Sideburn 34: Out Now

We venture into the deserts of California, Mexico and South Africa to test the mettle of our contributors. Old bikes are ridden not hidden, and inappropriate machinery is raced through 1000 miles of wilderness  proving the adage that it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

SB34 also features McQueen's very own Huskie; a new regular column from Death Spray Custom, an interview with the toughest woman in flat track; follows a group of female high school students building a budget race bike and serves up an LSD-fueled report from Wheels and Waves El Rollo race. Yes, really.

BUY SIDEBURN 34

COVER: Hayden Roberts and his Triumph TR6 desert sled
BIKES: Triumph TR6 desert sled; Harley Sportster 883 Baja racer; Steve McQueen's On Any Sunday Husqvarna 400 Cross; High School project Honda CB160 flat tracker; Survivor Customs CCM Rotax racers;
PEOPLE: Sandriana Shipman; John Harrison; Chuck Joyner
INTERVIEW: Johnny Lewis
HOW TO: Build Your Own Flat Track
BLUEPRINT: Jawa 500 DT Type 890
SHOP: Rebels Alliance
EVENTS: X Games; Wheels and Waves; Sons of Speed banked oval racing; Vancouver Flat Track, Pemberton, BC;
ADVENTURE: 1000 miles through Baja on a Sportster; deep into South Africa on Royal Enfield 500s;
PAGES: 116

BUY SIDEBURN 34

BUY SIDEBURN 34

Jimmy's 50 Quid Jawa

From James in Devon, UK.

A few photos of the latest project for the blog maybe. 
Bought it standard off a guy at work for £50, hacked it up one evening and unseized it with a block of wood and a hammer and this is the result! 
It's slow as shit at the minute, needs a rebore and pistons I think, my mate on the Bullet had to push me along at anything over 45! 
Worked well on the beach though...
Cheers 
James

Jawa Flat Tracker

Anybody know anything about this bike? (Motorkáři is a Czech moto forum and I can't read the original watermark underneath). BP

Geoff's Jawa & Tiddler Turner

From Geoff D in Lincolnshire. I love old speedway bikes' asymmetrical bars.

As it was a nice day in Lincs today I took a few pics of my Jawa that may be of interest. 

The Tiddler Turner story [in Sideburn 20] was great and brought back a lot of memories. I put a link to Sideburn on the Speedway Friends facebook page where it got a lot of interest as he was a very popular rider. I saw Ian ride many times including the meeting I've attached photos to. 

The engine on the Jawa hasn't been started since a rebuild but I do plan to give it a spin at Scunthorpe. I just need an original throttle and it's about ready. 

I also have Shawn Moran's 1990 World Championship (which he was later disqualified from) runners up GM which i'm putting back to how it would have been on that season. It won't be concours as i also intend to give it a spin when it's finished. I'm trying to get all the correct stickers at the moment and there are a lot to get because he plastered it with sponsors stickers! When it's finished i'll send a pic. 
Cheers Geoff

Hmmm...

"Do you think it is possible to turn this two stroke Jawa CZ 175 drudge I have access to, into something off the meat rack like this Yam????. I thought it could be rad but > > > > > > i'm not sure whether to proceed or not ha ha.
happy new year CFH!

UPDATE: Strangely, I just noticed in MCN that Jawa 350 twins (shown below) are being imported into the UK. They cost, what I think is, a whopping £3799. If you're still interested go to http://www.jawamotorcycles.co.uk GI

It's not what you ride, it's how you ride it (17)

Jawa. Thanks to Jan-Willem for the photo.

Odd Ball

Temptations for sale in Texas on Craiglist (via Throttle Yard). My faves being the 1/4 pint '62 Jawa - how sublime is that tank!'66 Sears Allstate.And the '65 Cotton. BP

Big Lake Speedway

Thanks to J-W for Czech video update with Euro-ROCK accompaniment. BP

He's gonna get you!

My good friend Matej kicking up some dirt in czech republic.
Olle

This looks great. Give us more details, please. G

Another visit to the Barber

More from Dan Alexander's visit to Barber. Some beauties here. G

ADDITION: Krook Street asked about the Honda. It's one of the legendary GNC-winning RS750s. Read more about it at the AMA Hall of Fame

Jawa on ice

Josh sent this. Don't know abut the FT500 being a nice bike. We're struggling to prettify our Project FT, but on the site I found these great photos. Love the bar muffs. Anyway, Josh said....

Hey I thought you might wanna post on da blog. Pretty nice FT for sale here in the states. Will ship.
Giannis's SR, that I bought, went into winter storage. My girlfriend just bought a kz250 that's gonna be a fun project.
Josh

Billy Hamill's Joker Machine Land Speeder

This is a follow-up on the Jawa Land Speeder we told you about back in August.

My name is Geoff Arnold; I am with Joker Machine in the United States.
We manufacture over 600 parts for motorcycles; some of them are for dirt track and speedway racing. I am impressed with the quality of your magazine and have been checking it out with great interest, good job. I just wanted to send you a couple of photos of a bike we built using a long track speedway bike. We took it to Bonneville with our buddy Billy Hamill who is: 2006 Speedway World Champion and former Cradley Heath Speedway great. Billy also rode for Coventry and The Wolverhampton Wolves over his 17 years in England. At Bonneville we were able to go 144.2 mph, which was pretty good but not good enough as the record is 145.2 mph. Talk about being gutted.
Anyway.please contact me if you would like anymore information.
Thank You,
Geoff Arnold


Joker Machine's sponsored speedway rider, Ricky Wells

Jawa Land Speeder

Look at this fantastical thing! Thanks Dave.

I thought you may be interested in featuring this rather insane speedway derived land-speed bike on your blog. The bones of it appear to be a modified JRM (Jawa) long-tracker, featuring some rather cool fabrication work by Joker Machine.
The pilot will be none other than 1996 Speedway World Champion, and all round top dude Billy Hamill.
I'm sure that it will provide inspiration to custom builders, especially the fantastic proportions from the side view!
Keep up the great work with the magazine and blog - looking forward to issue 4.
Cheers, Dave Curtis

I was wrong about Jason Crump

When the Speedway World Championship used to be shown on Channel 4, and God I miss it, this Aussie used to win all the time. He was bad-tempered. And he did a daft clenched-fist win celebration, like he was trying to punch a cow's udders. I didn't like him. I liked Mark Loram. And Hans Anderson. And Leigh Adams. And Ryan Sullivan. In fact, I liked anyone but Jason Crump. Even Tomasz Gollob.
But a couple of weeks ago I went up to Sheffield to do a feature on old Speedway bikes that were being racing at a benefit meeting for badly injured speedway riders. And Crumpy was there, racing for free, in a week he will have already raced at four meetings in three different countries, with another four or even five meetings the following week. And he was majestic.
I got him all wrong. Sorry Crumpy.
Photo: Rory Game Cheers Rory.

Alan Bellham's Speedway Service

On the way back from riding Boastie's bike at King's Lynn I called in at Alan Bellham's Speedway Service in Terrington St Clements. This place is astonishing. It looks like a sex shop from the outside. Inside there are rows of brand new Jawa complete bikes, rolling chassis and glass cabinets full of parts and riding kit. And there's fantastic art on the walls.
Alan is all business. You don't go in to browse. It's way off the beaten track. You go to buy parts. Boastie, his Dad and Andy were there too. Every UK short tracker needs to know this place. They stock good lanyard killswitches, hot shoes, a variety of speedway boots...
I dropped off my hot shoe for hard-facing. Looking forward to picking it up and having another snoop around.

Jawa mechanic

Photo from Metro.

I remember going to see the Peterborough Panthers race the Poole Pirates back in 2001 at Poole and one of the Polish riders had his wife spanner for him. She wasn't half-bad either. A touch butch perhaps. Not my type. Can't remember his name. Or maybe it was the Swede Mikael Max. Am I rambling? GI

Project LTO

Found this bike on a late night blog jump from one comment to the next site. Whoever set up eBlogger was pretty bloody clever to think of that. I love seeing a comment that has been left, then clicking through and finding that person also has a blog.
This fella is in Sweden and his blog is called DP Race Tech. His project is called LTO - Left Turn Only. It is pretty bloody hardcore, because he wants this to be a road bike. !? etc. It has a Jawa speedway engine, so one gear, permanently engaged, I reckon. If it's a grasstrack motor, it has two gears. The frame looks so good with the little chopper tank.
Good on him. I reckon LTO might end up meaning Long Time 'Ospitalised, though. Swedes are brilliant.

'Some have asked "when will LTO hit the streets", "is the project dead", "are you a chicken" etc. so I guess it's time to show some of the progress. Right now I feel the overall look is right on the $$$, Speedway but not really, don't wan't to do it the other way around since another Swede has already done that, the handlebars feel just right and finally tyres have been decided on, the rear is a 4.0-19" Avon Safety wich looks a bit fat but I like it, front was harder, there aren't a buch of 23" tyres to choose from, I don't want Speedway rubber and not the fat new Avon 23" so I went with bicycle, YES it's a Nokian tire from a Kronan, love the look but the handling!?!?!?! we'll see. What's left is some welding on the rear frame & tank, I have to finalize the decision on the rear brake so ISR can start making it, right now I like a sprocket brake with a 6-piston caliper if it can be made as large as 72 tooth. Then it's off to powdercoat and paint.'

Death Rattle

Mixing a methanol-gargling Jawa speedway engine, between the wars hillclimber chic, 70s disco font and religious iconography, Urban from Sweden has created one of best custom bike's Sideburn's seen in ages. It's not derivative, like so many bikes being built out there, but brings something new to the table. Urban is a genius when it comes to bike building (his copper-plated JAP/Husqvarna is a favourite too) and we think he's a sculptor or some kind of artist. We want to visit Urban, Marcus and the Belladonna freaks in the hot Stockholm summer. Smorgasbord!