Monday, December 1, 2008

Vintage motorbikes by Ridley

Here's a cool vintage bike for the garage or golf course — the Ridley Vintage Motorbike. Ridley is the company that makes automatic transmission street cruisers. Yeah, I know... I don't understand that either but whatever floats your boat is alright with me.

Anyway, I think these are pretty cool little bikes. They're expensive, though. The frame kit costs $1,440. The engine is another $560, for a whopping total of $2,000 for a 70cc bicycle. Well, I guess it's not that much. Decent mountain bikes cost $2,000 these days. And they don't have motors...

The Ridleys aren't quite as cool as these board track racer mopeds with the Whizzer engines, but still a pretty cool thing to have around the house.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Old school pitbike races - SL70 and XR75

Recently my old school friend Ronnie Welch sent me a bunch of pictures from TVRC's annual "King of the Ant Hill" race in Texas. If you were under the misguided belief that pitbike races were some new phenomenon, well, let me assure you that the only thing truly new in dirt biking is the backflip.

There were plenty of cool XR75s, including some single-shock models using aftermarket swingarms. But Ronnie was representin' for all the Po' Boys who had to ride 'em like they came from the factory. His beater SL70 was sporting nothing more than a Green Weenie filter and a DG-style megaphone.

Wish I had been there. I have two SL70 project bikes sitting around the house here somewhere if I can ever get back to them...

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Vintage tall tales from dirt bike legend Super Hunky

Would you like to see more classic dirt bike stories like this? Let's see if we can build a little momentum to get Rick "Super Hunky" Sieman to make his own "MX Files" video. Please click the [More...] link and post your comment in support.

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Saturday, August 23, 2008

Terrific vintage racing video from 2008 Nostalgia Scramble

Here's some top-notch racing action from the 2008 Nostalgia Scramble at Kendal, Cumbria, England last weekend. The rider in yellow is 67-year-old Terry Challinor. Found via RacerX and artist Rob Kinsey.

 

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Tribute to motorcyle pioneer Don Jones

Motorcycle pioneer Don Jones passed away this past week. Terry Good, of MXWorksBikes.com, has posted this very nice Don Jones tribute page with a variety of personal photos that Don sent him several years ago.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Italian police riding in formation - very cool old school precision

This '60s-era video shows an Italian police squad riding in some very cool formations. Nice.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Can-Am MX3

This article went up on the Canadian Design Resource blog today. It's a little historical retrospective on the 1977 Can-Am MX3 250. The article notes the passing of Can-Am, as Bombardier moved away from recreational vehicles to transit equipment and later into aircraft manufacturing. In 1983, Bombardier licensed the brand and outsourced development and production to Armstrong / CCM of Lancashire, England. 1987 was the final year for Can-Am.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Surface Guard Tape

Here's an interesting product I came across recently from ISC Racers Tape — Surface Guard Tape. According to the company it's "a bullet-proof, 8 mil clear, urethane paint protection tape. You cannot puncture this tape with a pen." It has a semi-permanent adhesive and protects against UV, extreme temperatures, and automotive solvents.

I've been using a product called Snider's Paint Guard from Aerostich to protect the paint on my Guzzi from saddlebag rubs and such. It's a clear plastic film that adheres like static film. It work pretty good, but it's hard to apply to compound curves. But it removes easily. I don't know how well the Surface Guard removes after it's been on a few weeks or months - especially if it's been in the sun a lot. But I'm going to get a roll and see. I can see how this would be really good to protect the frame from rub marks around the footpegs after you've spent a few hundred dollars for a nice powder coat job.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Cool old-school motocross art

CZ aficionado and webmaster over at CZechPoint, Reese Dengler, posted this reminder on the Cousin Weedy Yahoo list:

http://www.petr-trojan.ic.cz/

Check out Petr Trojan's moto-cross art at the web page above. He's added some new prints of some old Czech moto-heros.

Petr has very nice art of motocross, speedway, and rally car racing, including some charcoal renderings of modern MX riders. But I really like his '60s and '70s-era motocross and scrambles work. Very nice. He says he will have prints available soon. I hope he does.

Friday, June 6, 2008

1980s hometown MX book - "Holeshot: How to Go Fast and Win from Start to Finish"

I was reorganizing all my old motorcycle books and magazines today and came across this old book from one of my hometown racers - Kyle Kilgore. Kyle was a couple of years older than me but his brother Kevin and I were in the same HS class. Other than Gary Bailey and Carl Shipman's 1974 "How to Win Motocross" it's one of the few books I owned on racing technique from back in those days.

But Holeshot was a unique book (published 1982 by American Ventures Marketing.) It was all about the mental game. In fact, it's completely about the mental game. The first chapter is titled "Mind Over Motorcycle". I don't know of any other book that ever took this approach to the sport. There's one chapter on basic physical training, circa 1980, but the rest is all about the head game. Other chapters cover looking within yourself, finding internal drive, persistence, mental targeting, and training your mind to win. Looking back, it's cool to see how far ahead this little "nobody" book really was.

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