From Roger F (who regularly finds the good stuff). Even assuming the early section of this film is cranking slightly faster than it should, they are flying. Check out riders with the turned-down bars. You can see one best when the riders line up at 2:38. G

These guys are really hauling and the quality is pretty good, although I don't know any of the riders. There's two locations this may have been. My guess is the present harness racing track in Northfield, but wasn't there another "Northfield" half-mile further south on old Rt8 just before Cuyahoga Falls on the right? Closer to Akron? Anyway, this was in our backyard when all we know was country....r

- worth over £12. Or a pair of binoculars.
Under the lino of his kitchen that he is re-doing, a friend of mine found a yellowed 1975 newspaper. Alongside an advert for a great deal on MFI fitted kitchens was this spot-the-ball competition. Rather than the usual George Best bicycle kick - with erased ball, it's the Rollerball oval minus the deadly steelball - Read, if you havent already, the wonderfully high-brow deconstuction of the cult classic by Alex Cox in Sideburn #3. BP

The sweet old biddy that lived next door to me just passed away. Her son said we could come around and take a token, before the rest was cleared for charity. Her long-gone husband used to work as an engineer for Britsh Aerospace on Concord, and previous to that on the wonderful white elephant of the Bristol Brabazon. In his DIY tool kit I found these wonderful sheet-steel goggles. The cross eye-covers swing open. Anybody know what they are for? BPUPDATE:
Thanks to Jeremy Melling for sending in this photo - my goggles are exactly the same. Both he and Chris EXIF recognized what they were. It makes perfect sense too as Filton in the North of Bristol was the heart of Britain's aerospace industry and was consequently heavily bombed by the the Nazzers in WWII.

Thanks to Mark Shubin. Click the page to read it.

I'm reading a lot about Harley WRs and I'm getting a bad hankering for one. Well, a WR-rep made from a WL. GI

Early cover treatment by BP

It's New Year's Eve and a few things are happening all at once in some amazing conflugerance (I don't think that's a word) of cosmic proportions. It's about three years since I realised I wanted to publish something myself. It was going to be a book about my friend Dan Walsh's moto-travel writing, but then he got picked up by a big publisher and offered a cash advance he'd have been insane to turn down. His book has been in the Top 10 non-fiction titles in the UK charts this year.
I love books, but I understand magazines so I spoke to Ben Part (a photographer who'd never designed a magazine before) about producing a magazine focusing on flat track racing and related street bikes. He came up with the name Sideburn and we started work. There was no business plan. It takes up too much time, but we're always happy with the results and people who buy it like it on the whole, so it spurs us to make another.
Then I came up with the idea of doing a blog to keep the Sideburn name in people's minds inbetween making the magazine, but professional pride has meant we want to post every day. And we do. Now there's a risk of it taking up valuable time we should be using for the magazine. And that's were the conflugerance comes in - today, New Year's Eve 2008, we will post our 500th post (this one) and have clocked up 100,000 clicks (according to Statcounter).
Thanks to all the visitors. Now please buy the mag, T-shirt, stickers...
Thanks and happy new year, GI

From Craig
Bobby Russell was/is a pretty fast guy, never had a lot of money when he was young, but he could ride a motorcycle. After the flattrack years he got into desert racing and was a stud, he befriended 4 time AMA National Hare & Hound champ Destry Abbott when Destry was just coming up and taught him a couple of things about going fast.
He got hurt pretty bad a few years back (broke his back and was paralyzed for a while) and swore he would never ride again. He had just bought some new riding gear before he got hurt and he told his wife to get rid of it as he wouldn't be needing it, she replied "don't you want to keep it in case you want to go out and putt around?". He responded very bluntly "I don't putt". I knew at that moment he would ride again :-)
Thanks
Craig

Defunct Life magazine has made its photo vaults, which includes millions of prints, many previously unpublished, available to Google. This 1949 gem is from staff photographer Loomis Dean. The archive is LUSH.
BP

As featured in SB#2, Japanese Auto Racing is now dominated by the Suzuki AR600 powered Grasshopper bikes, but in the oldendays, British iron ruled the roost. Fueled on a secret blend of Methanol & Darjeeling. & No it hasn't been under a bus, the bars are meant to be wonky, so when you've got the bike chucked sideways your hands are level.
BP