You’ve heard of the Lotus, Heron, Cat and even the Downward Facing Dog poses in meditative yoga. Well, if you have a like-minded group in need of spiritual connection of the two-wheeled sort; here is the Moto pose. Winter conditions limit riding time, so when the workshop seems like a never-ending of tweaking, oiling, cleaning and you’ve sorted your tools for the nth time, take to the mat, hum a catchy ‘Om’ and pose like a yogi master…
Mountains and Motorcycle: this just cropped up on the Interweb of late. A short film from National Geographic in 1976 filmed quite expertly by Yvon Chouinard. It shows John Cunningham riding across the moors and glens of the Highlands towards an icy escapade on the big bad Ben Nevis.
It’s tricky to see the model but it’s a Triumph with pre-unit engine. But the clip-ons, big tank, and able handling on the single lane roads show a serious rider. His wooly had is tied on with string… No lid for this jock; he’s ‘ard!
He even catches the Ballachullish ferry across Loch Leven. The Bens of Lochaber loom behind. He tramps up the slopes to the looming Ben Nevis and heads up at speed over lower snow covered rocks, donning his crampons when the grade gets more serious. A pair of technical ice tools and his front points the only precarious purchase. But a sure placement of all makes this movement look all too easy.
After storming up to the summit he descends at a knee-popping pace back to the Triumph and torts off to the nearest ‘establishment’ to enjoy a warming dram or two and most likely a noisesome céilidh.
Earlier this week I managed to watch the new Dredd movie outing: this one with the appropriately stoney faced Karl Urban (Eomer of LotR) as the man with the badge. It was a grim, ultraviolent tale of a dystopian future Mega City with a population on the edge. They kept the story tight to limit the characters background explanations; concentrating the story on a City-Block drug bust. There was some good Lawmaster riding action on the streets too: his single sided swingarm ride could chase down the worst of ’em. One aspect of the film was the use of Carlos Ezquerra’s original vision of JD, a lean, mean lawman who isn’t to be messed with. No eagle shoulder patch, but that seemed kinda superfluous anyway. Cassie Anderson as a rookie on her street assessment added good depth; especially with her psychic abilities.
Great Stuff!
Keeping on the bicycle vein here is a magazine graphic from nigh-on a hundred years ago showing an army use of this two-wheeled transport. Nice fluffy clouds behind the pyramid tented camp.
A couple of examples of advertising for the fun lifestyle to be had as a Triumph cyclist. One an ideal couple sauntering through the idyllic English countryside without a care in the world. The storms of World War Two are barely a grey cloud on tomorrow’s horizon. “Fancy tea and scones honey pie?”
Here we are again, this time the other side of world altering hostilities and the weary elders want to evoke some idea of youthful jollity to the growing generation. Don’t worry folks Rock ‘n’ Roll will take care of that! Then punk, then New Wave, then grunge…
“Not that there is anything wrong with it!”
I had change from my ten pence for a black-jack, a kola-cube and a sherbet filled flying saucer. But I got the latest edition of Action! This week’s edition included a story based on a UK where adults have all been wiped out leaving everyone under the age of 18 in charge of their destinies. Lord of the Flies meets Grange Hill (the early years). There was a lot of yob culture represented in the anarchy.
So the motorcycle was used as gang ‘steeds’, the hog riders running over the opposing groups, ransacking territory, cracking skulls, quite literally. The newspapers, Esther Rantzen and other wardens of cotton wool had a field day!
How did they get away with this? Boys aged between 8 and 15 were craving this each week! And it’s not putting a good face to bikers either.
Petrol bombs, and other terrorist methods were illustrated each week. This story was the nail in the coffin for Action; they’d stepped over the line – reflecting a world out of control; inner city schools were scary enough, but without authority to contain, the result was carnage.
Great illustration by Mike White of what looks like a Triumph in darkened silhouette as the rider is run-down by a transit van. Obviously kids: don’t try this at home!
Before 2000AD, the sci-fi comic which has starred the iconic Judge Dredd since 1977, there was a short lived publication called Action. It was written for the male UK youth of the day; pre-punk, mid-Labour meltdown, post 60’s pop. An aggressive line up of killer sharks, football hooligans, anarchy on the streets; it only lasted 36 editions before it was shut down for its ultra-violent content. It mimicked what movies of the day portrayed: Jaws, Rollerball, Dirty Harry to name a few. It did however cut the teeth of writers and illustrators who went on to great effect in 2000AD: sub-editor Steve MacManus (who became Tharg the Mighty during that titles ‘golden era’ in the eighties), writers John Wagner and Pat Mills, and the fantastic penmanship of the likes of Carlos Ezquerra (who devised the appearance of Joe Dredd) and Dave Gibbons (the artist for Alan Moore’s Watchmen).
Digging through the numerous stories motorcycles take a leading role in the action: one classic story is Death Game 1999. A futuristic ice-hockey/pinball mix played with motorcycle riding convicts. The body count was the spectators interest, not the score. One final episode covered blatant violent artwork with a large BA-ROOM. (what makes a sound “ba-room?”). Cinders, tire studs and speed: that’s Action. Massimo Belardinelli’s artwork is too sublime to censor with letter-noise.
This was an obvious precursor to Harlem Heroes and it’s spinoff Inferno; itself heading down the violence-game route a few years later. I’ve covered these here.
More tomorrow! Only 7p at your newsagent!
“There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright-red, hunch-back, warp-speed 900cc cafe racer is one of them – but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one.” – HST Song of the sausage creature.
Poster art and printmaking are in a strong resurgence right now, harking back to the heyday of poster graphics in the early Twentieth Century. Here a clean print of an orange and white stripe dress’d gal atop a sweet sky blue Twentyone ‘bathtub’. The paper colour becomes the skin, all else is tinted for detail and depth. The artist is Chris Thornley. A graphic artist who also goes by the name Raid71. This is one from his series ‘Angels from Hell’. The couple on a Bonnie is a cracker too! Great Stuff!
Head tube badge of a Triumph bicycle. Nottingham is the British center of unpowered cycle manufacture. Raleigh being the king.
The chainwheel is the other part where a name is evident: here’s Triumphs. Nice detail.
The great Ziggy Stardust of Martian Spiders fame is 66 today! That’s right David Jones, aka David Bowie has a birthday celebration today so we’ll see how the sad clown fits into the moto-world… For starters he IS the sound of the 70’s defining a look and music that moulded the next generation, or two, or three, in a refreshing style of glam, punk, funk, soul and rock all together and all alone. His alter ego persona over the decade would allow him to reinvent his ideas, always staying a step or two ahead of everyone else.
Here’s a super image from his early career, sitting around with Lou Reed & Mick Jagger, while Lulu looks on (she is of course a Lawrie so there’s a family connection somewhere!)
Of course he has so much to look back on with his 66 years; here he is as the titular Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Engineering Balance: a simple composition of engine, tank, exhaust & carb. This is the original appearance of the early 70’s Bonnie. Mustard yellow is a particular taste but good for its era.
Go Triumph! go!
The weekend sees the start of my brake upgrade work. Most of the parts are in hand: disc wheel, fork lowers, caliper, lever and mastercylinder. So I have disassembled the existing forks for the work. About two hours of work saw the task done.
Next step: tire swapped.
A Moto-mechanics factory: Phil Vincent’s gaff at Stevenage Herts. These images show the rolling assembly line, yes each bike has its own platform, as it would be trundled around the Great North Road plant.
Apparently they would take each component and either machine it to a finer tolerance fit or take another component from the stock shelves. Truly high end motorcycles ready for fast work on the new motorways being branched through the nation post war.
The Rapide: 1000cc’s of Superbike. 150mph out of the factory.
For nigh on the first half of the Twentieth Century the Triumph company was based in Coventry. Housed in a large factory where both motorcycles and cars were built in large numbers. The clunking of machinery, grinding of lathes, and rumbling of engines must have been a heady experience. Horn blows and the shift starts.
Here’s a great image of a squad of weathertight adorned test riders ready to hit the Midlands lanes to check the bike for owner worthiness.
The factory turned to war efforts in the late thirties which put it square in the sights of the German Wehrmacht; and lo, during the Coventry Blitz between September 1940 and May 1941 the works, along with other manufacturing, were flattened by Heinkel and Dornier bombers. (A side note: Coventry is twinned with Volgagrad and Dresden, both noted sites of major WWII history)
Triumph Motorcycles were rapidly rebuilt in ’42, this time over in Solihull at the Meriden factory.
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