NBBBS

Words: Jason Cursley Photos: Paul Bryant

I’LL START WITH an admission. I am very easily influenced. And while we’re talking about me, I’ll admit that I suffer from Next Bike is the Best Bike Syndrome. Mix this concoction together and you too could find yourself in this very magazine justifying ever more stupid projects.

It’s what led to me thinking that a 1940 Indian1 would be the best flat tracker, until the front sprocket tried to eat my trousers. And the Borile2 the best Snow Quake race bike, until it wasn’t, because the McQueen Husky3 would be better, and it was, until I found out that the money would be even better.

Rolling back to 2016, I had a rather lovely ’60s Triumph desert sled, the sort of bike I see people riding and think, Yeah, they look great, the bike looks great, I want a piece of that. So I did. I raced flat track with it. Used it for work too. Brilliant. Who wouldn’t be happy with that? Yup, correct. Me and Sideburn. It was so good it wasn’t feature worthy. I wanted a Harley XR mile bike. A bike which cannot be used for work, or indeed on mile tracks, since there aren’t any in the UK, where I live. And it’s heavy, far too heavy for short tracks. Less Sideburn, more Thighburn. But no matter for a daydreaming sufferer of Next Bike is the Best Bike Syndrome, or NBBBS as it’ll now be known.

Let’s dive into this stupid project anyway. Triumph promptly sold to a fellow NBBBS sufferer. The bike you see here is an XLR900 and was assembled by XR authority and author Allan Girdler. He told me he’d collected rare race-department parts over a period of ten years before having enough to classify the pile as a motorcycle. Loosely assembled into a motorcycle shape, I took ownership.

The bike had a bad attitude. It didn’t want kicking, but seemed happy enough to kick me. So rather than fix the mechanics, I steamed into a cosmetic makeover (of the bike, not me). Performance Machine wheels, Lipp bodywork... In fact, the whole project very nearly took a different course. Since the PM eightspokes looked so much like vintage Bugatti wheels I thought, Why not make it like a two-wheeled Bugatti? I know, I know. Square-section Blockley tyres, blue paint, bit of engine-turned metal. A Bugatti-style H-D tank badge was designed. Yeah, sounds great. Until it wasn’t. Those tyres did make it look like a two wheeled Bugatti, but were dreadful in use, making a crap bike worse. Back to plan A, the unusable mile machine.

Appendix

1 Featured in Sideburn 10. 2 Cover 1 of SB23. 3 Featured in SB34. Jason also had a Bonneville Performance Hinckley Bonneville frame in SB1, a Harley XR1000 in SB2 and C&J Rotax in SB5. With the paint barely dry on the XLR, Jason spots his next bike

It’s a ’61 engine in a ’70 frame; Lettering and graphics by Neil Melliard. They are handpainted, not stickers; Jason made the filler cap, inspired by an Omega watch; Oil tank is from Hi-Speed; Shocks are NOS Red Wings; Duro tyres are versions of 1960s Pirelli MT53. ‘They’re as shit as the originals,’ says Jason. Did you spot the clever Sideburn tyre branding?

Having made it look like the bike I wanted, it was time to make it work like I wanted. Or at least it was time for fellow racer Paul Harrison to make it work for me. After no time at all Paul rang to say it was running and I should come over and collect it. He showed me the lever he’d fitted to the magneto cap to aid starting and as an extra special touch, he named it after me. Paul showed me how to start the bike properly. ‘First, you move the retard lever.’ ‘That’s the retard lever?’ I thought you’d named it after me? ‘I did.’ He then turned the engine slowly with the kicker until it was just over compression and with an expertly timed swift kick, the driveway was suddenly filled with a loud roar. Meanwhile, the bike had launched Paul into the air. I wouldn’t say high enough for a parachute to be effective, not that he was wearing one, but I suspected it was high enough for the landing to hurt. I was proven right when gravity took over. I felt bad as he rolled around on the floor screaming, but probably not as bad as Paul, who was now making many noises and holding his leg like it was going to fall off if he let go. If tennis elbow swells to the size of a tennis ball, we’ll call this particular medical condition space hopper knee. It seemed that the bike needed more than a Jason retard lever. It later transpired that the starting mechanism had been incorrectly assembled. During convalescence, Paul carried out some internet investigations to discover what should be done. An old-timer H-D racer gave him some great tips on how to make these engines work. His advice was invaluable. But of course, this information had to be filtered from the ocean of utter tosh-dribble offered by people whose only known skill was low-level understanding of reading and writing. Anyway, Paul carried out the work and the bike now starts like it should. Although I’m still a little scared and want my Triumph back. Maybe I’ve now caught LBBBS?

RACER Built by DUCKTAIL

肉薄のクロモリ4130を使用ししなや かさが追求されたメインフレーム＆ス ウィングアーム。 リアサスペンションはモノサスタイプ を採用。 エンジンは160ｃｃホリゾンタルを載 せ、前後ホイールは17インチで リアブレーキはメカニカルディスクを 使っている。 もちろんガスタンク、フェンダー、サイレ ンサーはアルミで製作されている。 仕上げはDUCKTAILではお馴染み のあえて下地を見せるためローフィニッ シュ仕上げ。 今後この車両は国内レースなどに参戦 していく予定だ。

HAVE FUN!!’s friend Masa challenge 2020 FIM Flat Track World Championship !! Please call out ‘MASA!!’ if you see him in race track !!

MASA’s SNS @70masa_ /instagram Masatoshi Ohmori/facebook

Words & illustration: @lennardschuurmans

Since Sam watched The Game Changers, one month ago, he’s evolved into this new version of himself, Sam 2.0, AKA Super Vegan Sam. Last Sunday, Sam painted his new exhaust matt white. In the rush, he forgot to wear his dad’s yellow dishwashing gloves and now his once-shiny black snake hands have a perfect fade to white. He always thought his black shiny hands were his best feature, they made him feel like a sex god. But now they had changed into the exact opposite. Shiiiit! No more shiny. No more black. But just intense matt white!

Trusted: Joe Pape has raced in five separate decades. He’s a favourite smiling face on the California scene who sums up the spirit of Sideburn. This is what he packs in his van

The design is a copy of the leathers Chris Carr and Scottie Parker wore in the factory Harley racing team. I had them made in the ’90s with the money I made from selling a BSA C15 with a Weslake kit in it. I chose Z Custom because they were based near Huntingdon Beach, when I was in Culver City, and they had access to the Camel Pro patches. I’ve been racing for five decades and 75z was my National number with AHRMA (American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association) in the 2000s.

I had a Yamaha R6 and started road racing with a couple of friends, and we’d do trackdays too. I was wearing out the side of my Ken Maely flat track boots, because I couldn’t get my knee down, so I went ahead and got some road racing boots. I found they gave my ankle more support than the really lightweight Ken Maely boots. Doing hooligan racing, you really don’t know who you’ve got next to you, getting banged straight off. I’ve seen a guy’s ankle get snapped off the line.

These quick-change knock-offs let you pop the wheel off and make quick gearing changes. Choose the next size up or down if the motor’s winding out down the straightaway.

I was in a line ready to go out to race and I saw a father telling his young son, ‘Right, when you go out you’ve got to turn it like this,’ but the kid was looking at my helmet – it has pictures of nice girls in bikinis on it – and not listening. The dad noticed and said, ‘Hey, my son’s not listening to me, he’s looking at your helmet.’ I said, ‘You better have a talk with that boy.’

I’ve been knocking off sprockets in a hurry with this since 1974.

I can’t remember the make of them, but I like the fortification on the knuckles. It protects me from the roost a bit.

Back in the old Westerns, the doctor would take a swig of some whisky and pour it on the bullet wound and start working on getting the bullet out. Due to the blood thinners I’m on now I can’t do anything like that, so this is just for after the races.

This is a hat I’ve had since days of old, but I like the style and I’m a purist. I wear it when I go to the Trailblazers [racing club] banquets.

At Perris there are sound restrictions to try to keep the neighbours happy. Some of the race organisers who come here have given it a bad name, so we’re trying to keep it down so everyone’s happy. I use this to help guys out whose bikes are over 105dB, to get them out on track.

Just in case I scuff an elbow or bust a knuckle changing spark plugs or something. I used to use duct tape and paper towels, but this is better. I hate to break it out, but it’s always good to have it.

Name: Joe Pape Age: 64 Job: Retired killer bee exterminator Hometown: Simi Valley, California

I own 25 but the main ones are: 1953-’54 Harley-Davidson KR750 1967 Champion Triumph 500 (above) 1982 Lawwill Harley-Davidson XR750

My wife found it years ago. I have this and one that’s a sheriff’s outfit. I wear it under the leathers, or sometimes on its own in practice, but when I’m doing battle with someone I’ll slip on my leathers. I always like to have my armour on.

I like to reach up and pull off a tearoff on the straightaway. God forbid someone gets in front and hits you with their roost, but it happens. Also I see kids running to collect them after the races. They seem to like them.

I’m handicapped after having a stroke five years ago, so I couldn’t work my job of killing mosquitoes and killer bees, but my main thing was to get back racing, back in the wind, back at it. They’re not going to throw dirt on top of me, but I’ll let them throw dirt at me. These are just in case I twist an ankle or something.

SB: This is the absolute best! Which track is this and was it a one-track championship or did you race other tracks that year?

SS: This photo was taken at the famous Lodi Cycle Bowl at the last race of the year where I won the California District 36 Championship for the 60cc class in 1986.

SB: Tell us about the bike.

SS: The bike was a Kawasaki KX60. My dad had to machine some suspension parts to make it extra low for me since I was so tiny. I was seven years old, so, unfortunately, I can’t give a whole lot of detail about what was done to the engine. I do know the thing was a rocketship!

SB: How come you started racing so young?

SS: I just got lucky when it came to getting my start in racing as I was born into a racing family. I started riding a motorcycle at the age of three, the day my feet reached the footpegs. But my first race wouldn’t happen until I was four years old.

SB: What is a Playboy model doing at a local race? Can you remember her name?

SS: The Lodi Cycle is the last place I would ever expect to see a Playboy centerfold. Her name was Katherine Hushaw, Playboy magazine’s Miss October 1986. Somehow the local track photographer, Stewart Barber, had a connection with her and convinced her to show up as our trophy girl for the night.

SB: Do you still keep in touch?

SS: I have not kept in touch with her, although I do wonder if she would remember my kiss. SB: What do these photos remind you of?

SS: Looking at these reminds me of some of the best times I had, going to the races with my family. And just how different things really were back then. Thanks for asking me to be part of your magazine. It has been fun to think back and reminisce bit.

15 Lodi Cycle Bowl 1986

Legs forever 15%

Envious glances 35%

Massive trophy 23%

Googling her now 10% Too young to appreciate it 17%