob over the hump until the dash lights up. Getting it to activate is like finding a pulse on a half-drowned warthog… just… give me... There!

The Spitfire is much closer to being a one-off custom than a production bike. It has sidestepped Euro4 homologation rules, that it wouldn’t have passed, by going through SVA 1 tests instead. An early confirmation of this custom bike feel is the starting procedure. Instead of a regular starter switchgear right next to the throttle, it’s next to the clock. I like the engraving that says FIRE and KILL, and the red halo that surrounds the fire button when the ignition is on, but to pull the clutch (because the fail-safe system requires it), press FIRE and tickle the throttle grip with only two hands is impossible. The engine doesn’t always catch first time, like it would with a fraction of throttle and it’s frustrating when it doesn’t. I made a similar ‘mistake’ when I built my own Guzzi café racer.

This Spitfire is fitted with optional Renthal Fatbars, instead of the default straight drag bars, ‘I hated them,’ says Andrew. I wasn’t a fan either. Now, the riding position is right up my street. The seat is wide, but I reckon the edges would dig in eventually. The gear lever is set way too high, but it’s a quick fix, and I can live with it for now, because as soon as I pull away I’m smiling.

Who are CCM?

A fascinating and tenacious British company, Clews Competition Motorcycles was launched in 1971 by Alan Clews, a successful scrambles racer, when he bought the stock and spares from BSA’s defunct race department and developed his own race machines. CCM also built Rotax-powered Can-Ams under licence that were exported to the US, and Armstrong MTs for the British Army. The CCM name was sold in the late 1990s, but bought back by the Clews family in 2004. A year later they entered the fledgling UK Short Track series and won the title, selling the road-going FT35 off the back of the success. They also competed in World MX, supplied the military again, and built GP450 adventure bikes. Sadly, Alan Clews passed away as we were going to print. ccm-motorcycles.com

I forgive you. I forgive you for the design excesses because you’re so well balanced and so damn good to

CCM Spitfire

ride. The fat front Maxxis DTR-1 makes for heavy steering (though not as heavy as the Caballero Flat Track 125). The single front Brembo caliper and CCM-badged Galfer disc isn’t as strong as I expected, and there’s no ABS (another homologation fail), but it’s not terrible. The test ride was short – Andrew trusting me with his personal 70-mile-old bike, because CCM didn’t have a test bike – but in that time the fuelling felt perfect.

The 600cc engine is BMW-derived and full of braap and the bike is geared for grins not top speed. the motor is eager and quick to rev. The exhausts are neither factory quiet nor obnoxious, but the MotoGP styling? You make your mind up. You have to pay extra for the carbon covers, yet the captive nuts ready to accept them are welded in place and would be so distracting if left exposed.

Suspension is decent quality, with WP front and Tractive 2 rear, both adjustable, but felt good from the factory. The billet and carbon is hard to fault from a production perspective. The T45 steel frame is bare except for clear-coat, with more vulnerable areas covered in clear ‘helicopter’ tape to fend off stone chips. You can see the welds, and that’s going to please many owners. The pop-up fuel cap is another nice touch, but the barend mirrors look like £15 eBay tat and the leather-wrapped grips are trying too hard. The whole bike is trying too hard, but I can’t argue with the full order book and once I’m in the saddle, well, like I said, I forgive you.

Power

Price £4899

Engine 124cc, l/c, 4v, single Power 15bhp

Torque 11Nm

Top speed 70mph (est)

Rake/trail 24˚/120mm

Wheelbase 1425mm

Wet weight 132kg

Seat height 845mm

Tank size 12 litres caballerofantic.com

CCM SPITFIRE

Price £9724*

Engine 600cc, l/c, 4v, single Power 55bhp

Torque 58Nm

Top speed 100mph (est)

Rake/trail 26˚/118mm

Wheelbase 1423mm

Wet weight 138kg Seat height 830mm Tank size 14 litres ccm-motorcycles.com

All figures claimed by manufacturer. *CCM price is based on Spitfire Scrambler. The model of Spitfire shown here is sold out.

Adam Nickel

M aybe without knowing who created it, you’ve loved the illustration of Adam Nickel for years. His work has appeared in magazines and newspapers the world over, adding colour and depth to articles and an engaging allure to adverts. You know those Deus ads you stick under the nose of your other half because they look so good? Yep, that’ll be Adam Nickel.

Born in Melbourne in south-east Australia, but raised 1000 miles away in Brisbane on the east coast, where he still lives, his distinctive artwork has a strong mid-20th century feel that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a 1950s copy of Time and which belies his 38 years.

‘I am drawn to things from the mid-century era. Modernist furniture especially. I tend to associate things from that era as having more of a timeless style to them. I’m sure that’s not actually true, but it feels that way to me.

‘I also think part of it is that when I was young we spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house. There, it was like time had stood still. The ashtray would have some cartoon gag on it from the ’50s. The books on the shelf were all from that era. So things from that time remind me of being a kid and not having a care in the world.’

(below) Deus Cat: Deus gave me an open brief to create something a bit weird and striking. A cat with a motorcycle headlight for an eye seemed to fit that

(right) JDH: my own personal work. At the time I was appreciating the aesthetic of Harley JDH motors. I wanted to put a few items with it that weren’t obvious tools but items you might have while working on the motor

Even at kindergarten, Adam was mad keen on art and would bring pieces home so he could continue working on them. When he left education (some time after kindergarten, it should be said) and moved into work he was initially involved in graphic design but moved towards illustration because of the artistic freedom it offered. That said, the actual theme of his work is almost always dictated by the commission. ‘I think of it as, you create what you want you’re an artist, you create what you’re told to you’re an illustrator.

‘In the beginning, I mostly did children’s books. While those contracts are great to get, the gaps in between jobs can be less than ideal. Once I started aiming my style more towards being able to get magazine jobs things became far more steady and reliable. It is a really great feeling making a living from your own creative ability. Though being freelance can still be a little nerve wracking, going from contract to contract.’

Paying the bills means taking commissions from allcomers, but work based around motorcycles grew steadily and these days Adam’s style is in demand. It helps that he’s a petrolhead, and has a 1955 Triumph Thunderbird in a hardtail frame.

‘I also have a 1949 Chevy coupe, that I love the lines of but don’t enjoy driving – worn-out steering and just tons of little things that bug me. I really need to pour some money into it so that it’s a bit more reliable and something I enjoy. And I’m thinking of building a bike that will look more like a concept motorcycle when it’s finished. But for what I have planned there’s a lot to learn and figure out before I can get it together.’

‘Being hands-on with the hardware gives his work a vital authenticity’

Being hands-on with the hardware gives his work a vital authenticity. ‘Motorcycles are something that illustrators tend to struggle with if they’re not familiar with them. I know that I’m illustrating carbs, plugs, exhausts etc, whereas an illustrator who’s not mechanically minded will see a complicated mess and think that some made-up detail will look basically the same. But people into bikes will think it looks weird or just off.’

Despite Adam’s nostalgic style, all his work is done digitally, using an illustration tablet and Photoshop, usually working at night when ‘there’s less distraction’. Apart from the convenience of digital, it can sometimes have unexpected advantages.

‘I recently did a pocket square design and the guy that gets me to do these usually has a pretty open brief. So I thought a sharply dressed, nerdy guy on a vintage bike could

‘When I’d finished the illustration I accidentally turned off the layers in Photoshop that had the wheels on it, and it looked cooler right away’

(opposite page, top) Nosegrind Chopper: T-shirt design

(centre) Deus Scientists: Deus wanted a scientist with an SR motor. I wanted the look of a ’50s beer ad

(bottom left) Book Nerd on Bike: a pocket square design for a menswear company. I accidentally turned off the wheels layer and it looked cool

(bottom right) Flat Track Frankenstein: for Born Loser

(this page, top left) Motorcycle Restyling: for my portfolio. I’d been reading a book on early Australian dirt track

(top right) Webco Duck: for DicE magazine

(middle left) Bear Parts Company: my ex-wife and I ran a company producing replica Bates seats. I needed a design for the tags

(middle right) Coventry x Wheelies: two Japanese shops, one shirt design. One works on Triumphs the other Harleys. It’s all about the friendship

(bottom right) Wolf Wheelie: one of the earlier Born Loser designs. Probably my most tattooed illustration

be fun. When I’d finished the illustration I accidentally turned off the layers in Photoshop that had the wheels on it, and it looked cooler right away. I guess I like it when things are a bit weird or different.

So who influences these weird and different creations? ‘The work I admire and look up to is a bit different to the work I do. Al Parker is a mid-century illustrator whose work I can’t get enough of. In high school I was into Japanese comics and still regularly look at the illustrations of Katsuhiro Otomo.’ [Creator of Akira, see SB32.]

A commercial illustrator sees their work used in many ways in a wide variety of media, but what gives Adam a buzz?

‘Seeing my illustration in public such as a bus stop or billboard is weird but cool. What was once a file on my computer is now on the side of the road with commuters going by.’

(opposite page) One in a series of prints about building bikes: Dedication, Decisions, Dreams and this one, Defeat. I was working late on my bike (left) and felt defeated by problems. I laid back and stared up at the rafters. I thought, If someone was up there looking down it would make an interesting photo, so I illustrated it

(bottom right) Deus Tiger: Deus wanted an animal racing flat track. I tried quite a few versions, but for some reason a tiger seemed to work. Kind of half tiger half Mert Lawwill

IOFTEN SIT AT the bottom of my garden wondering if the hooligan flat track scene is a craze, like rollerblading or invading Poland, a thing that is on everyone’s mind for a while, then fizzles, leaving a hardcore behind while everyone else moves on, or usually back, to what they were doing before.

It has some of the hallmarks of one. It is enjoying an exaggerated enthusiasm, at least from sponsors and race promoters. It’s the transient part of the definition that makes something a craze rather than simply a thing, and it’s too early to say if street bike flat track has longevity. My gut feeling is probably not, but we’ll get to that in a while. For now, the hooligan scene is a pulsating electro-magnet of bikesport good times and all it’s currently doing is growing. At least in profile terms. In reality, you could count all the hooligan racers in the whole world and not even reach triple figures, but their visibility would make peak Osmonds take notice.

There are three special ingredients fuelling the scene. First, the riders themselves. The hooligan racers are the special forces of the hostilities between America’s two biggest motorcycle manufacturers. Before Indian entered the fray, hooligan racing was ten or so Sportster owners in Southern California. The likes of Chris Wiggins and the Speed Merchant crew, the Suicide Machine Brothers, slightly later, the Rusty Butcher crowd and

Crazed

Noise Cycles team, and Thor from See See who built his XG and won the first race to be referred to as a Superhooligan race, indoors at Las Vegas the weekend, in 2015, of the one and only American Superprestigio. Many of these riders are larger than life characters not averse to sharing photos of themselves; opinionated;

the launch of both the stock bike and the racerized version, in an empty San Pedro warehouse, the week before the Superprestigio Superhooligan race. Our man Travis competed on one of the fresh Scouts for us (see SB24). I didn’t envisage how much it would catch people’s imaginations or just how fast hooligan racing could be.

Like all the best marketing, the Superhooligan scene made the tide rise and with it all the boats in the harbour rose. Indian pumped in hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Harley, Triumph and Ducati riders were all winning individual races and gaining sponsors.

To be a successful hooligan racer it helps to possess at least four steel components before entering the track: frame; shoe; balls

brave; out-going; recognisable; on the whole, respected. They have a following and social media megaphones that amplify every race, result and announcement.

The second key ingredient is the combined marketing magicians of the relaunched Indian Motorcycles and the Roland Sands Design team. They saw an opportunity to give the entry-level Scout some extra cred and built a flotilla of hot Scout 60s. Sideburn was at

Which leads to the third crucial ingredient: the metal. See a confident hooligan rider hammering a Sportster, Scout or H-D XG on a short track and it’s easy to forget just how much these hulks weigh. Watching Roland Sands and Jordan Graham sling their Scouts like 450s on a dry slick Santa Rosa track, so short you could fit it into a basketball court, is an abiding vision of motorcycle racing, one that will stick in my mind for a long time.

The Sportster hooligan pioneers did something that Harley have failed to manage for, well... ever, when they made stock-engined, stock-framed Sportsters into sexy, streetable trackers. Here was something a marketing department could really get behind. Especially one keen to connect with a younger audience. Without RSD’s vision and commitment to make the national >

championship, this sub-sect of a long-ignored race community wouldn’t have caught fire, hence all three ingredients being crucial. The national series is the yeast that made the bread rise. Then along came the guest riders: Joe Kopp, Sammy Halbert, Carey Hart and, later, a whole host of famous MX, SX and FMX riders; the national championship with its $50,000-plus prize fund and the calls of foul by the original riderrs who hoped to ‘Keep Pros

Out of Hooligan Racing’. I’m still not sure how much of it was tongue in cheek. I suspect more for some than others. The majority of the hooligan regulars, nearly all of them from the Southern Californian motorcycle industry, were, still are, paid generous expenses to compete at races, and getting to travel all over the US to compete, if they wanted. And they got their money whether they qualified for the mains or not. It was the kind of deal most

American Flat Track privateers would bite a sponsor’s hand off for.

Like I say, the US hooligans remain a tactical force in the battle for consumers’ attention in the great 21st century H-D vs Indian battle. Everyman have-a-go heroes tap into a demographic that these essentially staid factories lust after. The motorcycle brands are both propped up by recessionproof bank balances and credit ratings of over-50-year-old males, but for not much money both

‘Hooligans are putting the ‘Sport’ in Sportster and the ‘Holy Shit!’ in Scout 60 like no one else in motorcycling’

factories get to have their entrylevel products raced by skilful, younger men and, increasingly, women who, on the whole, are interesting movers and shakers with their own identities. Helping the hooligans with expenses buys rabid loyalty in a way no career racer would consider committing to. And the hooligans get to race at the X Games. It’s dream stuff, with photo ops that help sell their own T-shirts and parts. The savvy racers forged closer links with their corporate contacts and used these newly opened lines of communication to create fresh opportunities for themselves – like the Suicide Machine Co brothers making Harley Street Rodpowered snowbikes to showcase at the Winter X Games.

If any of this makes it sound lame, wait until you see the racing before you cast judgement. Up until the chaff has been beaten out of proceedings the heats have a Wacky Racers vibe with more red flags that a May Day march down Pyongyang High Street. On the short tracks the first corner is vital, meaning it’s a pinch point for a dozen 350lb bikes and riders not lacking in either competitive urges or testosterone (that includes the women). On longer tracks the heavyweights thud out of corners at a speed that belies their humble origins. On a halfmile the spectacle is not that far off what the AFT Pros are serving up on race-bred twins, at least not to a once-a-year spectator in the stands. And they have the added hook of riding bikes the crowd know intimately. These are bikes many of the paying punters have popped a hernia lifting off its sidestand. Hooligans are putting the ‘Sport’ in Sportster and the ‘Holy Shit!’ in Scout 60 like no one else in motorcycling.

These are good club racers (plus a couple a bit better than that) putting on a show. It isn’t just American twins either, Ducati USA and Triumph USA are also in the mix, the Italian

brand winning the final brutal round of the 2017 Super Hooligan National Championship, and the Brits nearly won the whole series thanks to former Grand National Champion Joe Kopp on a British Customs-modified Bonnie.

In my opinion, hooligan racing is virtually immune from criticism because it is so close to the roots of flat track’s Class C revolution, a time in the 1930s when the sport’s guardians realised budgets had got out of hand, at an extremely trying time for America’s finances. Class C was showroom specification Sport Scouts and VLs, then WRs. Bikes bought off the dealer’s floor and raced, with even fewer modifications than many of today’s hooligans.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings us to this bike. This is Maidstone H-D’s Street Rod 750. It made sense that the UK, having the most established flat track scene outside North America, would have enough dedicated racers wanting to compete in their own hooligan series and the class launched in 2016.

The bike is raced by Grant Martin, a 30-year-old tattoo artist. Softly spoken, with the gait of a creature born to exist on two wheels and who is still getting to grips with walking upright. He likes a Greek fisherman’s hat, has a tattoo over his left eyebrow and an obsessive nature when it comes to competition.

T&S Engineering, run by Grant’s dad and brother, carried out the majority of the modifications to the 2017 bike. The most radical solution to an inherent street bike problem is the side-mounted fuel tank. Grant wanted to get closer to the bars, he isn’t the biggest unit, and a Sportster tank was a simple solution, but T&S found they didn’t have enough room to fit the stock fuel pump into the old tank, so they made a side-mounted fuel tank and left the Sporty tank as a dummy. It has the stock clock mounted in it, because the Street

Rod didn’t want to run without it (modern CANbus electrical systems work differently, even changing indicators/blinkers can cause problems on some models).

T&S made the sheet metal Stealth Bomber seat unit and laced 19in rims to Harley hubs. They fabricated the two-into-one exhaust too. Maidstone H-D sorted the longer, adjustable Öhlins rear shocks in time for Grant’s first UK hooligan race. He won it, but said the front USD forks were too soft for racing. Öhlins had just started making internal kits that bolted straight into the stock H-D forks and Harry from Maidstone H-D got on the case to ensure the bike was

racing is all about. The Scouts are modified to about the same level (without the new tank…).

Indian lined up five bare-knuckle racers to compete on the Krazy Horse-built race bikes and Grant didn’t feel confident early in the meeting. When UK Pro class racer Gary Birtwistle crashed in a heat, putting his borrowed Scout out of action, no one was betting against the Harley rider. Grant got the holeshot and never looked back. Two hooligan races, two wins.

So why do I suspect it’s a craze, that there won’t be anything like the same enthusiasm in five, ten years time? Well, though it’s considerably cheaper to find a donor bike in the US than it is in the UK, there’s still a decent financial commitment to compete. Do people want to race flat track or specifically hooligans? If it’s the former, there are cheaper, easier entry points. The conditions that caused Class C racing to flourish are not the same as now.

ready for round one of the Indian Motorcycle-sponsored 2018 DTRA Hooligan series.

S&S Cycles supplied one of their iconic mini Teardrop filters but there wasn’t time to dyno the bike before the first race and Grant felt it had gone from not sucking enough air to being able to gulp so much it was fluffing the bottomend power delivery, because the mapping hadn’t been adjusted. It’ll be sorted out properly for later in the season.

Other than handlebars and footrests and a bit of sub-frame cutting and shutting, there isn’t much more. That’s what hooligan

Those early hoolie pioneers, the Southern Californians that continue to make the series so vibrant and exciting, and the second generation that have followed them (another intake of influencers and Point Break extras, male and female) are the kind of people who want to be at the forefront of things. They will eventually move on to something new and one of the ingredients will be lost. Without those influencers the manufacturers will look for new opportunities. That leaves just one ingredient –the bikes, and we’ll still love those. Perhaps the legacy will be proper heavyweight, factory street trackers from H-D and Indian, not the compromised efforts of past years. Don’t hold your breath.

But that’s for the future. We’re not reading hooligan racing’s last rites just yet. Sideburn is still developing its own Sportster hooligan racer and very excited to be out there. If I can keep within half-a-lap of Grant I’ll be happy.

>Enjoy the company of good people

self sufficient

time and space to reflect

‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.’ Mike Tyson

HESE ARE THE VIRTUES that led here. Along with a dash of apocalyptic readiness.

Everywhere home. Everywhere free.

Living in an Airstream, docked in California or travelling the land. Racing, collecting, buying and selling vintage motorcycles. Virtues covered.

As for the apocalypse… the path to virtue has had more curves than the racetrack which nearly killed me.

For three days every October, Barber Motorsports, ten miles east of Birmingham, Alabama, becomes motorcycle Disney World. Today, Barber isn’t just the grande finale to the vintage racing season; The Barber Vintage Festival is North America’s moto-Mecca. Nearly 100,000 vintage motorcycle-obsessed pilgrims from around the world converge on rural Alabama to watch vintage racing, pick through the massive swap, attend the Bonhams auction and drool over the finest motorcycle collection on the planet inside the Barber Museum. Add to that list, my birthday. Every October, during or on the cusp of Barber. In 2015, it was my Big Five-O. I snagged the Barber Museum for one hell of a party.

The following year, the most memorable birthday surprise was waking up in an Alabama hospital.

Apparently there was a crash. I say apparently, because I didn’t actually see it. Still don’t have the faintest recollection. I last recall going to the grid and starting my final Sportsman 500 race of the 2016 season. I was riding the ex-Tim Joyce multichampionship-winning 500cc Triumph T100R (motor) with a T140 five-speed transmission rotated 90 degrees in order to fit the TR5T scrambler frame.

As the anaesthesia from surgery to reconstruct my crumbled right foot began to wear off I was informed that, approximately six hours earlier, I’d (been) crashed (into). This was explained by odd-looking men wearing race leathers inside what bizarrely appeared to be a hospital. Definitely not the in-and-out first-aid station at Barber… but a proper hospital.

No-bull fun fact: I’d gone there for the very same foot the previous year, after the first guest who arrived for the birthday weekend parked his Mustang on it.

Apparently – again no recollection – I was transported by ambulance ten miles from Barber to the University of Alabama’s excellent medical centre in Birmingham. Following the crash, the red flag suspending on track action lasted an hour, not the usual five to ten minutes it normally takes to scoop up bikes and humans so racing can continue. The longest I’ve witnessed (lol) in my five years of road racing.

Generous doses of morphine made what I was being told seem like a hazy joke. ‘Look at the fucking tubes running into your arm!’ exclaims always-impatient Aleksey Kravchuk. (Full disclosure: Aleks and I were a sidecar team the previous day. For one lap. Friendship now stops at his rig because all we did was argue. And run off the track.)

So I had fair reason to be suspicious of the whole ‘You crashed’ garbage. The tubes coming out of my arm were pretty convincing, however.

Four months peeing into a jug unable to leave bed gifts limitless time for reflection.

I was no exception. Once physical carnage was sufficiently tended to, I addressed the most vexing existential question: ‘Is amateur (meaning no money) racing of old motorcycles really worth this?’

Journeys of thousands of miles for a 50/50 chance the motorcycle even runs (and shifts and stops). A 10/90 chance of earning a podium, a clap and a trinket or shiny object. And that’s before the meat wagon came. In addition to the foot, I also broke my collarbone, ribs and, thankfully, facial bones.

Although I’m typically closer to first than last, nobody is going to confuse me with Mike Hailwood.

Is it worth it???

Spoiler alert: Of course it is!

With that, I could now prepare for even greater threats. According to both candidates running for

president at the time, the future of humanity would be decided in one month. Blanketed by cable news during the final weeks of the campaign was a unique time to be bedridden and questioning the meaning of life. The one and only thing the mortal enemies, and potential POTUS, agreed on was certain Armageddon if the other were elected.

I agreed. I felt vulnerable.

I’d had finding an Airstream ‘land yacht’ on my mind for two years. That’s how long it had been since the deal to buy the first one I’d ever seen fell apart. From then on I never stopped searching. Some were out there but the Airstream Classic motorhome, (mine’s the 300 which is the shortest, at 30 foot. The largest is the 345) built by Airstream from 1983 to 1992, either were crazy money or baskets that would be worth far less than the cost of restoration.

Meanwhile, I was also obsessed with XR750s. Again, full disclosure: East coast juvenile delinquents are far less exposed to flat track racing than normal California kids.

My obsession with the XR was born out of obsession with Evel Knievel. Following my parents’ divorce when I was nine, I was sent to live in Liverpool, England, with my dad. On May 26th of the following year, 1975, Evel jumped 13 double decker buses in front of 80,000 people at Wembley Stadium in London. The country was transfixed, especially American me.

(above) My Sonicare toothbrush, my iPhone and my kitchen, everything else in my life is from or inspired by the 1970s. (bottom, right) Scottie, the photographer, and I got going on the shoot so quickly by the time I realised I was riding in my ‘shop shoes’ we were nearly finished. Not the best example for the kids after the dangling foot thing. (bottom, far right) I rescued Senna in Kansas City on my way from California to race in New Jersey. He loves racing and girls. We’re made for each other.

As soon as Evel’s stunt cycle toy hit the shelves I had one.

I’ve owned two real ones, a 1970 iron XR and an alloy one from 1975. If people would stop paying obscene amounts of money for them I might find one I’ll keep someday.

Nobody disputes how cool it would be to ride a street legal XR750. The problem is, with only 477 factory XRs produced from 1970 to 1980, to violate one in order to modify it for the street is sinful and the perpetrator would burn in hell. The alternative is no better. So-called Harley street trackers, by and large, have as much in common with an XR750 as chalk has with cheese. Until I found this one.

The very first thing that stood out was the least obvious. No front brake lever. Just like the real McCoy. But there’s a disc on the front wheel… what the front brake is that?! Front and back brakes both operate via the back brake pedal. A two-into-one adjustable proportional valve sets the front:back ratio.

That respect for the genuine article is reflected, within reasonable limitation, on every inch of the bike. It was unlike any so-called Harley street tracker I’d ever seen.

Its builder is an ex-army special forces engineer. Upon his return from combat in Afghanistan, Randy spent the next two years in his garage in Scottsdale, Arizona, obsessing over the tiniest details of the bike he wanted to create. Once his design was out of CAD he went to a junkyard to see what forks he could find (Ninja). He did that while also searching for a donor bike, ultimately a 1993 Sportster. Though he’d never built – and barely ridden – a motorcycle, he refused to base his creation on anyone else’s custom. He would continue until his goal was reached: to build a one-ofone, truly legit street-legal replica of a Harley XR750.

Once finished, he rode it a few times and sold it to me. Apart from the braking and forks, the bike uses an aftermarket XR750 gel-coat tank with XR1200 decals and hand-made components including the exhaust, air filter mount, battery compartment/oil tank, front and side number plates and skirting around the seat/ tail. Randy designed a skinny LED tail light mounted on the underside of the tail that runs along the top side of the licence plate. The headlight is hidden and integrated within the number plate. My contribution to the build was minuscule but major. NOS HarleyDavidson factory XR750 grips.

If some shit goes down, what do I really need? This was the primary concern to me as I laid in bed watching Morning Joe on the day after the election.

What I really needed, I thought, was to be out. Instantly. If shit really goes down, up sticks quickly. Load the Harley and get off the grid.

Within three months I limped to, found and drove my aluminium tube to California… and beyond. And one year and two months later, there’s been no apocalypse. But I’m still ready.

‘IF SOME SHIT GOES DOWN, WHAT DO I REALLY NEED?’

Americana up the ying-yang. If it’s a competition, Larry wins. If it isn’t, he still wins

Clem Beckett

Sean Baggaley of Gallery Oldham on the life and death of a freedom-fighting speedway star

F THERE’S ONE figure whose story makes you think, This is material for a Hollywood film rather than a local museum, it’s Clem Beckett. Looking back, you see him as being on the right side of so many arguments at the same time. Born in 1906 in Scouthead, about ten miles north east of Manchester on the edge of the English Pennines, Clem was 12 when the family moved three miles down the road to Glodwick, in Oldham, to a terraced house that is still there today. At 12 he started work as a half-timer, spending half a day at school and half at work. This was common across the cotton mills and engineering works; you’d get half the class working in the morning and half working in the afternoon. Clem was one of five kids and was bringing in money from an early age.

He started at Platt Brothers, a big engineering works that made textile machinery, before becoming an apprentice blacksmith. Later, when he was a speedway rider, they made a big deal of him having been a blacksmith because it sounded more dramatic.

According to research and interviews undertaken by Edmund and Ruth Frow of the Working Class Movement Library, Clem was always very interested in bicycles, motorbikes and tinkering with machines – even as a child. In the mid-1920s, speedway became a very popular sport and he was drawn into this world, and aged 22 he became a speedway rider.

The museum has his leather racing helmet. It’s very worn and has a great patina, although in its day it would have been painted very brightly. But the main thing I would say is that it’s so light; I wouldn’t think it would give much protection – and Clem had a lot of crashes. He quickly got a reputation among the huge crowds for being fearless and going into corners recklessly, becoming renowned as the brave young blacksmith from Oldham.

But the key thing that starts to mark him out is the union he formed for speedway riders – The Dirt Track Riders Association [the name was resurrected when the current association was founded in 2013]. It was partly about pay, but also conditions, how dangerous

the sport was, the pressure riders were under to ride and the condition of the bikes.

The person credited with having given him a political education was the blacksmith he’d been apprenticed to, who’d talked to him about trade unionism. It’s the 1920s, post-First World War and Russia has become communist. There’s an idea that communism is a coming thing so Beckett goes to listen to a speaker from the Communist Party of Great Britain at the Temperance Hall in Oldham. He must have been impressed as he joins the Young Communist League when he’s about 20. From then on he’s always a member of the Communist Party.

By that time he’s already been working for eight years. He’s been in Platt Brothers, a huge factory, and at a much smaller practice, so he’s starting to get an idea of how workers are used.

Later, in 1931, he writes a couple of articles about how the track owners are exploiting the workers and The Daily Worker publishes one with the headline, ‘Bleeding the men that risk their lives on the dirt track’. It’s cracking stuff, but this political agitation for workers’ rights gets him banned from speedway for a season.

During his ban he starts riding the Wall of Death, the new craze that had come over from South Africa. He goes on tour around the UK and Europe for a year as The Outlawed Rider (he was good at marketing himself) before returning to speedway.

From the 1920s right through to the Second World War speedway and dirt track riding was a big draw and Clem was box office. He was Daredevil Beckett, or The Flying Blacksmith. In Belle Vue, Manchester, White City in London – wherever speedway was happening – his name would be high up in the programme. He would pose for publicity photos, often with a cigarette in his mouth, and these went into the speedway programmes and were made into autographed postcards people could buy.

But politics were never far away. Oldham has always been a strong trade union town where politics are part of everyday conversation. In the 1930s, the Communist Party was actively campaigning in support of the Spanish Republic against the

Nationalist forces of General Franco. The war in Spain was talked about at meetings and at first they were just trying to organise support in terms of funding, but very quickly they moved to having volunteers willing to fight.

During the course of the war at least ten men from Oldham went to fight in Spain and Clem was one of the first to go. He sent letters back that were used to raise awareness of the war and also encouraged other people to go, so his experiences became part of the recruitment process to get more men out there.

In Spain, his mechanical skills meant he was tasked with keeping machine guns functioning and training other people how to use them. He’d been in the Territorial Army while he was in Oldham, so he fitted into the International Brigades very well and was a popular and practical recruit.

Consider the Spanish Civil War today and you might think of famous volunteers such as George Orwell and Laurie Lee, but Clem, this working class mechanic and speedway star from Oldham, and many like him, fought alongside this literary, intellectual class.

In February 1937, quite early in the civil war, the Battle of Jarama took place just east of Madrid and for many British volunteers to the International Brigades it was the first action they had experienced. Very quickly, Clem and his comrades found themselves in an exposed position without air support and little knowledge of the terrain. It was such an exposed position it became known as suicide hill. As the retreat was being organised to get people off the hill, Clem stayed at his gun with the poet and journalist Christopher Caudwell –the two had become great friends. They died together at their post on 12 February as they covered their retreating comrades.

Clem’s body never came back to England. He had a Danish wife, Leda, who he had met on this travels and who lived in Oldham, but they had no children. There was a memorial service at which she spoke and said, ‘I know he gave his life freely and that he would have chosen to die this way, defending his ideals.’

Find out more about Gallery Oldham’s social history collections at www.galleryoldham.org. uk/collections/socialhistory-collection/

The main body of this article first appeared on http://museumcrush.org

(clockwise from above) Contemporary tribute to the six Oldham men killed in Spain, donated to Gallery Oldham in 1996; memorial by Jim Robison created in 1986 and now in Oldham parish church; Clem Beckett, the Flying Blacksmith, with his Douglas DT race bike

‘As the retreat was being organised to get people off the hill, Clem stayed at his gun’

The three-point star of the International Brigades could date back to the 1871 Paris Commune

Artwork: Roger Davies

he Spanish civil war that Clem Beckett left England to join began in July 1936, when a right-wing Nationalist military coup rose against the left-wing Second Republic that had been democratically elected in 1931 following the abdication of King Alfonso XIII.

The coup was only partially successful, with just one major city, Seville, falling to the rebels, but that made available a vital southern sea port through which Nationalist kingpin, General Francisco Franco, could bring in troops from a permanent garrison in the Spanish protectorate of Morocco. The scene was set for a bitter struggle that would last for three years.

The Nationalists were supported by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, who offered funds, arms and direct participation, such as bombing raids. Perhaps the most notorious of these was the destruction of the undefended Basque town of Guernica in April 1937 by German and Italian planes, which attracted widespread international condemnation, not least thanks to the eye-witness reporting in The Times and The New York Times of journalist George Steer. Picasso recalled the event in one of his most famous and harrowing works, named after the town, noted for its depiction of terror and suffering. (It’s said that when a Gestapo officer barged into Picasso’s Paris flat during the WWII Nazi occupation and pointed to a photograph of the painting, asking, ‘Did you do this?’ Picasso’s terse reply was, ‘No, you did.’)

The International Brigades, which Beckett joined, was a paramilitary

offshoot of the Communist International, set up in 1919 to promote communism. The Sovietsupported Brigades attracted people from all walks of life committed to fighting right-wing oppression, a particularly hot topic with Mussolini’s fascist regime having already been in power since 1922 and Hitler’s Germany looking ever more menacing following his rise to power in 1933. Among the 35,000 people who served in the Brigades were celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway, future West German chancellor and Nobel Prize winner Willy Brandt, war photographer Robert Capa, novelist Laurie Lee (which Brit of a certain age didn’t read Cider With Rosie at school?), George Orwell (though he served with the separate Marxist POUM) and James Robertson Justice, best known to Brits as Sir Lancelot Spratt in the ‘Doctor’ films that ran from the 1950s to the ’70s. Around 2500 Brits fought in Spain, and about the same number of Americans. The French were the most numerous, at about 9000, and almost 3500 Italians also fought.

The Nationalists finally defeated the Republican forces in early 1939 and what followed were 36 years of rightwing dictatorship under Franco until his death in 1975.

During that time, many aspects of Spain’s diverse culture were suppressed, not least in the Basque and Catalan regions, a suppression that led to many years of violent opposition from the Basque separatist ETA movement. Such subjugation, which included Franco’s quashing of Catalonian autonomy that had been granted by the Second Republic, seeded cross-generational resentment that resurfaced in 2017’s failed bid for Catalan independence.

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‘N

O ONE NOTICES him, because he does not notice himself’ – Alan Watts, referring to a story regarding the Chinese sage, Fa-yun.

‘We confuse signs, words, symbols... with the real world... an occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless photographed. This is a disaster!’ – Alan Watts regarding the age of symbols and images.

In a day and age in which style and image seemingly outweigh authentic experience (do not concentrate on the finger pointing at the moon, or you will miss all of the heavenly glory – old Zen-ism, via Enter the Dragon) and where a yuppie’s salary can transform just about

anyone into a ‘biker’, or at least suggest as much via a finely curated Instagram account, Andy Benchdonkee, the bikes he builds and the life he lives are something of an antidote. He also has the perpetually grubbiest hands I’ve ever seen.

Not that Andy is setting out his stall to be an antidote. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know what Instagram is and I doubt he’d care. This article is a celebration of something pure, simple and life-affirmingly vital, which is well worth celebrating. And being a man who seldom speaks, let alone wastes words, Andy isn’t going to be the one to do it, so I’m going to have to.

'The Armstrong has had more lives

The Benchdonkee moniker is a sideways nod to Sideburn pals The Wrenchmonkees and a glimpse into Andy’s approach to his life and making his bikes. He lives and breathes motorcycles. He’s never owned anything with as many as four wheels and seemingly has no desire to, keeping busy, when not working part-time as an engineer, building and maintaining his mixed bag of daily rides. The Benchdonkee garage is home to a Honda C70; ’50s BSA bobber; stock, rigid ’47 AJS and the Rotax featured here, plus others; he is no snob. Time is spent running, breaking, ever-changing, ever-improving. The only time I’ve ever known him to clean a bike was the Armstrong, minutes before we went out to shoot these photographs. We and both bikes were completely encrusted in mud within seconds of hitting the road. There’s some sort of poetic justice to be learnt/ignored in there somewhere.

Since unintentionally meeting Andy at a DTRA race meet at Leicester Speedway yonks ago, where we were both rubbernecking the thrills, spills and smoking-hot ’sickles, I’ve been an almost weekly interloper at his place, hanging out, getting through his teabags, shooting the shit, and more often than not seeking his council to help keep my perma-knackered bike and occasionally

broken brain ticking over. For just as old, clunking bikes are far from infallible, so the mind and heart sometimes suffer, and as someone who has known that old black dog by name, and is open enough to admit as much, Andy is a lot more than merely a good mate with a tidy set of spanners.

During this time, I’ve been privy to him building and keeping an eccentric array of his own bikes on the road, not to mention those of many friends and mates-inwaiting, too. He’s helped me build at least two and a half bikes from scratch, one bike twice, pre- and post-Yaris smash (see SB#27) and we’re presently half way through building a pre-unit TriBSA chopper.

‘I find people in general, but particularly people who ride motorbikes, as interesting, if not more so, than the bikes themselves,’ says Andy. ‘And I’m always happy to help out a fellow creature. When I was starting out messing with bikes and learning how to make things in metal, it would have been great to have met someone to help me along the way... I hope I go some way towards being that bloke.’

There is a level of unspoken and unquestioned generosity in the waters down at Donkeetown which borders on vital necessity; understanding that if bikes

than your average alley cat'

and life are pretty much one and the same thing, then life’s better when the bikes are in one piece and running, and I, along with many others, are heavily indebted to Andy and owe him many, many pints, not to mention cold, hard cash, which again, is never spoken of. Humbleness and kindness are not to be over-estimated and I know nowhere where they’re so keenly evident as Donkeetown.

The Armstrong1 featured here has had more lives than your average alley cat and more reincarnations than your average Alan Watts 2 lecture, entering this world as a drab green British Army slogger, which is how Andy and his restless, grubby mitts found it.

‘I bought the bike getting on for 20 years ago now, with the intention of using it as an overland bike. I looked at all the alternatives and the Armstrong appealed for several reasons; they’re built to withstand whatever abuse squaddies can lob at ’em, using quality components. The frames are very strong, no need to beef up the rear subframe for the extra luggage as you would on a big Japanese trail bike. They’re in quite a low state of tune, so they’re happy to run on crap petrol, useful when out in the wilds of Bumfucknowhere. Oh, and they’re a bit quirky, which is always a good thing, I reckon.’

Its initial reincarnation was as an overland exploration freedom-machine, which took Donkee to the dunes of Northern Africa and almost finished him off there too, when a desert smash-up left him effectively armless for a spell and the bike not much better off.

‘I’d intended to follow the rally down to Dakar, then pop over to Timbuktu to have a sniff around. As you do. Setting off in late December 2000, I rode down through Spain and on January 6th I was meant to catch up with the rally bivouac in Goulmima. What happened next is entirely my own fault, and the three-month adventure I thought I was embarking on suddenly changed into a very different trip. I was paying more attention to the map taped to the tank than the road when I suddenly shot off into the gully doing 60mph. I hit a boulder and ended up being flipped arse over tit. I don’t think I was knocked out, although I can’t remember either way. My helmet took a big hit, which probably saved my life. A pannier exploded, scattering my luggage all over the place and it’d totally knocked the wind outta me. It also appeared there was something wrong with my arm, though shock is a hell of an anaesthetic. I got up, somewhat dazed and confused, and started trying to gather my stuff together when an

1. Armstrong were UK-based manufacturers owned by CCM. The Rotax-powered MT350 and 500 military models were built for the UK and Canadian military from 1984 to 2000. In 1987, Harley-Davidson bought the rights to build the machines in Pennsylvania when NATO made the MT their bike of choice. 2. British philosopher (1915 – 1973) with a penchant for Eastern religions and beliefs.

empty fish lorry pulled up and the driver and his mate offered to give me a lift, for a price. I decided the Dakar hospital might be a safer bet than the one in the little backwater town I’d just passed through. The doctors put ten stitches in my right arm, then plastered up my left arm after the X-ray confirmed I’d smashed my wrist up. On the plus side, I got John Deacon 3 to sign my cast! What a smashing chap and such a loss to everyone who knew him. I ended up cutting the cast off with a hacksaw blade when it started getting irritating... I’ve still got it, complete with John’s autograph.’

Broken limbs heal in time (even if the patient has to be jimmied into and out of his tent morning and night by willing friends); roadside Moroccan truck mechanics can straighten out and weld up just about anything, and following some R&R, pidgin-French haggling and installing himself as a semi-permanent fixture at said mechanic’s workshop, Andy was back in the saddle, complete with arm in cast and a modified ad hoc dual clutch/front brake lever.

‘I spent the next three months meandering around Morocco, soaking up the sights and meeting some cracking folk. I would’ve been home sooner, only I got stuck awaiting a replacement cambelt for 21 days in a small town where they only spoke Arabic with a smattering of French, but that’s a whole other story...’

Then the joyous debacle that was the inaugural Dirt Quake rumbled into town (into Coventry, not a million miles away from Donkeetown) and in the subsequent winter of 2012/13, between Dirt Quakes 1 and 2, the Armstrong lost its smashed-up fairing, replacement Moroccan-made steel panniers, massive touring tank and most else, and was reincarnated as the minimalist, brutal, bright orange street tracker that it is today.

‘I’d always loved the look of ’60s and ’70s flat trackers, long before I discovered Sideburn or the DTRA. Following my Moroccan misadventures, I’d bought a BMW R100GS, so wasn’t using the Armstrong for touring, just for riding to work and around the place. Then I saw the Rotaxequipped bikes up close in action at Rollerburn and the first Dirt Quake, and that was it, I had to build one!’

The ’87 Armstrong frame was de-lugged and its rear mounts relocated to accommodate shorter Honda CBF125 shocks, which makes for a more compact and niftier, twitchier package. The ’87 500cc Rotax engine is, by and large, stock ex-Ministry of Defence, with the sporty additions of a 34mm Dell’Orto carb, head by Mick Keogh at Sportax and downpipes by Steve at SMG. The front end comprises Yamaha FZR600 forks attached using two Yam bottom yokes, one of which replaces the scant original top yoke. A Brembo motocross front hub, disc brake and Grimeca caliper help it roll along and stop and Norton desert bars, from Redmax, keep it out of hedges (usually). Petrol tank is off a Yamaha DT, the seat unit is a Harley XR replica, Andy’s mate Neil laid down the XResque orange paint and other than that, there’s nowt to it that it doesn’t need to fly through its yearly MoT.

I wondered if Andy’d ever been tempted to race the Armstrong, in its newer, fit-for-purpose guise?

‘I’ve never raced it on a track, and I don’t think I ever will. I’ve been on two track days at Sheffield Tigers’ practice track; I was proper crap both times! It’s a hairy, scary business – and that was only on CG125s!’

Which is funny, because that’s how I feel following Andy on the road. He takes no prisoners and is a bugger to keep pace with. Having ridden more than a few miles alongside/behind the Armstrong (and once sat directly on top of, when I almost immediately stuffed it through a hedge) it goes, and stops, and sounds great, and is everything a stripped-back, bare-bones motorcycle should be. Chiefly, regularly ridden and relished (all Andy’s bikes are daily commuters, grocery getters, longdistance haulers, recovery vehicles and whatever else they need to be) and then put back together again having sailed that bit too close to the wind.

‘Why have I kept it so long? It’s a cracking bike, it’s taken everything I’ve thrown at it and then some, and survived. But mainly because it starts first kick and it’s a hell of a lot of fun to ride.’

SHOP HERMANUS

We spoke two years ago when you’d just opened the shop. What has changed since then?

The biggest change is the coffee bar. After seven months my shop became too small, especially at weekends. Sometimes we had 30-40 people in for coffee. Very cool, but people didn’t come in to buy clothing as they thought it was a pub. We decided to rent the building next door. Evy, my girlfriend, quit her day job and now runs the coffee bar. The landlord gave us permission to make a hole in the wall between the two shops.

The interior of the original shop is continuously changing. When you open a shop, you try your best to decorate it as cool as you can, but with a small independent motorcycle shop like ours you can’t build from day one. I’m constantly trying to make it cooler and cosier. Sometimes people don’t believe that we’ve only been open for two years.

What about the things you stock?

Our range of gear has tripled. Some brands disappeared, other cool brands took their place. We’re always looking for what is hot at the moment, without forgetting what we stand for and what kind of stuff we want to sell. We especially love the smaller, independent brands, they know how hard it is to run a business these days.

What do you know now that you wished you’d known when you opened?

If I could have known that it would work I would have opened a shop ten years ago. I always doubted to do it, and it was always a bad time: bought a house, paying bills… You know how it goes. Evy was the first to see I was unhappy in my daily job and the first to say, ‘Just do it. I’ve got your back.’

What do you do differently now?

I think I’m the same. I always said that I wanted a shop where people didn’t feel obliged to buy stuff, just a place where they feel welcome, where they know they can stop for a chat and a friendly word. Last year we made a video of the shop, and the director said, ‘You guys are really defending the good times.’ That’s exactly how we feel.

The only thing I do different now is that I’m stocking more stuff. That’s an important thing we learned. You can’t expect people to buy gear if you don’t stock plenty of it.

Is the challenge what you expected?

Running a business isn’t always pleasure and laughter. It’s working 24/7, but when you’re realising something that you’ve dreamed of you forget all the hard work and only remember the fun parts.

‘Our range has tripled... we’re always looking for what is hot’

Bruges isn’t a big place, not that many people need a new helmet every week, how do you keep going?

Bruges isn’t big, but Belgium isn’t either. It’s only a 1.5-hour drive to the other side of the country. As we are, I think, the only shop in Belgium with this concept and this kind of gear, we attract people from all over the country.

People can’t buy a new helmet every week, as you say, and with very low margins on motorcycle apparel, and the deadly competition of online shopping, it would be impossible to survive on selling helmets. We notice people combine their visit to us with a visit to the historical centre of Bruges, only a mile away, or the seashore, just ten miles away.

We also have a lot of Dutch guys coming over (the border is 20 miles away) and a lot of guys from the Lille region in France (a 45-minute ride). It seems Bruges is also popular in the UK, so it’s nice to have our Bolt and Bike Shed friends visit.

In a tough trading environment the only bike store of its type in Belgium is thriving. Owner Andy Geeroms tells us how

Do you see the bike scene changing and, if so, are you changing?

When we opened, café racers were very popular, they still are, but we’ve noticed bobbers, choppers and especially scramblers getting more popular. We stock the stuff we and our customers like and ask for.

W hat are your plans for the future?

We have big plans and I have a feeling that it won’t be long before we have more news about that. We really want an open space, where Evy and I can work together and see each other all day. Also, space where people can sit outside would be nice. And if we ever move, we’ll definitely offer real food.

If you had to give one tip to an owner of another shop, what would it be?

Follow the scene, look at what’s going on around you, but never forget your own ideas and values. Do what

want to do,

don’t

What is the best thing about running Hermanus?

about running Hermanus is the feeling of freedom. To get out of bed each day with a smile, because you know you’re working on your dream together with

girlfriend, and because every day is different and each day

RaceWear

Trusted: Daniel Salvadores of La Urbana

took this kit on the latest edition of Sideburn’s Himalayan adventure. Here’s how it fared at up to 14,500 feet

1 Biltwell Gringo

Already a classic. I have sold several dozen of this helmet, but never decided to keep one for myself... until they released this Baja Blue version. I just love it and use it for my everyday commute. It was perfect in the most recent Sideburn trip to the Himalayas too: comfy, simple, light and tough.

2 100% Barstow goggles OSFA by Dimitri Coste

I chose these because they are the best I’ve ever tried. It was hard to decide the design among the collabs in The Barstow collection, but checkers always work.

3 Fox polarised shades

I used them on the Himalayas trip when the road wasn’t dusty – that was a total of about five miles.

4 Khata

At the first hotel in the Himalayas (called La Risa, which means laughter in Spanish, that’s a good start!) they gave us this white silk scarf as a gift. It’s known as a khata and is a symbol of purity of heart in Buddhism. I needed it!

5 La Urbana agenda

Basic for remembering who you are when among impressive mountains. Design copyright by my partner, Bea.

6 Mobile phone

Camera function only, as there was no phone coverage most of the trip. Happy days.

7 Sideburn

Couldn’t think of a better read. And they have really nice contributors too!

8 Resurgence Rocker jacket

I wanted a light, short jacket for India rather than the three-quarter trail style, so I took the one I use on my weekend rides back home. It has full protection kit and is made of abrasionresistant aramid. A good compromise for the hot valleys and those high, freezing peaks.

9 Roland Sands Design Peristyle gloves

I love the Evel Knievel touch of these. They’re the best mix of Cordura and leather I know.

10 uglyBROS Motorpool riding pants

They also have protection and I use them back home for (very) amateur dirt track racing, travelling or sitting eight hours at the office. They’re tough and you don’t notice the dirt on them.

11 Stylmartin Indian boots

Ideal for the Himalayas, and not only because of their name. Classic-looking, hard as a yak and waterproof, which is very useful when crossing meltwater streams. I took these and a pair of Vans to India. That’s how you get the Smallest Suitcase award.

12 Himalayan hat

This was a present from Vir at one of the villages where we stopped for tea. It fitted better on [fellow Sideburn adventurer] Wilky than on my melon.

Name Daniel Salvadores

Age 45

Job Shipyard engineer, co-founder of La Urbana shop

Bikes

1980 Derbi 50cc ‘La Mosca Chosca’

1981 Suzuki GN400 tracker

2004 Ducati Monster 1000

2005 Yamaha TW125

13 Topo Designs rucksack

I bought this one at Jane Motorcycles in Brooklyn three years ago and have used it almost every single day since then. All it’s lost is a bit of colour.

14 La Urbana sweatshirt

Very useful in the cold starry nights at over 10,000 feet. A bit of marketing is always good. We only have the online shop now, but soon we’ll be into new adventures.

Sideburn

There have been times over the years when we have been caught up in the idea that bigger is better, but some of the most memorable times Sideburn has ever been involved with were entered into with knee-high expectations. This attitude is not pessimism or a lack of confidence, it’s a healthy dose of realism. We’re happy to occupy the niche we’ve jammed ourselves into, knowing that those who share the crevice with us just ‘get it’.

So, it was with hope but not huge expectations, that we loaded up the Sideburn Transporter and headed north to Leeds for the rescheduled Sideburn 32 launch and Tom Bing photo and video expo at a recently opened café. Here’s how it all went down. (GI)

DONUTS

The donuts are Frankenstein sugar bombs, set to stun. Some come with their own syringes full of extra gloop, others are augmented with cookie or jellysweet shrapnel and they’re the size of a leopard’s paw. The two owners are vegan and 90% of the donuts are too. Some are gluten-free as well, but boy, I love gluten so I can’t tell you how good they are.

If a coffee place doesn’t have a hook it won’t survive and Temple continually innovate with new Instagrammable beverages, from pink hot chocolate to golden chai and grass-green macha and inky black lattes. If you’re proper Yorkshire you can get a regular filter coffee with milk. (GI)

TINY NOT MICRO

Flash House is a little brewery on an industrial estate in North Shields. It’s far from glamorous, but they brew great beer. Every week they pull up the roller shutters and let people in to eat peanuts and enjoy their beer. A great thing about this is the fact that it’s in the unit next to BDS Motorcycles, who often have some wild race bikes lined up to peruse on the way in. I’m loathed to call it a microbrewery, because it lacks a lot of the pretence that term connotes. It’s a small brewery with excellent beer that is creeping into pubs and off-licences in the North Tyneside area. For me, their staple beer is Tiny Dancer, it was worth bringing a few cans from home to Temple to share with the great people of Leeds.

TEMPLE

Temple Coffee and Donuts were our hosts. Opened in October 2017, it’s already established itself as a Leeds treat destination. Run by Nadine Oxley and Simon Erl, the couple had planned to open a coffee shop at some point but things ‘escalated rather quickly’, says Simon, ‘and within a year it had turned real’. Nadine manages Temple as well as her clothing and merch brand, Red Temple Prayer, that’s also sold in the coffee shop. Simon is a world famous tattooist. We like busy people. (GI)

RUMBLED

This photo, of a packed-out Temple, was taken from the staircase to the off-limits, staff-only area. I took one from almost exactly the same angle at the same time and shared it on @sideburnmag. A few minutes later someone came up to me and asked, ‘Who posted a photo from here?’ I did, I admitted. ‘It’s not a problem,’ he said, ‘but I’ve just had a message from my wife asking why I’m not working a night shift like I was supposed to be.’ Let that be a lesson to all. (GI)

TOM’S T-SHIRT

The story of Tom and Sally’s epic (proper use of the word) ride from Santiago, Chile to Southern California was documented over 16-pages of supplement delivered with Sideburn 32, but this T-shirt didn’t get a mention. The pair travelled light for their one-year, 16,000-mile trip. He took this T-shirt, designed by Liverpool-based ODFU for Dirt Quake IV, which, coincidentally, was the first time we worked with Tom. He shot the video of the event for us. The shirt took a beating, being worn to surf in, then dried in the sun, fading from a proud navy blue to a shade of homeless window cleaner. The sleeves were lost along the way. (GI)

THE FAITHFUL

Tom, Sally and I either grew up in Leeds, nearby, or, in Tom’s case, went to university there, so we shook trees and attracted a full house, most of whom had never been to a Sideburn event. Still, it’s always great to see our fellow DTRA dirt track racers away from the track and we had a bunch at Temple, including Cristi (with the hat) and his brother Bogdan. (GI)

ONE YEAR, ONE BOARD

Matt Ayre, of Polymath Surfcraft, a long-time friend and next door neighbour known locally to some as ‘The Prof’, had been making surfboards for Sally and me for a while in his garage in Tynemouth, UK. The relationship between shaper and surfer is an important one, especially for a year-long trip with only one board. Usually, our surf jaunts to Morocco or Indonesia would see us take at least two boards each, trips to Europe or Scotland at least six or seven boards between us. We spent a lot of time in Matt’s garage, drinking beers and talking about what boards he was going to make us. He’d dreamed up a new construction technique, with hot-wired EPS foam and epoxy resin and 0.6mm paper-backed wood veneer and solid Western Red Cedar rails, all steam bent and sandwiched together under vacuum. It was wild, but he’d made a few by them and they looked great. He knew how we surfed and the kind of waves we would be aiming for. The shapes were perfect, the boards lightweight, strong and beautiful. A true craftsman’s touch to them.

HEY GRINGO!

The pair wore brand new Biltwell Gringos and Biltwell Moto goggles for the 16,000-mile trip and still wear them now. Introduced in 2013, the Gringo was the first full-face from the Californian company and has gone on to sell 1000s all over the world.

STAY SHARP

TONY

I’ve done a lot of jobs: roadie; handyman; call centre operative; shop attendant; barman; teacher; and receptionist in a tattoo shop. During the tattoo shop time, Tony was the totally out-there black and grey artist specialising in biomechanical work. He was big into his VWs when he was in Thailand, where he’s from. We used to talk about VWs, I had a T25 panel van at that point. Years went by and I guess Tony’s interest in VWs has translated to Harleys. I’ve seen him in Leeds a few times at different events. You can’t miss him. I don’t think he had quite put two and two together, that I’m now a photographer and it was my work hanging on the walls and on the screen. But maybe he did. (TB)

Baja California is a wild, wild place. You ride through endless fields of these Cardon cacti, they grow up to 70 foot high (here’s Sally stood next to it in one of the photos in the exhibition), weigh up to 25 tonnes and live for up to 300 years. Most places along the Pan American Highway and other routes have probably seen a lot of change over the last 300 years, since one of these cacti was in it’s infancy, but this particular stretch of Baja we rode through has probably remained fairly unchanged. They certainly hadn’t repaired any potholes for a few years anyway. (TB)

I sacrificed mine quite quickly, to save its life. It was damaged early on at Chile’s premiere big wave spot, Punta De Lobos, so I swapped it with a local shaper for one of his boards. He had the time and know-how to fix it, whereas we were always on the move. The day I swapped it, one of the locals reversed over it in his truck. It survived unscathed. The guy I donated it to still uses it all the time. It was sad to see it go but it deserved to have a long, happy life. Sally managed a bit better with hers, maybe she has a lighter touch than I do. I managed to get through my third board by the time we hit Mexico whereas Sally still uses hers today. We noticed it was creased after some heavy sessions in El Salvador, but took it to get fixed in Mexico and the repair guy offered her cash for it. Everywhere we went, the board drew attention. Matt could have sold a few off the back of ours, but I think Sally’s was the last he made, there are about five or six of them floating around, a couple in the UK, one in Ireland and now one in Chile. (TB)

Sideburn’s poet lives for motorbikes and has won races all over the USA. He runs his own motorcycle repair shop in (for now) Wheat Ridge, Denver, Colorado

Downstream

A poem by Travis Newbold Photo: Brapp Snapps

Another bend in the road Another baron stretch of highway Another two-wheeler load The miles roll by my way

Through a cracked windshield So many sights I have seen A worn out cassette tape The soundtrack to my dream

Another junction Another truck-stop Another trip When my mind begins to grind I let myself get lost just to see what I find

These mountains I call my home Where I was bred and born Now leave me anxious, sad and full of scorn

We have swallowed this frontier With micro-beer Legal weed And Instagram feed

While most capitalize to make a buck My shop I’ll load And hit the road Wish me luck

PROJECT BIKES

It’s hooligan season and things have got serious

Sportster reached a crossroads. Up until the winter of 2017 it was a road bike I also raced. I scored two podiums on a bike that I’d ridden 900 miles to Italy for SnowQuake, but I knew it could be a better hooligan. I’d taken short track taster rides on one of the Suicide Machine Co Sportsters and Chris Wiggins’ Speed Merchant bike. Both have years of improvements. I took inspiration from them and also the See See 1200 Roadster (see SB32) and Rob Bush’s Deus Ex Machinasponsored Sweet and Tender Hooligan, another Sportster. My 1991 model is older than all of them, but not so different.

I enjoy riding the Harley on the road, but knew it forced one too many compromises in its role as a race bike in an increasingly competitive DTRA championship. The tipping point was the wiring loom. The 883 was bought for £3000 with apehangers and a flame-stitched saddle (Sportsters cost more in Europe than the US). The loom had been extended for the higher bars, then shortened by me when I fitted the Biltwell Moto bars, resulting in a repulsive, evil squid of wiring next to the headstock. I spoke to Rupe’s Rewires1 about options. At first I wanted a road loom, but it would cost more than I wanted to spend. A super simple race loom would be easier/less expensive. I changed my mind five times, then decided on the race

Same chassis, engine and oil tank. Everything else has changed at least once

loom (final cost £259). I took the bike to Rupe’s Cambridgeshire workshop and took along a new killswitch (£37 inc. post from Allens). The other benefit of a new loom was I could replace the chunky H-D switchgear, which in turn meant I could swap from 1in diameter bars to 7/8ths, which feel better in my hands. I had some ProTaper Carmichael Signature tapered fat bars I acquired as part of a deal for an R6 front end. I just filed out the Harley bar clamp to suit the fat centre of the MX bars.

As sometimes happens, one change led to another. Different diameter bars demanded a new clutch lever. I’ve used a classy

Venhill 941 easy-adjust lever. Venhill also made a custom clutch cable to suit, because regular Harley clutches have an eyelet, not a nipple, at the lever. On the other side, Venhill also supplied a fast-action 888 push-pull throttle twistgrip and universal cable kits to make the cables to suit.

The engine was already fitted with an S&S Hooligan kit 2 but I was told by a US hooligan racer that with my 883 heads the motor would really benefit from a Mikuni HSR flatslide. I had a 48mm one, but that’s too big for this size of engine, so Kevin at Loaded Gun Customs in the USA said he could get me a 42mm one at trade price (I’m in the

trade, right?), and have it sent to Portland, so I could collect it when I was in town for the One Moto Show (avoiding shipping costs to the UK).

In the past I’ve tended to own and modify oddball bikes that people don’t make many parts for. That is not the case with a Sportster. The Mikuni kit came with everything to bolt straight on, was jetted perfectly and had spacers to refit the RSD Blunt air cleaner that I’d fitted to the stock CV carb.

I liked how Rob Bush had tried to make his Harley feel like the CRF450 DTX bike he races. He measured the relationships between seat, bars, pegs and ground, then did his best to copy

CONTACTS

Allens (switchgear)

allensperformance.co.uk

Biltwell (footpegs)

biltwellinc.com

CFM (fabrication etc)

cfmofsleaford.co.uk

Chopper Dave (points cover) chopperdaves.bigcartel.com

CJ Powder Coatings

cjpowdercoatings.co.uk

DTRA (race organisation) dirttrackriders.co.uk

Hagon (wheelbuilding) hagon-shocks.co.uk

Loaded Gun Customs (carb) loadedguncustoms.com

Lowbrow (petrol tank) lowbrowcustoms.com

Motone (filler cap) motone.co.uk

Performance Machine (brake caliper) performancemachine.com

ProTaper (bars) protaper.com

Race Tech (shocks) racetech.com

RSD (exhaust & aircleaner) Rolandsands.com

Rupe’s Rewires (wiring) rupesrewires.com

S&S (big-bore kit) sscycle.com Saddlemen (seat unit) saddlemen.com

The Speed Merchant (yokes & sprocket cover) thespeedmerchant.net Venhill (cables & controls) venhill.co.uk

the 450’s measurements. It made for quite a radical-looking Sporty. I sat too low on my bike, and saw that Saddlemen made flat track seat units and pads for Sportsters. I loved the one I’d seen on Noise Cycles’ XG750 (see SB29). They come with a fabricated subframe that fastens directly to the Sportster frame with one bolt and no modifications. With the subframe, it’s quite a heavy sub-assembly, but the quality is as good as anything I’ve ever seen in the aftermarket industry, is physically higher than the Biltwell Banana seat I had fitted

perfectly. Plus Saddlemen sponsor lots of people and events in the flat track world – obviously good people.

One of the biggest changes was also inspired by Rob Bush’s Sweet and Tender Hooligan,3 and that was to have a pair of long Race Tech twin shocks made for the bike. Rob gave me the measurements and Julian at Deus took the shocks to Portland for me to collect in February. They are 17in (430mm) between centres, compared to the 13.5in (340mm) Harley XR1200 road bike shocks they replaced. Race Tech are one of the most respected suspension companies in the US and the quality feels great.

Up front had been the stock 19in H-D wheel and old Sportster forks in Speed Merchant triple clamps. I had some Yamaha R6 forks (the same as Jake Johnson’s J&M Yamaha uses, see p6), which are bigger diameter than the originals, so I had the triple clamps milled by a local machine shop.

After changing the wheels on my Wood Rotax I had a spare 19in with alloy rim. It weighed about half what the steel wheel did. I turned stepped spacers on CFM’s lathe to suit the Yamaha wheel spindle. The shocks and forks have transformed the bike’s stance. It now looks like a race bike. A bloody heavy one, but a race bike nonetheless.

The last few details were to swap Biltwell’s bear trap-style Mushman footpegs for Bates-style Biltwell Norman rubber pegs. I shortened the left one by about 40mm (1.5in); have the Lowbrow Customs tank and H-D side-panel powder coated white by CJ Coatings, Grimsby; remove the rear pillion pegs and fit Renthal grips.

I then had to see what difference the improvements would make…

Appendix

1. Run by Rupert Paul, one of the most influential editors in motorcycling during his time at Performance Bikes and MCN Sport.

The kit comes with barrels, pistons, wristpins and cams. Available to take 883s out to 1200 and 1200s) out to 1250cc.

Named after the Morrissey song.

HELLS RACE

The proof of the pudding…

THEFIRST DTRA Hooligan round of the year clashed with a school half-term and a pre-booked family holiday, so instead of racing I watched from afar as Sideburn-sponsored hooligan, Grant Martin, beat a marauding pack of four Krazy Horse Indian Scout 60s (it had been five, one crashed out earlier) and assorted others on Harley, Ducati and KTM twins at King’s Lynn.

Indian’s donation of a Scout to the series winner has changed the attitude of some riders in the series (like the astonishing FTR750 prize did in America’s Super Hooligan National Championship). I now fear that to keep in the hunt riders might take risks they wouldn’t normally. There were predictions of carnage. Before Hells Race, one very experienced racer told me the thought of racing the heavyweights was keeping him awake at night, but he really wanted that Scout.

For Hells Race at Dirt Track Lelystad, near Amsterdam, I made a plan: ride a conservative line, don’t make mistakes, pick off who you can, drive home. I’d ridden the bike at Greenfield Dirt Track just to make sure nothing fell off, including me. Because it wasn’t an official practice, George (whose track Greenfield is) hadn’t had time for his normal perfect prep and the track was a bit ‘dry slick’. I was nervous of skating off the narrow line and onto my arse.

At Lelystad I had two sessions of free practice on the Harley on a packed, roasting hot afternoon the day before the Sunday race. I felt fine. The back brake seemed a bit weak, so I couldn’t brake as hard as I’d have liked, but it probably didn’t hurt my times too badly.

Like all DTRA races, and Hoolies are the only DTRA class that runs

in Holland, we had three heats to settle our grid positions for the final. Each rider has a front, middle and back row start. I finished second, third and first, but the class was split so I was never against all the riders I felt could/should beat me in any one heat. Still, I qualified third and took position three on the four-rider front row (qualifiers pick whichever position they want on the grid in order). On pole, inside, was Leah Tokelove (Krazy Horse Indian) who had won all her three heats; next was Gary Birtwistle (new BSMC Survivor Customs Ducati Scrambler); in fourth was Lee Kirkpatrick (KH Indian). A row behind was Grant (Maidstone H-D Street Rod), Jonathan Falkman (KH Indian), Chris Hatton (KH Indian) and Dimitri Coste (Indian), with two more Harleys and a KTM behind (one rider chose not to race the final).

I’d been getting decent starts all day and the S&S-powered 1200 took off good and straight. I kept the power on slightly longer than Lee KP, while Gary B was up my inside and out of turn 2 first with me behind him. I could see by his entry to turn 3 he could brake much harder than I was willing to, so I stuck to my plan. He got four or five bike lengths on me on that first lap and never much more, while I looked like I was riding to fetch the morning paper. Meanwhile, Lee was nibbling at my back wheel, nudging it mid-corner. I was entering the corner tight, turning as quickly as I could and exiting as tightly as possible. I was sticking to a line, but if anyone behind me wanted to pass they’d have to be brave or rude.

Luckily, no carnage ensued so I held onto second, 1.5s off the win, until the checkers came out. And I drove home. Smiling.

(clockwise from above) Sliding Scouts; Hells Race attracts riders from all over Europe; FTH’s Chris H on the gas; Gorgeous Indian; Kingdom of Kicks race face; GI’s heat race holeshot as Grant Martin slides out; Cold War hauler; Chas Chalis

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Transcript of a phone conversation between Sideburn’s Mick Phillips and Sonny Burres

Subject: Peoria 1973

MP: Hello Sonny. We sent you this great photo from Peoria in 1973, after you’d won the TT trophy dash. Does that seem right?

Sonny: It does. When I see pictures like that it brings back a lot of neat memories.

MP: What do you remember about that race?

Sonny: I remember they had an article in a magazine and it showed Kenny Roberts and myself going over the jumps side by side, and that’s one thing that stands out. Kenny Roberts was my hero. As far as I was concerned he was the best all-around motorcycle racer there was, so it was an honour just to ride with him, because if you could run side by side with him you were running with the best in the world. So that made me feel I was doing a good job.

MP: That’s a Yamaha XS650, right? Maybe taken out to a 750?

Sonny: Yes, it was. I had two of them. One was in a Trackmaster frame, which I didn’t ride very much, because Trackmaster frames flex too much. I won some races riding out on the cushion, but my forte was a black groove race track and my favourite frame was the Champion, it was perfect for me. It flexed just enough, but I could still ride on the black groove. And this one [in the picture] had to be the Champion frame.

MP: Your main sponsor there is the Woodland Winter Track. Tell us about that.

Sonny: It was kind of a combination of a TT and a motocross race track in Woodland, Washington, about 40 miles from Portland [Sonny’s home town]. The guy that owned it owned a Chevrolet dealership and had property outside Woodland and he just built that race track, and they only ran in the winter time. He and I became friends and he sponsored me for a couple or three years.

MP: Was the trophy girl a Peoria regular?

Sonny: Ah yeah, she was a regular. It’s not like now at the motocross and stuff like that, usually they have trophy girls that travel to the races. Back then, a trophy girl was always local, but I don’t remember her name.

MP: She seems pretty impressed by you.

Sonny: You know, I had a lot of nice women in my life and I have this reputation as the guy who had

the best-looking women, you know? But out of all the years I rode I was only ever a couple of times around a trophy girl. They’d come out and talk to you and hand you your trophy and that was it.

MP: It looks like you’re being pretty smooth! Sonny: I might have been! But it probably didn’t go anywhere.

MP: You had a lot of success at Peoria. Why do you think that was?

Sonny: It was more of a riders’ race track. You had to have a good motorcycle, with good power, and set it up right. It was probably my favourite track of all the ones I rode. I really looked forward to going there. That sweeper right behind my head and starting up the front straightaway, that was the fun part of the racetrack. I loved that racetrack, coming out of that sweeper, throttle wide open and shifting into fourth gear and going up that straightaway... So when I look at this picture, I think, God damn, I’d give anything to go back to that day and ride that racetrack again, because it was just so much fun. And at Peoria I felt like I was their hometown boy. They treated me that way.

The year that I won it, ’75, I had a feeling a week or two weeks before the race that I was gonna win, and I just dominated that thing. I set a 25-lap record and it still stands, because [since then] they changed the racetrack. It was an oil racetrack and they took the oil off.

MP: What else does this photo make you think of? Sonny: I’m proud of what I did. It doesn’t make me any better than anyone else, I’m just proud of what I accomplished in my career. I feel like I’m one of the luckiest guys in the world that I got to do something for 20 years that was just... exhilarating. It was my life. I loved it.

Peoria 1973

Sweated hard for the win 15%

Waffle tan on feet 15%

15 15 40

talk and cheeky caresses

Suggestive race number 30%