Deus Milano Bike Build-Off 1

Sorry for the delay in following up last week's Deus Milan Bike Build-Off post. We're flat-out here. Anyway, here are some of the bikes. Above, trackerised air-cooled Duke. Rough and ready for action. White fork legs though? No, grazie.

CZ lowrider with fantastic paint. Killswitch was a guitar style jack plug.

Another Ducati tracker, this one on 17in wets. Inspiration seems to be equal parts Lego, Lloyd Brothers and Petardo.

Loved this little Yam. It was really in the spirit of the competition: doing the most with the least. Tractor front tyre on the rear isn't going to win him a GP, but I bet it could do burn-outs till the tank ran dry. Owner had fabbed up a little underslung monoschock. Seat subframe was a single, central tube, with the tail light mounted in it. Loved the fishtail pipe mounted parallel to the road.
It ended up winning the competition.

 Latecomer on a V50.

 Styling. Do your own thing.

 Dagger Cycles neat Yamaha SRX.

 Monkey dripping in Japanese bolt-ons.

 

Federico from 2 Right Hands paint/ Dildo Society (don't ask) in Parma. Such a neat bike. Airbrushed painted, no stickers. If you're looking for a painter in Italy, look no further. 

2 Right Hands also painted this late model Yam XS. Neat Bandit behind it. Didn't get a better photo of the Suzuki though. Dumbo.

 Neat Honda 650 scrambler. Owner is pointing at tank.

This beast turned up. The Africa Twin Dakar rep wasn't what the organisers were looking for in terms of a Deus Build-Off bike, but it was still an eye-catcher.

More to follow when I get another half-an-hour. Don't hold your breath. G

All You Need Is Ride #2

The second issue of high quality French zine All You Need Is Ride is in the webshop.
This issue includes reports from various classic races, dirt track run what you brungs, features on custom builders and shows and a profile of Maxwell Paternoster - Chief Corpse From Hell.

A5 size, 126 pages, perfect bound.

Every issues comes with a Maxwell Paternoster/Corpses From Hell beermat.

Sideburn exclusive - this is a French language magazine, but we've been sent a print outs of Sarah Bradley's Good Revival feature in English to send out with our orders.

Get yours at the Sideburn webshop. G

Classic TT Formula 1 snaps

There aren't many places in the world I like more than the Isle of Man when the sun is shining. These are my phone snaps of bikes lining up for the inaugural Classic TT Formula One race, last Monday. 

Our mate and fellow DTRA racer, Paul Baleta has been racing the Manx for seven years. This year he also competed in the Classic TT Formula 1 race and was third privateer! Amazing result. He was also 14th out of 29 in total in the race that was won by multiple TT winner Michael Dunlop. Paul's average race speed for the 4-lap race was close to 106mph average and he won a Silver Replica.
His pit crew was his girlfriend and his brother.
Redmaxspeedshop rebuilt the 888 motor that finished the gruelling race. Redmax boss, Steve Hillary is a Ducati 8-valve expert.
Paul was also 19th out of 44 in the Supertwin Manx GP on a Suzuki SV650. He had an Aprilia Mille to compete in the Senior too, but the race was abandoned due to poor weather.
Massive respect!
Read more about Paul's racing antics at his Speed Therapy blog

My favourite bike to line up. Reno, Nevada resident Jimmy Mac borrowed this Bakker-framed Z1000 from a mate of his and came to race. He was smiling and not showing his nerves as we chatted in the holding area. He did admit that he felt he'd bitten off more than he could chew. 'This is not my niche'.

The Trident Engineering XR69-style Suzuki team took advantage of the slack rules to fit GSX-R1100/Bandit 1200 motors, instead of the GSX 8-valve based motors they are forced to use in normal classic racing. They also fitted 17s not the usual 18s.

This is Conor Cummins' bike. The team had the seat off with about 5 mins to go, hence the tape all over the seat pad. 

Conor (below) came in second, lapping at 120-plus mph on the steel-framed GSX-R1100 on treaded tyres! 

This bike, and the winner's Suzuki, were both fitted with Racefit Ti Legend pipes.

As long as his Suzuki kept running there was never any doubt Michael Dunlop was going to win this race. He was doing 125mph practice laps and, he admitted, just taking it easy.  In the end his fastest race lap was 123.6 and he won at a canter.

GPz.

 I love oil-cooled GSX-Rs and there were plenty here. Cheap race bikes (comparatively).

Among the TT winners and professional looking teams there was this Guzzi and pit crew in sombreros. The TT has become so fast and professional you don't see much of this at the TT any more. There's still room for it at the Manx/Classic though. Rider Rob Paget was final finisher, in 29th place. Doesn't sound impressive, but the amount of bikes that don't make the finish would fill a ferry. This team did a great job with the only Guzzi in the race.

TT frontrunner (and winner) Gary Johnson was racing this wonderful Yamaha FJ1200 Harris. Didn't finish though.

 German Kenny Hinck. ZXR750RR

Russ from Blackheart Racing was over with a big crew of Americans. Couldn't find his RC30 on the results sheet and left before I had chance to catch up with him.

Harris XR69 replica. Orange bib denotes newcomer.

Two eras in one photo. The Classic TT was a great event. G

Guzzi Goodness

Grant Ray worked for Confederate Motorcycles and launched Hell For Leather, a website that used to be a daily stop-off for me. He's since left HfL and the site's become more mainstream, uglier and changed its name to RideApart.
Despite the fact Grant once threatened me with legal action because I used the phrase 'hell for leather' in a motorcycle magazine, when he'd copyrighted it (no, me neither) I still really liked his work and finally got to meet him at The One Motorcycle Show in Portland. Strangely, we were wearing matching 50-year-old Swedish army coats.
Grant was tasked with organising a launch for the new Guzzi California in California. This is what he came up with - an art installation with characters from an imaginary TV show that have V-twins for heads. I love it and I really like the bike, if it wasn't so bloody expensive (over £14,000).

In other Guzzi news, I wrote a piece about the company for the Influx website. Go and have a look. I'm dead happy with it. G

Art & Moto, Lisbon Report

Art and Moto was the first event of its type held in Portugal. It was organised by Cesar of Cafe Racer 351 (the godfather of the fledgling cafe racer scene in Portugal) and Sideburn collaborators the Spanish artists Antonio Merinero and Raulowsky - with the help of the small but enthusiastic Portuguese scene.

The event took place at the LX Factory, a old printing works that's been turned into shops, bars, offices, studios, cafes and a large book shop. The compound is huge and cobbled, giving it a self-contained village high street feel.

That's Cesar's Thruxton, above. The 351 refers to the dialling code needed to call Portugal from abroad.

Four artists' work was on show: Merinero and Raulowsky from Spain, Nuno Capelo and Tiago Santiago from Portugal.
What I thought was a great touch were the collaborations between Merinero and Raulowsky. Merinero did the base of the piece above, then sent the work to Raulowsky who painted on the highlights and lettering. The also created the show poster together, below left.

More Merinero. These are his stencils, the bottom ones are on reclaimed rusty fridge doors.

Antonio Merinero (hat and beer) with Fede from bike modifiers CRO, Madrid, in a cool bar in the LX compound called Impossibly Funky.

New Raulowsky works. We still have a few of the Into The Wild shirt Raulowsky designed for us.

Local photographer, Tiago Santiago made a display of his shots of a Sachs 125 that were backlit with old motorcycle lights. Check out the bike's neat fuel gauge.

Porto-based architect Nuno Capelo showed his art for the first time. Lovely fella and nice work.

Super Company's Salt Shaker appeared again. Last time I saw this bike it was in Milan. Super Company are racing a hotted-up Cub at Dirt Quake II.

Also within the compound were a couple of interesting shops and good restaurants (the latter being something sadly lacking at every UK bike event). This shop sold old audio equipment. 

Love this tree stump DJ platform.

This shipping container turned into a magazine shop had my imagination doing backflips.

Bars and cafe's lined a road between the two main buildings. Bikes parked up and people could stand with a drink and watch the bikes come and go.

The huge Golden Gate-esque bridge, the 25th of April Bridge, shadowed the LX Factory.

Plenty of people came over from Spain, including CRO from Madrid. This is their Yamaha SR250, with tank paint by Merinero.

This is CRO's Sanglas. Spain and Portugal were run by dictator-led governments up until popular revolutions in the 1970s (Franco in Spain till 1975, Salazar and Novo in Portugal till the Carnation Revolution of 1974). Among other things, these regimes severely restricted imports to protect their own industries. The Spanish Sanglas is one of the results, a badge-engineered Yamaha XS400 made in Spain.

This is a Portuguese Casal. The company made bikes and mopeds in Aveiro from 1961 till 2000.

Compared to France, Germany, UK or Italy, the Portuguese custom bike scene is in its infancy, so everyone was rightly proud of the quality of the event, effort and bikes. 

This survivor turned up. Mk2 (?) Escort Estate. More rare than duck egg-sized diamonds nowadays.

 Fine Guzzi and a Bonnie with a fancy Ohlins front end.

 Honda 600, I think. One of the few street trackers in town.

 Hugo from Rev magazine had just finished this Trident. ZXR750 front end, Excel rims, Billet brakes...

The Slicks.

This very cool CB750 had a lot of great touches. It's called the Gravedigger. Bikes in a bookshop? Dreamland.

It will be on show a The Bike Shed Event in London this month.

Neat Swedish-style chopper parked out of the limelight, but still attracted a lot of attention. Reminds me of Back Street Heroes in the mid-90s.

 Everyone welcome, as long as you 'get it'.

On the morning before the show we went exploring Lisbon and bumped into Vasco and his genuine Wrenchmonkee W650. Monkee 35 for the trainspotters.

I borrowed a Bonneville (thanks Triumph Portugal) and met up with photographer Manel Portugal (real name) for a ride up the coast to the beach he surfs at, near the Estoril racetrack.

A great weekend and a big success. Thanks to Cesar, Antonio, Nuno, Hugo, Vitor, Manel, Triumph Portugal and Anabela. Hope to see you all again. G