Flathead

Another instalment from Sideburn ambassador, John Harrison.

My Harley found me sometime in 1983. The father of one of my friends had built it up from three tea chests of parts that he swapped for a complete and running V-twin BSA that was promptly sold to a Japanese collector. He'd built it but ran out of steam before finishing it off. It was copper metallic with white grips and running board rubbers and lots of chrome. I wasn't into Harleys, but saw those 'bars and fell in love. The fact that it had a hand shift and foot clutch added to the appeal.

I haggled him down to £650 because I had £50 saved and a two-year loan for £600 was all I could afford to pay off. Even then I knew I'd stolen it. I finished it off, which only involved wiring it and fitting a saddle.

This picture was taken in 1984, when it was my only transport and I was doing some weekend maintenance. My sister and her toddler were visiting. My girlfriend had recently passed her driving test and bought herself the lemon R5. She was evidently going for the complete French gamine look. We celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary this year. My little niece Emma, who is copying me by playing with spanners on the bike, grew into a bona fide rock chick with a group called Band of Skulls who are quite popular with the younger generations, I understand. Sometimes I look at this pic and wish I'd left it like that, with the lovely colour and 18in front wheel, but maybe it's just the atmosphere in the photo that I like.

In time it needed an engine rebuild, so I took the opportunity to paint it and fit a 16in front wheel. This pic was taken in about 1993, soon after I got it back together. My children loved getting rides like this, sitting in my lap. I would deliver them to their friends' birthday parties with them wearing a bicycle helmet. It has stayed pretty much the same since, except that I've let it get dirty and look its age.

The most memorable ride I've made on it was to Pendine and back to watch the VHRA racing along the beach in 2015. That was 220-odd miles each way. Fine weather, wonderful roads (the Welsh A40 with its endless, fast, long sweepers), good convoy company and the bike running well. I felt like I was flying. Vintage motorcycling can be slow, uncomfortable and unreliable and isn't for everyone, but it suits me fine. Pic: James Bad JuJu Mitchell

I rode it in the Harley class at Dirt Quake V and came in last in all three races. But I had the best seat in the house when Dimitri Coste lapped me at great speed on the inside with Wiggo chasing hard flying down my outside blatting into turn 3.

Uncle Bunt

John Reed, formerly of Uncle Bunt's Chop Shop, remains British custom-building royalty, despite having left the country decades ago to become a Custom Chrome in-house designer in California. This shot is probably from 1982, when he completed the TR1-based Gold Yamaha. Still looks good, 34 years later, and Mr Reed is apparently still as lean, steely and irascible as he was back then - or indeed when I interviewed him 20 years ago. MP

Shobba - updated

I've spent too long over Christmas trying (and failing) to find some Christmas cards based on cartoons by the superb Shobba, that were a subscribers' gift when I worked on Bike magazine in the 1990s. Shobba cartooned for the mag for ten years or more, starting in the '80s, and he rarely, if ever, missed the mark. I love his stuff, but they're hard to find. Here's one of a few that are floating around the web. He really should publish a collection. MP

UPDATE: Grant, I think you mean a big cock... (and apologies for the poor quality image, it's the best I could find).

We won't upload any more as it's not our intent to rip off Shobba. If he had his own website we'd link to it, but I can't find one. Shobba, get in touch if you see this.

Bobby Boogaloo Schwartz

Where are you today Mr Boogaloo? BP

Doug Chandler. On it

Doug Chandler wrestling the Freddie Spencer-backed Honda VF750 in the AMA Superbike championship, 1987. One of racing's most versatile riders, that same year, as he began his transition to full-time road racing, he was still topping dirt track podiums. In the current issue of Sideburn magazine, you can read his memories of winning that year's televised Ascot half-mile on a V-twin Honda RS750. MP
If anyone knows who took this photo, please let us know.

Ricky Graham & the Wood Racing XR750

Ron Wood, better known for the big tube Norton and Wood Rotax racers, built this fantastic XR750 for Ricky Graham before the rider went on to be a champion with Honda. G

Taree MCC 1975 & 1984

Donna from Australia read our story about 1970s speedway rider Ian 'Tiddler' Turner in Sideburn 20 and got in touch with this email and great photos. They're from Taree, the town (and I assume the track) where Troy Bayliss runs his invitational dirt track meeting every year.

Hi Fabulous Dudes at Sideburn,
I had to email and gush liberally about Issue 20, the speedway story you tempted me with was as nostalgic as promised, many thanks! I am so thrilled that I invested my money in a Sideburn subscription, as it is easily the most entertaining mag I read, and the highlight of the week when it arrives in my mailbox. Being the mega fusspot (and SEN teacher) I am, I do tend to have OCD and 'edit' everything I read, including mags and newspapers, and I have only ever found one or two typos in Sideburn, which, in my eyes at least, is perfectly acceptable, as you are writing about cool stuff after all! 
In all seriousness, guys, many thanks for a glorious read. I particularly love the variety of bikes and bike culture that you cover each issue, especially the speedway; it's f*****g brilliant, but I am biased in that view. Other bike mags I have read have shiny stuff in them, and yours does too, but you also celebrate the mongrels, the rusty and the bitzers, which, I must say, I prefer, as they have such cool stories and histories behind them. Totally awesome! 
The hot guys riding the bikes in each issue of Sideburn, too, certainly adds to the appeal of the mag, in my eyes at least. Lastly, Gary, the speedway story in Issue 20 brought back such wicked memories for me that I had to dig through my dad's old photos and I found a couple of gems of an old inter-club meeting from 1975 at a Taree (Mid North Coast, NSW, Australia) racetrack. My god, those leathers are...graphic! I think these snaps are testament to the brilliant times to be had on the back of a motorbike, bad taste in leathers notwithstanding! 
Ride on! 
Regards, (Probably Not Your Only Number 1 Sideburn Fan), 
Donna

Icon New Jack

 

Another great bike from Icon Motorsports , the US riding kits company that builds some fantastic bikes for their new product range photoshoots (Icon Basehawk jacket in this case).
This time they've updated a 1982 Katana with:

Oil cooler in the headlight opening and LED streetlight below
Bandit 1200 motor (some people talk about it being 'bigger', it has slightly more capacity than the original, but it's actually more compact front to rear)
Mikuni flatslides
Two British Nitron shocks in the monoshock position (like a prototype Rossi M1 from 2008 or so)
Modified Suzuki TL1000R Swingarm
Twin fillers
New tail
EBC discs and Nissin four-pots
USD Showas from a 2002-era Fireblade
Honda SP2 wheels

I love it. G

Jackie Mitchell #32

Every new order we receive, we check if the person has ordered before (against a massive list, we don't have some clever automated system). If they haven't we send them an email asking a couple of questions. Sometimes we get great replies...

I've known about Sideburn for a while. I am a former national number dirt track racer here in the States. I saw someone posted a picture of the XR 750 T-shirt on Facebook. I was a factory Bultaco racer and thought the blueprint of the Astro was really cool, too. Please put me on your mailing list. Thank you, 
Jackie Mitchell #32
Indiana

Meccano treasure trove

Meccano Magazine was started in 1916 by Frank Hornby, inventor of the Meccano hobby engineering sets (and later Hornby model railways and Dinky toys, some hat-trick) that did a brilliant job of keeping the minds of millions of teenage boys off their own nuts, for a while at least.

A bunch of insanely dedicate people have scanned and made available pretty much every copy of the magazine, which ran until 1981. There's even a searchable index. If you go in there, don't expect to emerge in less than an hour. The bikes, by the way, are from August and October 1929. Many thanks to Brownhills Bob for the tip-off. MP

When Dinosaurs Roamed the Beaches

From Harley in the Isle of Man

I was nosing through some old photos and came across this monster, taken at Mablethorpe at least 25 years ago. I’ve no idea who was at the controls but they really don’t make ‘em like that any more. 
Happy New Year 
Harley

Ricky Graham

Many people's choice for the greatest of all time.
Thanks to Roger F for forwarding this photo from, he reckons, 1981-82.
Ricky Graham was three-time AMA GNC champ. He died in a house fire in 1998. G

Photographer unknown.

Margate Scooter Rally 1989

My very old mate, Col sent me this photo and the message.

I'm really enjoying the mags, I look on the blog most days.... it would be real good to catch up on the phone at some point...
The latest pic of you and Guy Martin is cool, but not as cool as this one of me and you 25 years ago this month on Margate seafront... Quarter of a century ago can you believe???? 

Do you still have the hat with flames on it..?? I've just resubscribed. I'm only missing the first two issues for the full set keep up the top work fella, 
all the best, 
Col

I'm the one with the long hair. Col is wearing my Life's A Beach beret. I was very much into all the grebo bands - Gaye Bykers On Acid (below), Crazyhead, Wonder Stuff - at that time.
I never looked much like a scooterboy and I was a couple of years away from buying a CBR600.


There's a lot of instagram chatter (too dumb to be hating) about men, scooters and wind in vaginas - well, I started out on scooters, and I own a Lambretta that I'm as attached to as the day I got it over 20-odd years ago. The years I spent riding around Britain and Europe, trips further than most people tour on their 1000cc bikes, made me what I am.

My old mate, Col from Scarborough (in the photo above) and I used to meet up in Leeds at some ungodly hour on a Friday morning (he would have already been on the road for 1.5 hours), then ride to a rundown seaside town as much as 300 miles away. After camping on wasteground for two nights, we'd turn around and crawl home at 58mph after two nights on the lash. We'd do it eight or more times a year. Col still goes now, having never stopped.

A proportion of the 3-5000 scooterboys who went on rallies in the 1980s were thugs, split 60/40 right-wing, left-wing. The Calverton Hornets would fight the London nazi skins if they came across them. The Cardiff Cougars SC were made up of the city's football hooligans. There was another whole club of cro-magnon-looking scooterboys who all had their heads shaved into short mohawks like the 2000AD character Rogue Trooper (who gave their scooter club its name). I'd like to see some of the instagram warriors tell these lads they only rode Vespas because they liked wind in their lady parts.

Where the top photo was taken is/was a pub that got smoke bombed that night, while we were drinking in it, but I never find out exactly why. 1980s scooter rallies weren't Wheels and Waves, that for damn sure.

Anyway, thanks for the trip down memory lane, Col. G

I love a gilet

When is it going to be vogue to race in a nylon bodywarmer again? Come on Icon, get on it. G

Play loud, drink rum

A be-fezed Sir Johnny Alpha has been in his basement of beat once again to bring us the latest Killer Diller Radio Show. A young beatster asked Sir Johnny if there was any theme to this edition of the 90-minute aural orgasm. 'No theme man,' came the reply, 'just a load of random great records.' Eclectic brilliance from the likes of The Kneejerk Reactions, Nobody's Children, Arthur Crudup, Soul Inc., The Phantoms... Listen to the stream, or download as an mp3. Either way, have a quart of Mount Gay to hand. MP

Mad Max in Sideburn #17

In the latest issue of Sideburn, we run two pieces on the first, the rough and the dirty... Mad Max. We interviewed key players in the film's making, including the director George Miller, cinematographer David Eggby, Hugh Keays-Byrne (bike gang leader The Toecutter) and Bertrand Cadart, who made the fairings for the (mainly) Kawasaki Z1000s. We even managed to talk to Dale Bensch, reputedly killed when the infamous bridge stunt went wrong (see clip below). He seemed remarkably chatty for a bloke 36 years dead.

On top of that, in a separate feature we asked Repo Man and Straight To Hell director Alex Cox for his views on what has become a post-apocalyptic benchmark, shot on a budget, featuring Melbourne bike gang members as stunt men and that only made it to the screen thanks to long nights and hard graft by a couple of blokes with a vision. There you go, just two reasons of many to pick up Sideburn #17. MP

Dave Skooter Farm, Southport 1980

I was up in Wigan a while ago, visiting one of the best friends a fella could wish for, Dave Skooter Farm. We met at Static Records and I mentioned to Dave that I needed some new tyres for my boy's BMX, so we walked to the nearby, World famous Alan's BMX - possibly the oldest continually operating BMX shop in the world. As we walked up the stairs, Dave stopped by a mural and said, That's me.
The painting (below) was taken from a photo (above) taken in 1980-81 at Southport Skate Park.

Dave was one of the first 'team' riders in the whole of British BMX and, as a youth, his team even took him to California to race. California is still exotic to Brits now, but it was another world when Dave was a youth. All the vast majority of Brits knew about it was Hollywood and CHiPs.

Dave, above and below (in yellow), again at Southport in the very early-80s. Photos: Stefan Faulkner

33 years after Southport Dave is still up for hanging it out.
He's one of the Sideburn delegation coming out to Springfield and Dirt Quake USA.

He also came up with the concept of Sideburn 15 Cover 1 and rode the Honda Dax in the pool he himself designed and built in his own backyard. That's him, again in yellow, still in Vans.

The Dax belongs to his good mate, and fellow Brit BMX original - John 'Captain Highside' Lee, who also took these behind the scenes photos. Our very own Ben Part took the cover shot.

Anyway, it's Dave's birthday this weekend. Happy Birthday Dave. G

Get Sideburn 15 here. G

Rock Family Trees

You read the sleeve notes on albums, and take the booklets that come with decent CDs into the bog while you meditate. You have heated discussions with mates - with yourself - about who played marimba on the 1972 Afro-Silesian classic A BSA Killed My Marmoset. You need to read Rock Family Trees.

They're nothing new, so apologies to those who know them already, but I never fail to be awestruck by the work involved in their creation. Pete Frame drew and wrote them by hand and they start life as huge great things covering a large table before being shot and reduced down for print. They're obsessively detailed and you can lose yourself in them for hours.

The breadth of bands and artists covered is immense, though they're almost all on the pop/rock/folk spectrum with dips into jazz and other stuff here and there. He even does trees of genres, such as American Pop 1950-'64. You have to see these things to believe them. All three volumes are still available and are well worth tracking down. MP

Honda Ascot

Thanks to Roger F for bringing this to our attention. He says...

'30 seconds, featuring the then reigning grand national champion Mike Kidd (he won the #1 plate on a Harley and was hired by Honda). He's riding a bike powered by an engine that started life as a CX500, turned sideways, converted to a 750 and chain final drive!....not a bad day's work in the shop)... Roger'

Read all about the development of the CX500 powered NS750 into it's successor, the RS750 in SB#7

Fast Freddie

My memory is so shot, I forgot I'd written about this short film, and even interviewed Freddie over the phone about it, back in 2008 until I was searching old copies of PB for something. It blew me away when I first saw it and it did five years later.
There are a lot of pretentious motorcycle films clogging up the internet. This is the drain cleaner to flush the worst away. G