lundi 31 décembre 2012
TRIUMPH T120 BOBBER
These days, you don’t often see hardtails getting thrashed around dirt tracks. But this Triumph T120-based machine is not only a daily rider, but also throws up rooster tails on a regular basis.
The bike is owned by a French BMX rider who now runs a surf-and-moto shop in Toulouse. Christophe wanted a hardtail Triumph bobber and was looking towards the USA for the build. Then Vincent Prat of Southsiders MC intervened, and suggested that the bike could be built in France.
In short order, the motor, forks and hubs were sourced from a Triumph T120. After a rebuild by French engine guru Henri Lao Martinez, local custom builder Momo installed the motor into a frame fabricated by Factory Metal Works in the USA.
Everything else extraneous was stripped from the bike, and as befits a machine built for “go”, the rubber is eminently practical: Dunlop K70s on 18” and 19” rims.
Head over to the Southsiders MC site to see more glorious images, including the Triumph in action.
Photography © Guerry & Prat Images.
from bikeexif.com
YAMAHA XS400 BY HOLD FAST MOTORS
The Yamaha XS400 is a hell of a motorcycle, it was first released in 1977 and it came pre-fitted with luxuries like adjustable rear shock absorbers, self-cancelling turn signals and an automatic petcock. The punchy 392cc parallel twin produces 36hp and feeds that to the rear wheel via a 6-speed transmission and chain drive.
This particular XS400 was built by Andy Hull over at Hold Fast Motors, Andy found the bike for sale by a farmer who’d been letting his kids play on it and as a result, it looked like it’d been picked up and tossed around by an F5.
He decided to strip the bike back to its constituent parts and rebuilt it from scratch, the engine needed a thorough going over. He wanted to give the bike a little additional ground clearance so he moved the rear shock mounts down a few inches, he then added a set of vintage motocross handlebars and a minimalist tachometer above the headlight.
The finished bike was then handed over to the talented pinstripper Jeremy Pedersen of Relic Kustoms, he added some tasteful pinstripes and the Hold Fast Motors logo on the side of the tank. That handsome leather battery surround was handmade by Nick Pedersen, it adds a nice warm tone to the colour scheme and eliminates the unsightly clutter often caused by the electrics.
You can visit Hold Fast Motors here to see more of Andy’s work, we’ll be keeping an eye on him and will feature more of his work as it rolls out of the garage.
from SILODROME
HYOSUNG KARION '07
Spek Modifikasi :
- Body custom by STUDIO MOTOR Custom Bike
- Painting by KOMET STUDIO
- Velg depan 3.00X18 + Ban Shinko SR428 130/80-18
- Velg belakang 4.50X18 + Ban Shinko 180/80-14
- Upside Down Yamaha R6 2009
- Monoshock Ohlins Aprilia RSV-1000
- Master & Kaliper depan Tokico
- Cakram depan PSM
- Raiser stang custom
- Stang Pro Taper
- Lampu depan Aftermarket
- Lampu belakang & lampu sen Aftermarket
- Oil Cooler Satria F-150
- Karburator Keihin PE28
- Knalpot custom by Jet Hot
Salam,
STUDIO MOTOR Custom Bike
Harley-Davidson 'Redhot' Cross Bones by Roberto Rossi
from Twowheelsblog
The 2011 Harley-Davidson Softail Cross Bones (FLSTSB) is the last H-D model to come with a standard Springer front end which, in combination with the fat tires (130 mm at the front, 200 mm at the rear), provides this motorcycle with an image that’s quite reminiscent of the bobbers of the 50s. With that in mind, it is just logical to expect that the customizations of this model would just follow the same style.
Roberto Rossi, a customizer from the Italian town of Mantua, introduces his interpretation of this 2009 Cross Bones, aptly re-dubbed ‘Redhot Bones‘. The first relevant modification concerns the rear, where the 17×6 rim is replaced by a 16-inch one fitted with a 5-inch Firestone ANS tyre. The same tyre has been used for the front too.
Gone are the standard mudguards, though the one at the front comes back properly cut and polished. At the rear instead we get sheet metal shaped by hand to resemble the sporty tail of the Laverda 500 Formula, an old 500 cc racer that the now defunct Italian manufacturer introduced in 1978 to promote its own trophy. The rear section is enriched with fine leather courtesy of Connolly Luxury Leathergoods Limited, the same company that took care of the upholstery on the Rolls Royce Phantom II of the 1930s. The original fat bob tank got replaced with a classic 8-liter peanut one with electric pump, borrowed from a modern Forty-Eight and embellished with the graphics of the 1972 H-D XRTT racer. Nice fishtail exhaust tips complete the looks of this awesome special bike.
dimanche 30 décembre 2012
THE RAG & BONE MAN.
For our debut Make Your Bones film we check in with Paul Firbank, AKA ‘The Rag & Bone Man’. Paul spends his days locked deep in his man cave creating beautiful objects from the dregs of East London’s scrappers.
He sorts and sifts through the scrap yards, railway arch grease shops and the thrift markets finding the remains of vintage engineered machinery and outmoded modern metal parts that make up scraps of British industrial history. Paul assembles these shiny unwanted fragments into new playful designs. Restoring, welding, turning, stripping, polishing and lacquering he develops each piece responding to the materials he has found.
All pics theragandboneman.co.uk
from http://makeyourbones.com
PETROL – FOOD – BEER
This wonderful short film tells the tale of three British men who decided, in the early ’90s, to climb onto their £500 motorcycles and ride them around the world. With no preparation, forethought, research or very much money. And they did it.
It took 14 months and they saw 44 countries on their journey, the film has left me with that slightly wistful feeling we all get when we want to do something crazy. Just like this.
Via MakeYourBones.com
Featuring HorizonsUnlimited.com
origine du Paris-Dakar : The Mint 400 Great American Off-Road Race
FROM goodsparkgarage.com
Introduced as a two-buggy race in 1967, the Mint 400 quickly became known as one of the toughest desert races in America. Its $100,000 prize, its celebrity competitors, the Girls of The Mint 400, and the always-challenging terrain helped catapult the Great American Race into icon status.
Around 1961, the Mint Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas was purchased by Del Webb, a real estate developer who hobnobbed with folks like Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Howard Hughes. Webb’s money and history go way back to WWII days, when his construction company landed many military contracts (one being an internment camp for over 17,000 Japanese-Americans in Arizona). In 1945, he and two partners bought the New York Yankees for $2.8 million. In 1960, his retirement community project, Sun City, AZ, made the cover of Time magazine for its success.
Webb’s PR guy for the Mint Hotel, Norm Johnson, was inspired to create the Mint 400 after reading about the Baja 1000 in a magazine. He thought it’d be a good way to draw attention to the Mint’s annual deer hunting contest in 1967 (of which the grand prize was a dune buggy). Two racers were hired to compete in a 600-mile race to The Sahara Casino, which was the Mint’s sister-casino built by Webb. It was a success. The next year, a multitude of participants were invited to race a 400-mile loop in the Vegas desert, but many of the 115 buggies and motorcycles succumbed to the challenging conditions. Dust overwhelmed the racers. Even Parnelli Jones’ Bronco seemed doomed after a few breakdowns. A Mint executive staffer deemed the event a disaster until Earl Thompson, president of the Sahara Casino and competitor in the 400, drove in saying, “‘This is the greatest God**** thing I’ve ever seen!” (See the article where this was mentioned.)
400cc Huskies at the start of the Mint 400 in 1970. Pic found at www.dirtbike.off-road.com
Another chapter in the Mint 400′s storied past includes Hunter S. Thompson, who was sent out on assignment by Sports Illustrated in 1971 to write photo captions for the event. During his experience in Las Vegas, he ended up writing a 2500-word piece that was rejected by Sports Illustrated. The manuscript was picked up by Rolling Stone magazine and later evolved into his most famous novel, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.”
Hunter S. Thompson sits in his “White Whale” in Las Vegas, 1971.
Photo by Doug Sutton at the 1971 Mint 400. Found at www.offroadaction.ca
As the legitimacy of the race grew, so did the purse. From no more than $30,000 in its first couple years, the prize rose to $100,000 in 1975. The number of celebrity participants rose, too, including racing royalty and headlining entertainers. Parnelli Jones, Al Unser, Rick Mears, Mickey Thompson, Ivan Stewart, Walker Evans and many more racers from different disciplines competed along with big screen stars like James Garner and Steve McQueen.
In 1972, Mint Hotel exec K. J. Howe upped the promotional ante by creating “The Girls of the Mint 400.” Hundreds of contestants would be pared down to ten girls, then a final five would be chosen to be the Mint 400 Girls. Several would go on to appear in TV shows, commercials, and Playboy Magazine. Two you may have heard of? How ’bout Vanna White (below left) and Wonder Woman herself, Lynda Carter (below right).
What inspired the writing of this article and our hunt for pictures of the Mint 400, was when we came across Bill Eppridge’s photo, taken in September of 1971 for LIFE magazine (first pic of this article). Seeing all those ol’ bikes bouncing across the dusty, unforgiving terrain made us want to grab a pair of old lineman boots, a metal-tanked Husky and go back in time to that very moment.
Things changed after the glory days of desert racing in the late 60s and early 70s. Motorcycles were phased out of the event in 1977. Webb sold the Mint Hotel in 1988, signalling the end of a two-decade run of the Mint 400. If you get bummed when special races like this meet their demise, you might happy to know Mint 400 was revived in 2008. The current organizers try to include and respect the classic attributes that made ”The Great American Off-Road Race” such an icon of American racing. (Click here to learn more about the modern day Mint 400.)
Click here for a nice li’l vid showing a timeline of the Mint 400.
A Fremont Street parade to kickoff of the Mint 400. Pic found at www.gaming.unlv.edu
Penton offered a 6-speed 2-stroke 355cc model called a Mint 400. Pictured is a 1974. It weighed under 225lbs with 43HP.
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