Photo Zine – limited edition photography books are available from Cafe Royal Books. Amongst their offering are some excellent photojournalistic publications. This one is filled with evocative images from the seventies of bikers attending the iconic races on the Isle of Man. You can smell the drips of Castrol on the deck of the Douglas ferry.
Naive Art – this piece is called Rosie’s Chopper by artist Stuart Swartz. Image statement:
“Here’s another whimsical painting of “Rosie”, this time proudly posing with her Triumph chopper.
This image was painted in a neo ’70s style reminiscent of velvet art and model box illustration from that era.”
Long Legs – we got ourselves a double-decker fork chopper here. Bouncing springer front end that crosses the State line half an hour before you get there. The cruciform tank; the German eagle badge on the owners leather vest; and the missing front teeth from a happy smile tell an intriguing story.
Chopper Wednesday – stretched and wrung out: these Brit iron have been chopped into next week. Including a rosy red hardtail Trident with double decker headlight and stepped king and queen seat, as well as a ape hangered Bonnie with taller than an elephants eye sissy bar seat with quilt buttoned saddlework. The Norton in the lower right frame could be restored to original fairly easily but you’d be brave to keep the flamed tank.
Easy Rider? Sure ask Captain America for directions!
June 5 1968 – Senator Robert ‘Bobby’ Kennedy was shot on the campaign trail for President of the United States. Just five years after his brother Jack, and two short months after Rights activist Martin Luther King. The event rang an ominous peal in the events of ’68 which saw the country turn on itself in political, social, civil, and military turmoil. He was a beacon of a bright future that the US so desperately needed.
Here someone had created chopper art with RFK gunning a double vee-twin drag bike named after his wife Ethel.
I have an idea for a novel: Jack & Bobby weren’t assassinated, the moon landings continued, Vietnam was a short military skirmish, John Jr is current a President and the Soviet Union is still in place… that’s the alternative historical context.. I just need a seed for a storyline…
Black Bike – low seat, aped bars, hard tail, straight pipes… we’re talkin’ ATTITUDE! Don’t mess with this sister; she’ll chew ya up and spit you out so much as glower at you. Ebony chopper matches her black tank top and bandanna.
Rusty Relic – keeping the chopped, stretched, hacked, hammered, sawed, bolted, welded and patina’d on the road. It probably rode straight from the Summer of Love into a musty shed for half a century.
Psychedelic ‘Cycle – Candy colored paint scheme; long legged springer front end; drag barred steering; sissy saddled; peanut tanked; and Triumph Twin hearted. A chopper of sixties style. Kool!
Peanut – stretched out with a sleepy rake and hard triangulated tail that would necessitate long straight and smooth roads. Nicely built with good proportional chopper architecture. If Meriden had custom shop that mirrored the American scene of the day i believe it would prepare machines like this.
Happy New Year – as another year passes and the beckoning days of the year ahead loom large let’s consider the excitement of heaving a Triumph chopper into a wheelie and gunning it along the road…
My Goodness – a stout tank’d pre-unit custom Triumph in polished aluminum and black with a white frothy head atop the pint-sized tank. Brewed in Dublin since 1759 Guinness is one of the most recognized and successful beers in the world. The iconic harp motif is modeled after the Brian Boru instrument displayed in the Long Room of Trinity Colleges Old Library and itself is a symbol of Éire.
Hardtail – lowbrow chopped British twin framed under a harsh sun. Raked front, low seating, stacked lighting. Straight highways good; twisties bad…
Bronze in the ‘Burbs – extended forks at the front end of this chopped custom. Peanut tank and thin chesterfield upholstered saddle adorn the shiny engine and stretched frame.
Mort – spooky custom in a SoCal style by Don Cates. The hearse-like carriage on this Triumph three wheeler Hansom with extended fork is pure sixties.
Hell’s Angel – we stopped in to an Irving Penn exhibition at the Frick Museum Pittsburgh. One of his series was capturing the late sixties counterculture, and in particular the Californian Biker gangs. This platinum palladium print from ’67 captures a surly Panhead chopper owner in an evocative portrait.
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