Ninja 900- the fast Kawasaki motorcycle used to race F-14 Tomcats in Top Gun. It’s now 30 years since its release on this day catapulting Tom Cruise into superstardom.
That is a darn good bike!
May 17, 2016
Still Dangerous
May 1, 2016
The Little World
Don Camillo – the post WW2 Roman Catholic priest in the small fictional Italian village on the River Po. His japes and escapades with the left-wing mayor Peppone a a thing of legend written by Giovannini Guareschi who was born on this day in 1908. The pair seen scooting about in a Moto Guzzi combination in true comradeship.
This movie poster has them dealing with a biker gang who comes into town. I loved the stories growing up- simpler times after the tumult of a war.
April 8, 2016
Headstand Trials
Balance- trials champion, stunt rider, motorcycle hall of fame inductee. Debbie Evans rode as she learned to walk has impeccable two-wheel control. As well as the fine technical abilities of a trials competitor she could handle fast bikes as a Hollywood stuntwoman making the movie Moto heroines appear superhuman.
She can defy gravity with ballet-like poise.
Triumph TT tank stand at speed. Control!
Triumph Tiger through fire. Blazing effort!
True ambassador to the sport!
April 7, 2016
Double Bill
There was two biker movies on this evening… This was the second:
IMDB “A Green Beret returns home from the Vietnam war to find that a gang of murderous bikers has killed his fiancee. He calls on several of his Green Beret buddies to come and help him take revenge on the gang.” 5.4/10
April 7, 2016
Thursday nite TV
IMDB: “While in Vietnam, a GI promises his dying buddy that he’ll take care of his motorcycle, “Baby”, when he gets back home. After his discharge, he meets up with his dead friend’s girlfriend, gets the bike, and then runs into trouble from some other bikers who don’t like the idea of his having the motorcycle or the girl.” 5.4/10
The chopper is as long as the Baja peninsula, the gal is as gritty as the Mojave Desert and the tins of Schlitz beer is flowing freely (it must have been used for on screen promotional purposes). A real early 70’s vibe.
March 24, 2016
King of Cool
“I learned that life is a long and difficult road, but you have to keep going, or you’ll fall by the wayside.” Steve McQueen March 24 1930 – Nov 7 1980
March 10, 2016
Hope, is a good thing…
” I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”
Ellis Boy “Red” Redding
March 7, 2016
Alexa
Alec Baldwin takes pilot role whilst Jason Schwartzman rides pillion. Amazon has a new interactive device for information and media: called Alexa (the other Siri). Like some quirky scene from a Wes Anderson movie these two look intent on adventure and shenanigans.
February 28, 2016
Academy Awards
And the Oscar goes to… Triumph!
The British bike has been used in numerous films over the ages from the fifties, sixties and eighties: Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, to Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman. Latter day films include Carrie Ann Moss as Trinity (appropriately riding a Speed Triple) in The Matrix, Glen Hansard in Once, and last years Jurassic World with Chris Pratt roughing it on a Scrambler.
January 17, 2016
How! Di ye diy art de ye?
Powerful paintings of icons on Triumphs by John Froehlich. Slight abstraction of classic images depicting Steve McQueen as Hilts and Marlon Brando as Johhny.
January 15, 2016
To die will be…
An awfully big adventure. Alan Rickman toted around in vintage style on a Norton as thespian P.L. O’Hara. Like his part within a park Captain Hook he meets a watery demise.
A distinctive and sonorous voice, he always played a good ‘baddie’.
Alan Rickman 1946-2015
January 9, 2016
Stand by Me
Watching Stand by Me on the Telly. It’s s great movie from 1986 (jeez it’s thirty years ago). Here’s a photo of some fella called Bob Brook and his new Triuumph Bonneville. The hot bike to have in ’59 the same year the coming-of-age film is set in.
December 27, 2015
Hot Wheels
“You’re Dangerous!” The epitome of fighter jock movies Top Gun will be thirty next year. Known for cool aerial antics with Tom Cruise’s Macerick zooming the skies over Miramar CA it also showcases a superb motorcycle from Kawasaki: the GPZ900 Ninja.
Now suitably available as a miniature Hot Wheels complete with decals used on the movies Moto…
I had one for 5 years and I loved it!
December 18, 2015
The Force Awakens
I can remember the excitement I had as a six year old watching the original Star Wars. The ships, the light saber fights, the bad guys and the plucky heroes. Last night I went to see a midnight show (first night mind you) of the new George Lucas/JJ Abrams film. All I can say is outstanding. Everything anticipated and more. A little of the old, with a healthy dose of the new and a future of possibilities. The heroine is a scavenger called Rey played wonderfully by Daisy Ridley.
We meet her haring across the arid landscape of Jakku aboard her blunt nosed speeder bike.
The Force is strong with this one!
