A pile of Barry Sheene

Inspired by Gary's Notebooks and Tickets posts, I dug under the bed for these microcassettes (remember them?) from the three and a bit years I spent editing Barry Sheene's monthly column for Bike magazine between 2000 and 2003. I'd call him up at his house on the Gold Coast in Australia a couple of times a month and we'd have a chat, which would end up as the 1000-word column. I'd sometimes fax him possible ideas ahead of time and, quite rightly, he'd studiously ignore them. Much of it is fairly straightforward stuff, but there were certain outbursts that were never fit for publication and some funny moments. One went something like this:

Sheene: ... yeah, and so... er...
[PAUSE]
MP: Barry?
[LONG PAUSE]
MP: Barry? Are you still there?
Sheene: Eh?
MP: You were saying...
[PAUSE]
MP: Barry?
[HUGE PAUSE]
MP: Barry??
Sheene: Oh, yeah, sorry Mick, there was this gorgeous couple of birds on the telly. Right, where were we?

I keep meaning to transfer the tapes to digital, so I at least have a back-up, but seven and a half years after Barry died of cancer, I've still not got round to it. Mr 'Get On With It' himself would be appalled. MP

When GI met Valentino Rossi

Do you ever get so excited about an idea that you can't talk properly because your mouth is grinning so much? Well, that's what happened when Michele the editor of GQ Italia rang to say he'd like me to interview Valentino Rossi for the cover story of his next issue. Er... OK!

I flew into Milan, met up with Michele, then drove four hours to Pesaro, just ten minutes from Rossi's home in Tavullia. The next day we went to a great photo studio and prepared everything. There was a whole team there: Michele, James the photographer, Amber his assistant, two lighting guys, the fashion editor, the assistant fashion editor, a make-up fella, a driver and me. Oh, and two catering staff.

There must have 80 different outfits, 40 pairs of shoes and boots, 100 ties, 40 belts and three fake moustaches. The vast majority of it remained unused. Valentino turned up 45 mins late. This is pretty much on time for him. He did the photos over the next two hours, then we carried out the hour-long exclusive interview. Mat Oxley told me this was quite a big deal because VR stopped doing one-to-one interviews before the season started and Yamaha cancelled all the ones he had booked in because (I'm guessing) they didn't want him talking up Ducati (the only thing any of the bike mags would want to talk about). But Michele and Valentino go way back and he agreed to do this.

The cover line translates (roughly) as:

'You're not having my scalp!

When you are hurt and young can smell your blood, they get the courage to attack you'

The magazine comes out on the newsstands tomorrow. Go buy ten. He's quite rude about a certain Spaniard.
Behind the scenes photos below. GI
UPDATE: I should remind everyone that Valentino gave us permission to run an exclusive English version of a story he wrote for GQ Italy. It's in Sideburn 4.

En route. Check out the shadow.
Valentino in a smart Gucci suit being shot by James Mollison. More about him at a later date.
I don't know for sure if these are Valentino's two favourite magazines, but I think it's safe to assume.
A present for VR.
VR's stuff. Lid, one-off Ray-Bans, Blues Brother keyring. iPhone.

'Okay, but no tongues.'

Circle F frames

We put up shots of Luca's bikes from Verona, and wondered if anyone knew about Circle F frames. National number (and the de facto GNC champion - on singles and twins combined) Sammy Halbert got in touch to say...

'I was just reading your blog and noticed you were looking for info on Circle F racing frames. They were based out of Bellingham, WA. I believe they have been out of business since around 2003 or so. former national #10 Dan Stanley used to race them all the time him and Brian Billings of BBRP always used them they were a good single shock frame for Rotaxs.'

UPDATE: Shocking even me with his nerdiness, Ben said he had these shots (below) of a stripped Circle F (we think) in a file, but can't remember where he found them. The bolt on sub-frame is the way to go. If you really stack the bike you can just bolt another on.

Great Clunkers follow-up

When we first started the blog we'd look at others, specifically Max Schaaf's 4Q Conditioning, and say 'Wow, he gets a lot of comments and we don't get any.' We even had our patron saint put out this plea. But now we get plenty of comments, and some are amazing. The fastest man on two wheels, Rocky Robinson, left a comment on the post about himself a couple of weeks ago. Then Donald from South Africa commented on Great Clunkers, and emailed this in. Cheers Donald.
The bikes look very similar, and must be the same bike, but the one in Donald's photos is obviously a sprinter, so I still don't understand why the original clunker had knobblies.

"I left a comment on your "clunkers" post regarding the first photo [The comment was 'That first one looks a bit like Burt Munro's Velocette, apart from the knobblies. I've got photos, I'll send them to you. You can see both of Burt's bikes, the Indian and the Velo, at E. Hayes & Sons Hardware in Invercargill, New Zealand].
Here's a couple of photos of what I believe it is. I was in NZ in 07 and travelled a couple of days out of my way to see Burt Munro's hometown, Invercargill. I was disappointed with the museum where I had to pay a $10 entry fee to see a bunch of props from the movie "The Worlds Fastest Indian", and I couldn't even take photos! There was nothing original of Burt's, mostly just random bikes that had no connection to him. Later that day while sitting in a cafe with my girlfriend and perusing a local bike mag, I read that Burt's bikes were at the hardware store down the street from us. E. Hayes & Son's (I hope I got that right) was a Velo and Indian dealer and good friends of Burtg. They had his bikes on display among the lawnmowers and garden tools! We rushed over there and I was allowed to take photos and even twist the throttle on the original record making
Indian! I much prefered the Velocette, I wish that had been featured in the film as well!

Follow the link to my Flickr page
Regards, Donald Hosier, SA Motorcycles, South Africa

Also, Hugo Wilson from Classic Bike emailed to say this about the original Great Clunkers post...
'Bike in the top picture is a fairly dramatically hacked about with Velocette, probably a 350 MAC (I'd have to count the fins on the barrel to check) that is even more bastardised than mine. Second one is, I think a Harley. Third an Indian. Bottom one an Enfield.'

Keep the comments coming.