Issue no.6 of Sideburn magazine arrived in my inbox, together with another older issue I didn’t have. I really love this magazine. The design, the photography, the stories, and the custom bike builds are all top class.

When it comes to bikes, for me it’s all about performance, tricked out DH bikes, dirt jumpers or solid BMX’s. I like going flat out, going everywhere and doing jumps and no dis-respect to guys who ride em as they must be pretty fun anyway, but you just cant do that properly on fixed gear bikes.

Whilst I can and do appreciate the simplicity and design of them when they are done well, fixed gear bikes just never cut it for me. Too much style over substance. If I wanted a minimal bike I would go the BMX route so at least i could do decent size  drops, jumps and bunny hops without breaking the wheels or frame. Jumping and tricks on fixed gears bikes just looks dumb to me. Sorry. They just aint made for that. The bikes do however often LOOk good, and that brings me to this site. Basically lots of tricked out fixed gear bikes and fairly untricked out chicas, but its pretty cool anyway. Just for looking. www.thefixfixfix.com/fix

Now this is some minimal shit I can dig. Mad skills:

http://southsiders-mc.blogspot.com

Antonio Cairoli took the revolutionary KTM 350 SX-F machine (designed by Kiska!) to success yesterday in Brazil and wrapped up his fourth World Title in a nailbiting finish.
I watched it live on freecaster last night and it was pretty exciting. Cairoli came from 4th and was catching on Desalle and pressing for the lead when he went down, dropping him back to 4th again. He got back up and put on a massive charge, overtaking back up to 2nd and then closing a couple of seconds every lap on Desalle. With around a 5 second gap and 3 laps left, it looked like the race would come down to the line, when disaster struck Desalle as his Suzuki suffered from a mechanical failure, handing the win, and the title to Cairoli and KTM. Stoked!

“I didn’t expect to win here but its always nice to be world champion as soon as possible,” Tony said. “I didn’t take any risks and I was also a bit lucky that Desalle stopped, but that is racing. for sure I am happy with the new bike. I never had to stop for any technical problem and that is really important if you want to be constant. I love this bike and the whole team, they have helped me a lot!”

Tony has enjoyed a remarkable season on the new bike. He rode it to victory in its first ever appearance in the pre-season race at Star Mantova Italy and has continued to be in the forefront of the competition throughout the season. The bike that was developed in close cooperation with 10-times world champion and Red Bull KTM’s team boss stefan Everts has proved itself to be a light and very agile rival to the more powerful MX1 450 machines.

Cairoli has so far won seven GPs and 13 of 26 individual motos in the 2010 season.

2nd video I made at Kiska for KTM about the process of creating the KTM 125 street bike. This time focused on the Research and development behind it. They let me have the run of their incredibly well equipped workshops and test centers in Mattighofen to try and capture some of what goes into making sure the bikes are up to the high quality expected of KTM. Mad tech!

The Zaeta 530 is Graziano Rossi’s (Valentino’s dad) take on the perfect bike for bar hopping and flat track racing. This is the production version of the Ouroboros Zaeta prototype we saw last summer, “Ouroboros” seems to have been dropped from its name. The Zaeta’s looks will be left up to the customer, who can spec any color for the paint, chassis and other components, as well as the style of the seat unit, but the mechanical components are set in stone. An Italian-made 530cc single-cylinder engine fills up the steel cradle frame and is held up by relatively weedy suspension components. They’re all that’s necessary as the whole thing weighs just 115kg/253lbs (wet). Graziano and his business partner’s are serious about the Zaeta’s oval track credentials, included in the €13,500 price tag are two private racing lessons with a champion tracker.
Via Hell for leather..

Via flickr..

Pics and video of the event at Ducati’s flickr page.

My friend MP who used to work here designing real bikes for KTM, is now over in Tokyo designing toy bikes for Honda : )

He modeled the bike on the wrenchmonkeys CB750. Looks pretty wicked actually.

The real wrenchmonkeys version.

Martin‘s custom Tamiya toy version.

When my son gets old enough that he doesnt want to eat the pieces, this might well be one of the first toys! Great for learning how a bike goes together.

Super classy 1983 Honda CB900 F2 Bol d’Or custom rebuild from http://www.caferacerdreams.com

I saw this bike on www.bikeexif.com which is a really great site for custom built bikes. Sign up to their email list to get a new bike delivered to your inbox each day. I really like the depth of info they give on each bike too. Quality website.

Roland Sands designs and builds some of the best custom bikes out there. Also takes some pretty cool photos and has a frequently updated blog. Well worth a look.

Ok, they are onto God number 4 already now, but I missed this one and thought it was so brilliant it needed posting. He does look well confident, but then he is carrying a sword so I guess that’s to be expected.

Not that we’re fickle, but we’re onto our third god already and this time we’ve turned Sikh. I saw a Sikh fella riding his Honda through London the other day. He had his turban and goggles on. It’s a great look. They’re the only riders in the UK not legally obliged to wear a helmet. And no, I haven’t learned to bike-surf yet. I’m going to try on the FT500 before I take it to bits. I reckon this fella has a sticking throttle to get this much style going on. I can only imagine the state of the road beneath him. GI

Via Sideburnmag.

My friend Benny’s girlfriend Claudia came to the park with us on the weekend and snuck around taking photos. Some of them came out pretty good. I’m in the turquoise shirt, Benny’s in Black.

I really hate this word as much as my mum does, as it seems to be the only adjective in some peoples repertoire, but today was awesome! I took this photo by mistake.

These guys are brilliant at putting together custom, refurbished, improved bikes.

http://www.deus.com.au

http://www.deusbaliblog.co.id/