Extreme Weight Loss

This stunning liquid-cooled Harley XG750 Street is featured in Sideburn 25. It was built by Asterisk of Japan, whose Kawasaki KX500 was previously featured in SB13.

It has a custom frame and hand-formed bodywork. The stock bike weighs 223kg (492lb). The Asterisk bike weighs 152kg (335lbs). Those Roland Sands Designs 19in wheels look the business too. G

Sideburn 25: Pre-Order

Sideburn has reached 25 and to celebrate we've slapped on a silver foil logo on a full-fat 116 pages.
Sideburn 25 is now available for pre-order, and will be sent out soon or close to 20 June. Anything you order at the same time as issue 25 will be sent out together on the same day.

Cover star: Mark 'The Rusty Butcher' Atkins

BIKES: Mule Triumph Bonneville; Asterisk Harley XG750; Yamaha XS650 budget desert racers; BSA B50MX short tracker; 1991 Harley Sportster Hooligan racer; One Down Four Up SR500 & DT400

EVENTS: Country Mile Race; Yorkshire Ride-Out

HOW TO: Perfect your body English with Chris Carr

PEOPLE: Matt 'Arctic Monkey' Helders; Nuke-Leah Tokelove; Hank Scott; Dimitri Coste; Rusty Butcher

PORTFOLIO: The photography of Preston Burroughs

ADVENTURE: Royal Enfield Himalayan tested in the mountains

Plus the regular blueprints, poetry, trophy queens, interviews and wonderful illustrations...

Order yours from Sideburn.bigcartel.com

 

Harley-Davidson XG750R

Harley have been campaigning the official factory, Vance and Hines-developed, water-cooled XG750R at selected GNC and non-GNC races this year, but have been keeping quiet about it. At last weekend's Sacramento Mile the XG750R made the main, but broke, with GNC1 rookie Davis Fisher on board. That seems like the signal to start promoting the project, because a blizzard of press releases landed in out inbox today.

We love what See See, Speed Merchant and Suicide Machine Co have done with the Street 750, and this 'factory' racer has the looks to replace the XR750.

The XR750 is still winning half-mile races, with Mees on board, and pushing for wins with other riders including Coolbeth, but the Baker's factory XR keeps breaking, perhaps because it's at the very limit of what is possible, as tuners chase more power by increasing rpm limits. The 4v per cylinder, liquid-cooled XG will be able to rev much higher, more safely than the air-cooled 2v XR750, a bike engine that debuted 42 years ago.

This is going to be a fascinating new chapter in the sport's history. G

XG and XR

Sideburn 24 Has Landed

 

At last, the biggest ever issue of Sideburn is here. A monstrous 116 pages, up from 100 pages (well, the first issue were 80). Makes sure your Yorkshire Terrier isn't asleep on the front door mat when this comes through the letterbox.

Buy yours at sideburn.bigcartel.com for the same £6 plus post

We have the regular black issue and a smaller run of 'white' though it's not really white. The covers were designed by Toria Jaymes of Stay Outside Studio. Both are identical inside, we just like making alternative covers, because we can't choose which we prefer. And because we can.

We also have high quality Giclee prints of the cover design on black or white heavyweight archival print. See the Clear Your Head prints and all other prints we have in stock in the Art Prints section of the new look Sideburn webshop.

What's inside the super, £6, 116-page Sideburn 24...

BIKES: Minotaur '55 Triumph 650, See See Harley XG750, Honda RS750D and more...
EVENTS: Snow Quake, Las Vegas Superhooligan, Hell on Wheels hillclimb
HOW TO: Get ahead in short track racing with Briar Bauman
PEOPLE: Mike Kidd, Dickie Brown, Stone, Guy Martin, Toria Jaymes
PORTFOLIO: Rafaelle Paolucci
ADVENTURE: British Columbia with Filthmode

 

 

What's that? You don't know where to get the goodness? 

SIDEBURN. BICARTEL.COM mate! G

Road Apples // Pemberton Speedway Flat Track

Pemberton Speedway from Blaine Connolly on Vimeo.

Becky from Canada got in touch. She pointed us to a video and her great looking blog (where I have pinched some nice photos to post below). It's a mixture of adventures on TT500s, choppers shows, women on bikes, amateur flat track and amazing Canadian scenery. Becky wrote...

I always check out your blog and thought this would be something you'd be into posting about! 

Blaine Connolly made this little edit about the Pemberton Flat Track Races that Sam Villanueva hosted. There's some photos as well as some more information on www.themroadapples.com I love your stuff keep killing it!
Becky Goebel

 Neat Street 750 racer.

Harley 750 Street Race Bike

Sam from Vancouver, a veteran of Dirt Quake USA I, built this bike for a Canadian Harley contest. The basis for all the bikes in the competition is the new Harley 750 Street, the liquid-cooled 'entry level' bike. It's clearly meant to stir interest in a bike that is proving to be a bit of a slow burn, but some look great.

If you want to vote for Sam's bike, like we have, go to
https://www.hdstreetbattle.com/custom-consultants.html
Then click British Columbia
Then click the photo bike and Vote.
It takes 30 secs. You don't have to sign up or give any details

Some blurb on the bike...

We are Trev Deeley Motorcycles. We grew up racing in the dirt. We didn't build a "street tracker". We built a Dirt Track race bike. You won't find a horn, turn signals, head light or a tail light; instead just three number plates, dressed in Trev's racing number. No front brake, no front fender and no speedo on this machine either, there is no need for them. We trimmed the fat. No keys, just a tethered kill switch, custom stainless exhaust with a racing open end cap, spoked wheels, chain drive and proper race compound tires. Go fast, turn left.

New GNC Framers in Progress

DTX bikes*  can produce good racing, and they're a good way for some into the sport, but the hope that killing framers** would bring more mainstream advertising and support into AMA Pro Flat Track has been proven not to work.
Instead, the main thing it's done, from my fan's perspective, is lost some of flat track's unique identity. Imagine you were a motorbike enthusiast, travelling through the US on holiday and heard that a big flat track race was happening just up the road and you could get along to see it.
You don't do any research; you don't know much about the sport, except what you've seen in On Any Sunday. So you just roll up and pay your money at the turnstiles and take a seat with a beer. But it's a short track race. And everyone looks like a motocrosser. No one is in the cool leathers you've seen photos of. And the bikes don't look like you expected. They all look like motocross guys. But they're not even doing jumps!
Eventually you might get into the racing, because that's still good, but the whole experience is dulled. And sport has to be an experience if it's going to reach beyond the hardcore.

I don't blame the AMA for trying, but go back through the blog and you'll see we were never fans of the idea. And neither are we Luddites, kicking against progress and digging our heels in. But pro flat track isn't growing and no one is addressing this issue, yet. The aesthetic appeal of flat track bikes and flat track riders in their leathers is one of its great strengths.

So I was pretty excited when our friend Roger F sent us links to photos of brand new framers being built around engines that haven't been used in pro flat track before. Thanks Roger!

* modified modern motocross 450s
** modern engines in custom, dirt track specific chassis, with dirt track tanks and bodywork

This first one uses Harley-Davidson's new liquid-cooled 750 Street engine. It's being built by a dealer from Maryland, Harley-Davidson of Frederick. This is an engine Jared Mees talks about in his exclusive interview in Sideburn 20.
The chassis is a traditional cradle frame, but with a twin backbone. This is a wet-sump engine, so no need for oil-in-frame.
I don't think H-D of Frederick have plans to race this actual bike, they are developing the chassis to sell for road and track.

An update on H-D of Frederick's Facebook shows the exhaust in progress.

 The project on its 19in wheels.

The amazing rear suspension linkages made by M3 Racing.

C and J Yamaha FZ-O7

The other interesting brand new framer is the Yamaha FZ-07 in a C and J chassis. 

Because Yamaha designed this twin to hang from a frame, not be surrounded by a cradle frame, the design is less traditional and, in many ways, more modern.

According to Southland Fabrications (where these shots are taken from), C and J have already shipped ten chassis with another ten coming soon.
Can it have similar success to that of the Kawasaki 650 framers?

Southland Fabrications add that:
Race Tech Suspension has shocks available already. 
Grand Prix Glass has tail sections available
Metalsports Racing wheels have wheels available.
Fred @ RaceTec Racecraft has aluminum tanks available as well.

Cory Texter was racing the Babe DeMay/ Memphis Shades Yamaha FZ framer out in Florida and Georgia before Daytona (below). He had some teething problems, but the twins season doesn't start till the end of May, so they have time to shake it down. He said it was fast straight out of the box as a stock engine.

And that's another thing, AMA, why have 10 weeks of hibernation between Daytona and the next round? I know the weather is unpredictable in the mid-west, but surely there's a better way. G

Static photo: Flat Track Live

The Speed Merchant Thresher

This is The Speed Merchant Thresher and, as far as we know, it is the first ever custom Harley-Davidson Street that wasn't created by the factory themselves. We previously posted the Harley-Davidson Steeet 750 dirt track race bikes. 

H-D gave the bike to The Speed Merchant crew to build for the huge Californian custom show, Born Free. 

This started out as the 500cc version of H-D's new entry-level, liquid-cooled street bike. 

The Thresher features...

Raised tank

Modified sub frame
Handmade alloy seat pan and tail
Custom exhaust
Ohlins shocks
Chain Drive Conversion
Custom Sprocket Cover
Handmade battery box
Speed Merchant 39mm Mid Glide Trees
H-D 48 forks with Speed Merchant Preload Adjusters
Speed Merchant radial caliper bracket with Tokico calliper
Custom Aluminum Number Plate
Speed Merchant foot pegs
Sun rims laced to HD hubs
GSX-R controls
Built by: Brandon “Brawny Built” Holstein (one of the three founders of The Speed Merchant)