Buy Magazines, Learn Stuff

It's been a while since I used a post to remind visitors that the whole point of this blog, and the website and everything else we do, is about selling more of this gorgeous magazine.  We're magazine people.

We've been publishing the magazine since 2008 and the new issue is the best ever. Why? Good question. Well...

• We were one of only a handful of magazines in the world to be invited to ride the brand new Indian FTR750, the day after its competitive debut at the Santa Rosa Mile. 
• Michael Lock, the CEO of American Flat Track, gave us an exclusive interview on the future of the pro sport. 
• That wasn't the only exclusive, Bryan Smith, the 2016 Grand National Champ sat down with us too.
• UK-based clothing designer, Russ Gater of TSPTR wrote a fascinating story on how Peanuts helped kickstart the motocross trend in the US, give light relief to US conscripts in Vietnam and move on the women's rights movement. 
• We have tips from UK flat track champ, Alan Birtwistle on how to win a championship with next to no back-up or support.
• Road legal grasstracker as your first ever bike? If your name's Marnie and you're a 20-year-old woman from London.
• Deus Ex Machina big cheese, Julian Heppekausen writes about his Mexican 1000 off-road race. 
• Our portfolios alternate between photographers and artist/illustrators. This issue is the turn of French postermeister, Lorenzo Eroticolor. 
• British bike builders Redmax have had a few different appearances in the mag, they're back in SB27 with a Ducati 749 street tracker.
• Don Galloway gives up some of the secrets of a giant-killing Honda 350 framer.
• Regular contributor Dave Bevan rides his Royal Enfield into the DIY squatted skatepark he helped build. He took a photographer with him too
• Adam of Speed Deluxe tells us how he built a bike - frame and all - in nine days, then drove 2000 miles to enter a bike show.
• There's an update on the Sideburn Sportster Hooligan bike. 
• A shop focus on The Bike Shed, London
• Trophy Queen featuring super Skip Aksland
• Plus artwork by Toria Jaymes and Ryan Quickfall, the leftfield wisdom of Guy Martin and poetry from Pikes Peak hero Travis Newbold.

This is not a magazine chucked together with a few badly written, misspelled emails and crap phone photos. It is full of thousands and thousands of words. This isn't a pitiful excuse for journalism that just regurgitates press releases and believes everything it's told. Sideburn is a proper motorcycle magazine, one that thinks differently, searches out stories and goes its own way.

Do us a favour, while you do yourself a favour and buy a Sideburn magazine.

Joe Motocross Hits The Spot

We had no idea that Snoopy/Joe Motocross would strike such a chord with people, but we've had loads of great feedback. One of my favourite responses is from Bob Metz, in Minnesota.

It's been a while. After seeing Snoopy I just had to send a pic. Shortly after stuffing my 750 Triumph Trackmaster through the fence my daughter colored this picture! It was 1978. It has hung on the wall of my shop since. 
Until later, John Metz

Sideburn 27 includes a feature written by Russ Gater of clothing brand TSPTR. Russ discusses the impact of Peanuts on the morale of US troops in Vietnam, on equal rights for women and on the popularisation of motocross and minibike racing across the US. It's fascinating.

Reader Harley R, in the Isle of Man, loved the feature and wrote this...

Thanks Guys, that really was a great read! 

I found the Charlie Brown/ Joe Motocross piece particularly interesting as Peanuts was an integral part of my formative years and its increasing political awareness mirrored my own first steps into the big, bad world. I was too young to appreciate all the Vietnam/ WW1 parallels (living in the wrong country probably didn’t help) but those increasingly cynical/ surreal cartoons, and my parents’ increasing dislike for what had once been a “fun” daily strip, made a huge impact on me. Nearly fifty years later I can still remember every word from those comics – I just have to see the first frame and my memory fills in the rest. 
Thanks again. Harley

See for yourself what all the fuss is about BUY SIDEBURN 27. G

Sideburn 27 - Pre-Order

Sideburn 27 is due to arrive from the printer one week today, so we're taking pre-orders now.
We've done two alternative covers. Subscribers will be sent the Indian FTR750 cover.

ORDER YOURS NOW

Subscribers: this is a good time to let us know if you've changed addresses. If you don't let us know before 9am GMT on December 1, they will be sent to the address we currently have on record.

There are so many great reads in this issue, tons of words. Good words. We know all the best words. This isn't the kind of magazine that puts a few phone snaps and 85 txt msge wrds and calls it a feature. We slog our guts out and travel all over the world to research this stuff.

COVER STAR: 1. Joe Kopp and the Indian FTR750 2. Joe Motocross
BIKES: Indian FTR750; Road-legal grasstracker; Ducati 749 street tracker; Panther-framed Honda XL350; BSA 250 framer
EVENTS: Dirt Quake Harley race 
HOW TO: Win a title as a one-man band with Alan Birtwistle
PEOPLE: Bryan Smith; American Flat Track boss, Michael Lock; Joe Motocross and Charlie Brown; Skip Aksland
PORTFOLIO: The art of Lorenzo Eroticolor
ADVENTURE: the Mexican 1000 on a Triumph T120; wasteland ruling on a Royal Enfield

ORDER YOURS NOW

We are offering 4-issue subs with a free Sideburn x Holy Freedom neck tube (RRP £18.50)

We also have 8-issue subs with a free Spark Eagle T-shirt (as worn by Guy Martin in China on the telly)

Or simply buy Sideburn 27 for £6 plus postage. What's that? A couple of service station coffees? Support the independents.