Danny Lyon 'Iron Horse' interview

I found this on the Greasy Kulture blog. An interview with Danny Lyon in an old copy of Iron Horse. I'm a big Danny Lyon fan and there's some interesting stuff in here. The interviewer, David Snow, sounds like an idiot at times, carrying on about things being 'real' or not (actually if you read the post on the Greasy Kulture blog here, you'll see Snow chips in with comments, kinda bagging Danny Lyon actually. Could be truth to it, who knows? You definitely can tell when reading this that they are from two different worlds, and that Snow is looking for something he's not going to get from Lyon. It has a weird air to it. But yeah it's worth a read, there's insights into Lyon's practice here that I haven't found elsewhere, esp in relation to his college days and the Outlaws etc. I printed this and tried to read it. Don't! It's easier to read on screen... I ended up reading it in Photoshop!

Stuart's new bike

Holy shit. Stuart Geddes just bought this last week! It's a Norton P11, and I'm pretty jealous.

Hororata Swap Meet

Went to the Hororata swap meet with Dad today (that's his Sportster with my Norton there). Was gonna get out there early but had to take Nadine to work and then by the time Dad got his shit together we were really late. Din't get there until just before lunchtime-ish, so go knows what we missed out on. I thought I could take the bike because Moody was taking his Valiant out there, but then I missed him and had no way to transport anything of size! Missed Johnny Moore too (who'd told me about this event the night before) who went out pretty early. Got a few little bits and pieces though, and actually came a little bit too close to buying a BSA project! Pleased I didn't now, I've spent way too much money getting the Norton going again and need to give the wallet a rest. The Norton went great on the way out, but then started back-firing under power on the way home. It did it for a bit, I pulled over but had no tools, so kept going and it just died away. The bike was idling pretty badly, speeding up and slowing down, when we got back to town. Need to talk to John and get a lesson on tuning I think!

Nightride/motorcycle date

Took Nadine out on the town on Tuesday night. The Norton worked its magic on her. Was freezing cold, but you STILL can't beat a motorcycle date! Was pretty happy we didn't end up walking home.

Old handlebars

Since my clutch cable kept breaking, and since I found I had a brand new original length one that had come with the bike when I bought it, I decided to put the old original handlebars back on, just to see what the clutch would be like. Fuck it's like a normal clutch now! It feels great, and I can ride it around without my hand starting to fail on me. Obviously it's the angle of my clutch lever mechanism that isn't working right on the flat/drag bars. Thinking I'll leave it like this for a while – it's actually quite fun cause it feels like a new bike for a bit – but then thinking I'll look around at different clutch and front brake lever units when I wanna cafe it again. Will wait til I find rear-sets too I think. Just pretty keen to ride the Norton for a bit now, esp over the summer while I do some aesthetic work on the Triumph (really wanna make a new seat for that!).

Went for a great ride again this weekend, over to Port Levy with Johnny and James. I actually really liked the way the bike handles with these bars, I just don't like the way they look. Maybe I'm coming around to it? I couldn't handle putting the big ugly lolly-pop mirror on it and the bar-end mirror stuck out too far, so for now anyway it's sans mirrors! Might see what Deus have when I'm up there soon, although their shit is way too expensive.

Bad Mags

This showed up this week – 'Bad Mags Vol.1' by Tom Brinkmann. James Arthur put me onto Tom's website a few weeks ago, because there's a section there on outlaw biker mags. See it here. I pretty much spazzed out looking through this stuff and emailed Mr Brinkmann asking if we might reproduce this page as an article in the upcoming issue of HFoS. He wrote back and said yeah, which was cool... alhthough we're now having second thoughts for a couple of reasons, 1. James Arthur is already doing a magazine piece, and 2. Stuart pointed out my tendency to romanticize some of this stuff!

Anyway... I also ordered Tom's book, Vol.1, which has the biker mags in it. The book is actually much better because actually the introduction to the chapter (which is all you get on the website) is more about the evolution of the 1%ers/outlaw bikers/gangs. The book however has a write up on each actual magazine. All of which of course aren't 'biker mags' but many of which he's just implicating in the rise of that mythology. It's very interesting, especially if you've read Hunter S. Thompon's 'Hells Angels'.

I'm also interested in the publications, some of them, as aesthetic precedents for HFoS...

All images from Tom Brinkmann's site. Thanks Tom!

Norton Commando vs Kawasaki Z 900

Has anyone actually seen this movie ('Stone', Australia 1974)? Stuart? The protagonist (Stone I presume?) rides a Commando, whereas the gang he's trying to infiltrate all ride Kwaka 900s. See if you can guess who wins the race!? Some great shots of the Commando popping wheelies everytime he gets a chance.

Mondo Mod

Fast forward to 3:35... to the motorcycle section from Harry Novak's film 'Mondo Mod'. The silver Honda is awesome! Reminded me of Johnny's (below). The girls in bikinis!? In the dirt? Weird... not so weird when you find out that Novak made soft porn for most of the 60s.

Johnny's new bike

Johnny Moore was 'playing favourites' on Kim Hill's show on National Radio last weekend – listen to it here. Johnny used to run Goodbye Blue Monday, which was one of very few bars I liked going to here. They had great bands and Thursday nights were 'Bike Night'. You can listen to him talk about it on Kim Hill, and he also talks about his plans for a new bar for this summer (GBM being well fucked in the earthquakes). Anyway after his stint on the radio we went for a ride. I showed up at his garage and he'd just got this new bike, a 90s Honda. This is stock! It's a sweet lookin bike and my photos here don't do it any justice. Apparently they were a Japan only issue sort of thing, much like Max Lozach's Suzuki tracker. This reminded me of Max's bike a lot, although this one looks/feels a lot bigger. This is a 400 single... same engine as the GB 400. Sounds great! It was an awesome day for a ride too, you could feel summer starting to think about kicking off. We went and meet up with James Meharry, and rode over through Gebbies Pass to stop at the Wheatsheaf Tavern for a beer. Great little ride, and I took a spare clutch cable for the Norton with me this time!

2011 Christchurch British Bike Show

I've been holding off putting these up because I was waiting until I had time to try and write something interesting about it. But I've been too busy trying to get things sorted for the zine! I started this thing so I would write more but all I've been doing lately is admin! Actually that's not totally true, I've been spending a lot of time transcribing an interview I did with John Taylor-Leigh, secretary of the Norton Owners Club (there we go that's my link here... he ran the Norton stand at this show... actually both him and Alastair Mears were there when we showed up on my Norton, which was cool being that between them they've really helped me get that back on the road).