April 24, 2019

META

Cycle Zombies

April 24, 2019

META

Bringing Old Bikes Back From the Dead

Words & photos by Todd Blubaugh

“Cycle Zombies is a family that was born and raised in Orange County, CA. It was never founded, it just happened. Surfing, skateboarding, building and riding old motorcycles, is a life we live and breath everyday, it’s not a club or a gang, but a brotherhood of family and friends who ride together and care for each other...

Digging up old bikes and bringing them back to life with a new look. We’re not trying to re-invent the wheel, but only make them turn again...”

–Scotty Stopnik

You’ve probably seen or heard of the Cycle Zombies by now. Their exposition is consistently present at events and between the pages of most magazines like this one. But even though I’ve been familiar with their reputation for over a decade, when asked, I could not confidently define them beyond their imagery of sunny surf and rusty bikes. So, I introduced myself to Cycle Zombies’ own Scotty Stopnik, and we arranged to meet at their shop for an afternoon ride the following week.

I arrived in Huntington Beach, California, just before 11 a.m. on December 11. The address took me to an industrial maze of shipping containers somewhere on the west side of town. Scott Senior, otherwise known as Big Scott, greeted me at the garage door and helped to remove the honeybee stinger that had been stuck in my face for the last 10 miles. Although I had seen Big Scott at many different events, this was the first time we had ever met.

He was welcoming and kind. I noticed immediately that his step and posture were light, and he spoke with a youthful syntax. I found it hard to believe when he told me he is 60 years old. The garage was well organized, and Scott showed me the lineup of each bike on the floor—explaining where it came from and the work he had yet to do. The garage door adjacent to the Zombies was open, and from it, in walked a man wearing a CZ T-shirt named John Moss. Scott introduced us and explained that John was a skilled fabricator and artist who had been in this spot longer then they had. John was quiet and accommodating, and it was obvious that he was a close friend of the Zombies’. He rode an aggressive, full–rigid cone-nosed shovel and accompanied us the rest of the day.

Taylor Stopnik, Scott’s youngest, arrived moments later on a 1965 pan with 1980s shovelheads—the displacement was 96 inches. Like his dad, he explained to me many of the subtle details and the history of the bike, including the dual thunder-jetted Super E that carbureted it. Taylor spoke with deliberate calm, but I could tell he did not like to explain himself. He had an anxious undercurrent that he governed well with graceful conversation. Last to arrive was Scotty, who showed up with a dripping wetsuit and apologized for his tardy entrance: He had been enjoying the waves this morning.

I walked around and photographed the shop while listening to Scotty talk about his morning. Scotty felt strangely familiar to me, and I realized then that it was his voice; he and his cousin Chase Stopnik sound almost indistinguishable. I had just met Scotty, but I’ve have known Chase for years—he now lives in Los Angeles just blocks away from me, but this was where he grew up—and I could hear the years of influence in Scotty’s voice as he explained the surf to his brother and his dad.

Though I have come to recognize them through their motorcycles, I am well aware that they have another dynamic about them: Surfing and skating is as much, if not more, a part of their DNA as the bikes. And when they were together, they did not speak like bikers; they sounded more like surfers, which I found refreshing. It seems that all too often there is a very machismo energy to these shop proceedings. But here with the Cycle Zombies, there was a physical energy to their discussion—devoid of ego and full of excitement as they spoke of surfing—which I should mention I know nothing about.

Everyone was hungry, including John from next door, so we devised a plan to ride the coast down to a sandwich shop on Seal Beach. Everyone grabbed a bike, someone locked down the shop, and we headed out for lunch.

I’m unfamiliar with Huntington, so I rode in the middle, shooting and framing where I could. Traffic was not busy and frantic like in L.A., and we had, by comparison, plenty of road to ourselves. We had a moment of typical mechanical mutiny when John’s clutch linkage snapped, but we fixed it with a short length of bailing wire and my Leatherman. Once we were along the waterfront, it was interesting to see the Zombies change their proverbial ”gears.” They did not speed as they did through city blocks, but maintained a consistent pace at which they could divert all their attention to the surf. They watched it as prey—and like pack animals, would occasionally herd together in one lane and discuss their observations.

We parked our bikes in a line outside of a classic little deli on the Pacific Coast Highway called John’s Philly Grille. On the east-facing porch, I listened to Big Scott talk about growing up in Huntington. It occurred to me that this was the true origin story of the Zombies, when Big Scott was befriended by the Hessians MC 1% club in 1959; he was 12 years old and grew up next to their clubhouse/garage, where he learned how to customize bikes. He applied their taste and stylings to his bicycles, and the Hessians helped him in exchange for sweeping the shop and polishing chrome. They even took him around to custom motorcycle shows.

He started building motobikes as soon as he got his license. Then his priorities shifted to his family and career for a term (I should mention that Scott has seven kids—three boys and four daughters), but as soon as his sons were old enough, they took an interest in bikes, too. Huntington was the perfect place to incubate their lifestyle, and the Cycle Zombies’ legacy began to take its shape. The name evolved a little later as their reputation grew and it became necessary to define themselves. “Zombie” is a descriptive reference to the once-dead aspect of the “Cycles” they now ride.

There was no tone of authority as I listened to Scott Senior and Scotty describe Huntington; there was very little evidence of father and son. Instead, their communication was much more like close friends. Hearing their stories, it seemed as though I was sitting with two long-invested collaborates. Taylor, however, spoke less but listened contently. He seemed to be quieter by comparison, or at least a bit more guarded in his conversation. So, by the same limited comparison, Taylor seemed more in the manner of his other brother Turk Stopnik, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for a couple of years. Turk is the middle Stopnik and now works as a firefighter in the forests of California—Big Scott spoke of him proudly. I could not help but wish he were here for this conversation, but regardless of the distance, it was obvious they remained a close tribe.

After lunch, we rode back along the waterfront toward the container yard. At a red light, I saw Scotty watching the ocean with intimate focus. I could recognize the power it had over him (as can any man recognize the pull of passion when it is near), but I could not identify with this dimension of the Cycle Zombies. It was a different language to me, but they understood it thoroughly—and it clearly shouted at them over the sounds of their own bikes. When we got back to the shop Scotty admitted that he would have much rather been surfing than riding today.

We kicked tires in the sidelong light of later afternoon. Scotty did burnouts and pushed around on his skateboard until he had to go pick up his youngest boy, Sid. When they returned, I saw three generations of Stopniks in motion; one-and-a-half-year-old Sid played about the garage with definitive pleasure, just like his father and grandfather.

It is a long road that eventually reaches the place in life where we no longer need to define ourselves—a place where our purpose is simply understood. Only after countless dead ends and detours (if time favors) do we arrive at such a point. Further along even still is when that definition is passed on and secured beyond our mortal time. Many do not make it this far. But, after one ride with the Stopniks, it is clear to me that they have indeed arrived—and they call it the Cycle Zombies.

April 10, 2019

META

The Future(s) of Supercross

April 10, 2019

META

Supercross: Past, Present & Future

Words by Brett Smith |

Archive photos by Dave Dewhurst | Supercross Futures photos by Eric Shirk

It started as a one-race invitational in 1972. Then it became a springtime warmup series, a three- to four-race dash through the month of March. The first race was called the Super Bowl of Motocross. The first championship received the name Yamaha Super Series of Motocross. Magazines later referred to it as a completely new discipline of dirt bike racing: stadium-cross, then Super-cross and, finally, supercross.

At first, riders wore the numbers they earned from the previous year’s motocross standings. The Super Series title didn’t seem to hold much weight. The early races at the Astrodome hosted the Texas High School Motocross Championships on the same track that Jimmy Ellis and Jimmy Weinert had blasted around the night before. Was supercross the future of dirt bike racing in America, or a watered-down version of motocross? Opinions depended on the persons asked. Whether they liked it or not, the riders continued to show up, and so did the spectators. Nobody knew where any of it was going, but they knew they didn’t want to miss it.

In 1972 at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Pete Szilagyi of Dirt Bike magazine watched a group of spectators walk up to the ticket gate with beers and coolers full of, probably, more beers. “What do you mean we can’t come in with these?” the dumbfounded revelers asked the agent at the turnstile. “This is a motocross race!” But was it?

“It’s motocross but it’s not,” wrote Michael A. Brown in the July 1975 issue of Cycle World. In the early 1970s, American dirt bike enthusiasts were still absorbing the thrills that this European imported activity gave them. At some point, the series stopped being thought of as a warm-up, the champion wore his own No. 1 plate, and the whole thing stopped being thought of as motocross in a stadium. Supercross is supercross. Motocross is motocross. Yet, since 1974, the Monster Energy Supercross and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championships have co-existed, exchanged calendars and shared talent. They’re the same but very different. The sports are like parents who love both of their children equally but differently.

The supercross championship turned 45 in 2019, and while the tracks have changed, the bikes certainly have evolved and the racing format has been tweaked, the spectacle, the vibe, the “show” stayed consistent. In 1978, Dave Hawkins titled a Cycle article, “Circus Time at the Stadium” and used his 4,000 words to interview riders and teams about the evolution of this new series that, by that point, had hit 11 rounds in eight cities. It’s fitting that in 2009, Feld Entertainment, operators of the Ringling Bros. Circus, took over as the promoters and producers of supercross.

Dave Prater started out in 2000, and one of his many tasks included getting the teams parked outside the stadiums. Now the senior director of two-wheel operations for Feld Entertainment, he has worked about 320 races, watched the sport change, and even implemented some of that change. He chuckles when people take umbrage at new rules or altered formatting and cry,”‘But that isn’t supercross!”

“Well, what is supercross?” he asks back.

To not accept change in supercross is to not accept supercross at all.

“I think our format was something that was ahead of its time,” Prater said of an evening filled with short races, all between approximately 8-20 laps. “It’s still relevant today. I used to say kids don’t have the attention span that they used to, but the reality is none of us have the attention span we used to.”

Supercross is a uniquely American invention, a Hollywood-ized version of motocross. It exists solely because people who loved motocross wanted to share it with, and make it accessible to, more people. And, of course, make money. But a lot of money is shelled out before any is made. At the first Super Bowl of Motocross, promoter Mike Goodwin detailed his costs to several reporters: $28,000 to truck 4,000 cubic feet of dirt in from 15 miles away, $35,000 on promotion, $40,855 to complete the course. Curiously, the rental fee for the LA Coliseum was not a part of any of the conversations.

For 45 years, promoters have spent time and money trying to entertain beyond the racing. Supercross sideshows have included a daredevil with a hang glider attached to a motorcycle, wheelie experts, dog races, blindfolded foot races, the sphere of death and a woman who climbed into a Styrofoam box and blew herself up; she called herself Dynamite Lady, of course.

The longest running exhibition/sideshow, however, is easily the KTM Jr. Supercross Challenge, a 50cc race featuring 15 kids aged seven or eight on identical KTM 50 SX mini bikes.

This proves something significant. Spectators might appreciate a guy who can ride a wheelie around the entire track or a woman who blows herself out of a box, but what they really want to see is good racing. The exhibition with the kids is endearing, but it doesn’t provide a path to winning 450 main events 15 years into the future. To be fair to KTM and Feld, that isn’t the intent of KJSC. In 1987, with Jeff Ward and Ricky Johnson looking on, I rode my Kawasaki KX60 in a two-lap intermission race at the Pontiac Silverdome. The wall-like jump faces and the tire-eating whoops scared the hell out of me, if anything.

*Photo courtesy KTM Jr. Supercross Challenge*

In 2011, Feld Entertainment introduced the Monster Energy Cup, a one-off race on a hybrid supercross/motocross track (in and around Sam Boyd Stadium). The format tested out a three-main-event structure, each 10 laps in length. Lowest score after the three races is declared the overall winner. In between those main events, amateur kids in two different classes (Super Mini and All-Stars) competed, as well. The All-Stars division featured promising young riders on full-size 250 four-stroke motorcycles. This class exposed a developmental hole in the sport that most people already knew about but didn’t act on.

Racers are eligible to turn professional in dirt bike racing at 16 years old, but very few have the necessary experience and maturity at that age. The 2011 Monster Cup was a light-bulb moment for Prater and his co-workers. “Seeing them actually out there made it blatantly obvious that we should try to do more and try to get them more experience prior to stepping into the pro class,” Prater says. “There weren’t very many opportunities, and there still aren’t very many opportunities for younger riders to race a supercross track. So, I don’t think we were paying as much attention to it until we introduced the Monster Energy Cup.”

In 2018, Feld introduced “Supercross Futures,” a series of Sunday amateur races on a tamed-down course in the same stadium where Ken Roczen and Adam Cianciarulo raced the night before. In 2019, the top three riders from each of the 26 classes will be eligible to compete in the Supercross Futures AMA National Championship on Monster Cup weekend in October.

Feld shut down the Amsoil Arenacross championship last May. A series that’s often called a minor league feeder system, it really wasn’t. Going back to 1986, the inaugural season of the championship, not a single rider “graduated” from arenacross to become a supercross champion in either the 250 or 450 divisions. Not a single Arenacross champion scored even a 450 main event win. Arenacross provided an intense racing experience but had a very out of sight, out of mind feel.

Seeing the young riders at such an early age allows Feld to better asses the talent that will come to them as young adults when they turn professional. “It’s 100 percent a future play, no pun intended,” Prater said. “We may not see any benefits for five or six years, but I think we’re going to start seeing kids come into the sport and are way better prepared than they are right now, in every way. That’s the goal.”

Supercross Futures is the first true feeder system for supercross, a series that has chewed up good talent—especially riders raised exclusively on motocross tracks—with early career injuries and an inability to quickly adapt and learn the craft of racing in a stadium.

At $105 a class to register for SX Futures, $30 for a mechanics pass and $25 a ticket if the rest of your family wants to spectate from the bleachers, it looks like an easy money grab. But the math doesn’t support it.

Glendale, the opening round of 2019, had 712 entries and 425 unique riders. The second round in Anaheim had 784 entries and 484 unique riders. Many factors play into renting major sports stadiums. One executive in the Bay Area said, “A general rule of thumb is $150,000 every four hours.” Another said $250,000 for a full day. Add up the entry fees from Glendale and, assuming every rider bought one mechanic’s pass and estimating that 1,000 spectators paid $25 to sit in the stands, the revenue comes out to $112,510. Do the math for round two: $121,840.

Representatives from Feld would not say if they are losing or making money on Supercross Futures, but they are building, literally, toward a better future. “It’s definitely not a financial play,” Prater said. “It’s a play for the long-term health of the sport.” Feld is the largest live event producer in the world and has the longest running partnership with the Walt Disney Company of any other company (Disney on Ice, anyone?).

An internal anecdotal tale goes like this: Once, Disney’s then-CEO Michael Eisner watched a live event with Kenneth Feld, founder of Feld Entertainment. Eisner liked what he saw but had a lot of recommendations. Not demands, just recommendations. They watched another show together a year later, and Eisner was stunned that every single one of his ideas had been implemented. He gave Feld a 10-year deal to continue licensing the Disney name and properties.

Feld is already looking 10 years into the future of dirt bike racing. They will continue to focus on branding and industry cooperation, but the Futures series is the first major push into developing talent and giving amateur riders more than just the experience of racing on a supercross track; they will now have a clearer path to racing professionally.

In return, Feld gets the opportunity to keep their eye on, get to know and mold their future stars.

Baseball didn’t get Little League until 1939, 70 years after the earliest professional team—the Cincinnati Red Stockings—first played. The Junior Football Conference, later rebranded as Pop Warner, started with just four teams in 1929, more than 45 years after the sport went through myriad regulation changes to evolve from a form of rugby into what we now know as American football.

Supercross is wholly American, and it’s only 45 years old. To be getting a youth-based developmental system now is on par with other major sports. The sport probably won’t look the same 45 years from now. Rules will change, formats will change, machinery will evolve, and better-prepared talent will make for better racing. Not every change will be met with acceptance. People will say, “But that isn’t supercross!”

Well, what is supercross?

April 1, 2019

META

Black & White (& Yellow)

April 1, 2019

META

The Story of WLF Enduro

Words by Keith Culver | Photos by Drew Ruiz

It’s interesting when you boil things down to their simplest form.

Take relationships for example. The BLACK & WHITE simple facts of relationships and how they are formed, besides family, could probably go something like this: People have a common shared interest. People become friends. People do said common interests together to gain experience, enjoyment and fulfillment. This is soundly and perfectly applicable to motorcycles and the people who ride them.

WLF is no exception to this basic forming of the relationships that have created and shaped this global community W.E. know today.

This is WLF in BLACK & WHITE (& YELLOW).

Ultimately, the entire idea of WLF was started long ago when our past generations taught us that being a “grown up” shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Constant journeys to the ocean, lakes, mountains and desert fueled this fun. This generation also taught us that setting out on explorations with family and friends is more fulfilling than doing it alone. In the 1950s, the Smith family homesteaded land in Johnson Valley, California. The originals eventually got bikes and trail rode all over JV and the high deserts and mountains of South California. Skirting around the goat trails and up sand washes at what felt like lightning speeds, they formed a bond that has stood the test of time. They were the original WLF founders, even though they didn’t know it at the time. Fast-forward 40 years later, their sons with their friends and families are doing the same thing in the same places and getting the same joy from it, and sharing it with their grandchildren.

Funny story: WLF started like most pure things do — by chance.

A little over a decade ago, late in the eve around a campfire with a crew of lifelong friends, an idea was sparked. It was simple. We were a pack.

It all got started with a sense of urgency for freedom and a bit of the unknown. “See that point on the map, W.E. can get to there from here like this …,” throwing our leg over the kind of bikes that could take us from point A to B, and everything that happened in-between is was what made the memories. Our shared love for the group we have, coupled with the passion for two-wheels, led us to taking on longer rides, more challenges, more snacks and trail amusement. No matter what it was, thick and thin, W.E. always were in it together. The fact is, we rely so heavily on each other that our actual mantra is “FURTHER TOGETHER,” and it’s more than just words on paper. It’s the whole pack’s mentality.

WLF’s founding six is one — of brothers, by blood, by marriage and by a shared love of different activities and experiences together over the course of the last 25 years. W.E. have known each other in one form or another for almost all our lives. Growing up in the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s with a love for anything on boards or bikes, everyone tried each other’s favorite pasttime and was forced to flounder and prevail in the ocean, desert, mountain or lake at one time or another. Everyone’s lived through it and gotten a chance to learn, grow together and enjoy every adventure along the way.

Brothers Jake and Mike Smith grew up riding dirt from birth and connected with me all the way back in grade school. Chaz Reta came into middle school and onto high school. Chaz Reta came into middle school and on to high school, making sure everyone was in the water at all times. Spending all our free time in the water, building mini-ramps, tearing down mini-ramps, going night boarding on black ice, riding 50cc around the river banks of Blythe chasing down wild horses to film the on Hi-8 because it looked amazing. Luke Takahashi rolled in the crew right out of high school, always surfing and hanging together. After his first ride, Luke was bit by the bug so hard he couldn’t sleep, the singletrack bug, images of endless trails and his friends ripping through them kept him up at night — and still to this day keeps us all motivated to ride. Greg Schlentz lived down the road from everyone, all growing up doing all the same activities and never knowing anyone existed until a happenstance meeting and marrying into the family.

This rounded out the original six. Too many stories to remember, so many laughs we can’t count — still to this day, every time we ride any object on land or sea, you’ll see endless smiles. If friendship were traded on the stock market, we’d all be the richest men on Earth.

W.E. are a ragtag, blue-collar crew made up of everything from teachers and salespeople to welders, creatives and construction workers that has become a global community of riders connected from around the world. There are so many people that make up this amazing movement, whether you ride with us every week, month or year — or we’ve never even met you — we thank you, you are WLF!

W.E. ride trails, mountains, rivers, deserts, rocks, fire roads and anything else you can think of with our friends. Riding in groups doesn’t come without its costs, constantly putting each other in and dragging each other out of tight spots, fixing flats, or getting lost to get found, time and time again. We bring all our own tools to fix our own issues, and others who ride with us can attest that we’d fix theirs in a heartbeat to keep everyone happy and rolling. There’s never a dull moment with the pack. W.E. take our own images of each other, and others that come along with us, and try to spread the love of riding in the best way we know how, through the bliss of motor speed and shutter speed.

WLF constantly works to foster community. Creating events, attending and helping friends’ events, supporting charities and participants that are in the two-wheel and off-road community. Creating an annual military appreciation ride event called MISSION, with the premise that every vet should be simply thanked for their service, with a small token of gratitude. This year will be three years running with the support of the team @HusqvarnaMotorcyclesUSA; they bring vets from all over the U.S., from every branch of military, to come out and ride bikes and enjoy a weekend away on WLF and industry brand partners. Proceeds from this event go back to various charities that tie back to the riding community, such as @VeteransBack40.

Always striving to give back, W.E. are now seven years in on @RideForKids trail ride, raising funds for Children’s Pediatric Brain Tumor research and foundation. Collectively raising over $15K from our community alone to help fight this disease that plagues thousands of children each year. We love supporting the females in our pack, as well, the #sheWLFs, as we coined them. You can find us out at the @BabesInTheDirt running “dad camp” and trail support for all the amazing ladies that are getting out and pushing themselves and their community. Anya and Ashmore have been a huge influence in empowering the ladies, and we love being able to attend and help contribute. Best thing about our community now is that it’s the WLFamily, no matter what year, make or model you’re on; Dual Sport / ADV / street bikes to technical Off-Road Enduro riding.

Our mission is simple: Unifying riders around the globe with a common passion of two wheels and a throttle to go FURTHER TOGETHER. W.E. all start and work together to finish in the same spot and love it every step of the way.

Our goals for the future are to provide a platform for the families and the community that make up WLF, keep our focus on the worldwide community moving forward and helping us help people have more enjoyment in life. We want a place where people feel safe to learn and connect and grow as humans and riders. The connectivity of amazing people with each other, working with incredible brands, and helping grow and invest back is something that has given us all such a sense of purpose. Raise our families, be with friends, travel and RIDE MORE.

The industry that we love has supported us and continued to show us just what it means to be part of the two-wheel family. W.E. can’t thank them enough for all the support and letting us grow in our own way with our own vision. These brands and the people behind them are all one of a kind and deserve a standing ovation for their commitments to the dreams that all of us have to ride a bike. @FMF73 @DeusCustoms @AnswerOffRoad @SeatConcepts @IMS @BajaDesigns @AHMfactoryServices @GiantLoop @Stance.

It’s interesting how simple it is:

It’s black & white, it’s two-wheels, it’s a throttle, it’s some friends, it’s family, it’s riding.

It’s passed on from generation to generation, and everyone gets to enjoy the stoke in their own way. Activities are funny that way — in one way or another, trends and fads come and go, but the root of the thing you do stays the same. Strip it all away, and you still have the people, the relationships and the passion for what brought them together.

W.E. started around a fire. It’s evolved into WLF, a global community of riders with a shared passion. Ride with your friends because you love it — simple as BLACK & WHITE (& YELLOW).

March 27, 2019

META

DIY

March 27, 2019

META

Make It Your Own

Words by Ben Giese | Photos by Dean Bradshaw

With almost 8 billion people in a world that is more interconnected than ever, individuality is at a premium. With our increasingly busy lives and the constant stream of media and information being fed to us, it’s easy to feel lost in the rat race, which is why creativity and self-expression are so important. It’s why the recent revival of “makers” and DIY creators is so refreshing. It feels good not only to make something, but to make it your own. And I think when you get down to the core of it, beyond Instagram and the trendy motorcycle builder culture, the sense of fulfillment gained from creating something with your own two hands is what makes customizing bikes so special.

That natural desire for self-expression (and my obsession with motorcycles) is what drove me to spend three cold winter months in my father’s garage turning wrenches and grinding metal. I knew this would be both an enjoyable and therapeutic project that would get me away from the computer screen, but what I didn’t anticipate was the genuine satisfaction I would feel from the entire process. It was not only an exercise in design, but putting my hands on every nut and bolt of the machine enabled me to become acquainted with all the hidden corners of my motorcycle from the inside out. Through this process I formed a stronger bond with my bike. It became a part of me more than ever before. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, it became more than just something I owned; it became a reflection of myself.

I wanted to transform my air-cooled Triumph Scrambler into a true “scrambler” that could take me well beyond the paved city streets of Denver and deep into the mountains and deserts of the Southwest. So, once the overhaul was finally completed, I headed out to the California desert to put it to the test on the rugged back roads and sand washes of Joshua Tree. The only thing I was looking forward to more than the process of building this bike was actually taking it out and getting it dirty. And it rode like a dream, just like I had imagined.

I am not a professional bike builder by any means. I’m simply a graphic designer with a vision for what I want and the tenacity to figure it out. Which means you can do it, too. And I guess that’s the message I’m trying to get across. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Make mistakes. And don’t hold back on your creative ideas, because the world could use more self-expression and individuality.

Learn more about the build at BikeEXIF

Learn more

March 19, 2019

META

The Wild Ones

March 19, 2019

META

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Words by Maggie Gulasey | Photos by James Minchin

Twice in my short life I have found myself immersed in the potent butterflies of love, doused with nervousness, excitement, and a fleck of fear—but not for another person. Rather, it’s been for the extraordinary and profoundly authentic passions in life that have illuminated my simple existence.

My first love affair came to fruition when I encountered live music at a young age. Some astute individuals sang, “When you fall in love, you know you are done.” Though lacking the talent for mastering an instrument, I eagerly devoured the music, and I indeed knew I was done; music was forever going to be a part of my lifeblood, even if that meant supporting the melodic experts from the business or the avid-fan side of things.

The second time my heart was kidnapped occurred the moment I first rode a motorcycle. Nothing can match how those two wheels make me feel. I truly came alive with the world at my side, experiencing life in a unique and more gratifying way aboard my beautiful vintage two-stroke.

Both music and my motorcycle enable a mental departure from the tedious rigors that often swallow daily life, allowing me to recall and enjoy the simple magic this world grants. Once in a blue moon my two lovers delightfully harmonize, creating a motorcycle and rock ‘n’ roll utopia. I have found this elusive nirvana in the band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Since 1998, Robert Levon Been, Peter Hayes and, later, Leah Shapiro have been composing intelligent, honest, and soulful atmospheric vibrations. Their music makes me want to fall in love, fight, dance, or ride my RD400 while it blasts in my ears. After watching the 1953 classic The Wild One, directed by László Benedek and starring Marlon Brando, Been and Hayes derived their name from the gang led by Johnny Strabler, called “Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.”

The band had to grow into the name a bit. Been recalls thorny moments during their early gigs: “The first couple of tours were little bars we would play, and different motorcycle clubs would come and they would invade the space and were really intense and aggressive. There were no physical altercations, but it was kind of a ‘Who are you to call yourself a motorcycle club when you are just a little pissy three-person rock band?’ They mostly just wanted to make sure we knew the history of the name and had some respect for it. Once we proved we know where it comes from and we are not just cashing in on the fad of that, then we would buy them a drink and hang out, and all they really want is just a good time. We ended up making strange friends along the way that way. We fell in love with riding later, and we have not really wanted to play it up too much. It is more of a meditative, spiritual, personal thing. It’s the one time you can kind of find that space of your own, and it should be. Sacred is probably too big of a word, but it’s just something personal of your own, which is probably different for each person. It is nice having it be just that and learning that motorcycling is not the clichés you think it is about.”

For nearly 20 years, BRMC has played all around the world, performing at various festivals and on long, arduous tours. In the midst of these concerts, when time allows, the band might sneak in an excursion. Their art has enabled them to ride in Africa, Cambodia, New Zealand, and Japan, to name just a few.

Been says, “You have a short amount of time to extract something out of this magical place that you might never be back to in your whole life. So you can truck around in a taxi or by foot, but all of a sudden when you are outside of a screen—car, glass, iPhone, or a TV screen—you are a part of the scenery and environment versus protected in a bubble. It is a sense of freedom to explore wherever your mind wanders; it is a gift when you can get away with it. You reach these places where you just stop and wander off into the forest and realize where you are and then hop back on and go again. We generally keep it to ourselves. It has been our own little thing we will do whenever we can steal some time. It was great discovering that a lot of countries are pretty lax about requiring a driver’s license. You can just show up, put a few bucks down, and take a bike. That was how I learned to ride. It was in Portugal, and I did not even have a license, and I learned that way.”

During one of their sparse gaps between shows, the band can finally enjoy a jaunt on their personal bikes at home. As vintage motorcycle admirers and owners, Hayes and Been know all too well the love-hate relationship that often accompanies them. Hayes reveals, “I had a Sportster for a while and broke the clutch on that and was looking for another one, and a friend was selling a CB550. It just so happened that I took it for a test ride and the clutch cable broke, and it was so fucking quick to fix; I was sold. I was used to working on old cars, and it is kind of like an old car.”

Been adds, “I got lucky with my first bike, also a Honda CB, because Pete was the most experienced and knew how to put it back together if it fell apart, so I thought that will be good in case of emergency. But our old tour manager had this 1972 Triumph Bonneville that he stripped down and café’d out, and I inherited his mess to some extent. This was really not the right bike to start on, because half of the time or more you are working on it. It just always felt like a high-maintenance girlfriend who was really beautiful, and every time she was nice to you, or running, it’s like you fall in love with her again, but most of the time she is just beating you down and taking all of your money. But it was the seduction of every time it was back; I would think, ‘Oh, I cannot get rid of you, I cannot break up with you.’ The CB is great for daily riding, but the growl of the Triumph, that old engine, kills me every time. I just cannot let go of it. The sound, the feeling.”

Like a lover you simply cannot quit, vintage motorcycles certainly require a high degree of devotion and passion to stay committed—or maybe we are just crazy for continually falling for their mighty allure. Unconditional love must truly prevail, particularly when the rubber side does not stay down. Been and Hayes are not strangers to precarious moments on their motorcycles. Been describes an accident that occurred far from home:

“I totaled a bike on an island in Greece. It was my first time that I really pushed my limits. The problem with the island was you were always zigging and zagging; it never really opened up. But there was this one stretch that I did not even know the island had. I came around this corner and it was as far as the eye could see, and I was like, ‘This is it. This is my moment.’ And I just gunned it. I had the visor open and sunglasses on and a bug flew in right in between my eye and the sunglasses. It was enough of a moment where my hand reached off right when the road started curving, and I did not catch it in time. I had this split-second moment of ‘Do I go for this super-maneuver that might make everything fine, but will kill me if I try? Or should I just make the most out of the wreck?’

“I made the most out of the wreck. It taught me a good lesson. You have to get one under your belt as long as you can walk away.”

Having had his own shaky moments, Hayes recalls, “It was actually awful. I looked left and saw green, hit the gas and then looked a little further left and saw a car was going through a red. I hit the front fender. It was nasty and hurt. It was eight years ago and I still feel it in my elbow.”

The most baffling incidents, though, can happen during the most unremarkable, routine moments. Been remembers, “Two of our friends that we ride with joined us for a coastal trip. It was that thing where we went for a couple of days and it was four boys and everyone is trying to edge each other out, so we were riding a little competitive, a little psycho and mostly dangerous. But when you got home, you were like, ‘Oh my God, we survived so many brushes with death; we ran with the devil for a while.’ And then the next day we hear that our friend who was with us just took a stupid, small left-hand turn in Los Angeles going like 15 miles per hour, and some idiot hit him and he was in the hospital for a month. After all that crazy riding.”

Having a profound passion for something means never quitting despite experiencing setbacks. Having a substantial fervor for music and motorcycles can also mean utilizing one as a tool to enhance the other. For example, Hayes has employed his bike as a therapeutic apparatus to color the words to a song. He admits, “There is a lot of yelling and screaming lyrics into my helmet. Last record I was flying up and down the road every night. Part of it is just primal scream. It is the only way you can really be alone and do it; it is getting out things one way or another on your motorcycle. You are getting out ideas and thoughts. A lot of it is soaking up what is in front of you in a different way than usual.”

However, though music and motorcycles can go together like peas in a pod, Hayes also found that it was helpful to separate the two at times. He mentions, “I honestly saw it as, there is a freedom to the road and being in a band and driving ourselves and all of the messes you get into in those days, that goes hand in hand with motorcycles; you just have more air with a motorcycle when you are doing it. I found a way to put a guitar on the back of a bike at one point in time, but even then it is better to kind of leave the music behind a little bit and just ride.”

We all possess various passions that add an extra oomph to our dreary days and make life worth living. For me, aside from people, music and motorcycles are the things that light my fire. Even more intoxicating is finding an exceptional band that treasures motorcycles in their own yet relatable way. Whether BRMC is telling a story about one of their riding adventures or captivating an audience from the stage, they are doing so drenched in a substantial amount of enthusiasm and love for what they do. Taking some advice from the band, I am going to get on my motorcycle and scream their songs into my helmet while isolated on the open road, because there is nothing in the world that would make me happier in this moment.

March 13, 2019

META

Women Can, if She Will

March 13, 2019

META

The Van Buren Sisters

Words by Shelby Rossi | Photos courtesy AMA Hall of Fame

Some people never feel the urge to leave their house. They’re content staying in the city they were born in, the couch they sit on, and the 360 degrees that immediately surround them. Then there’s the rest of us—the people who can’t sit still, who want to witness new places, to discover foreign cultures, and who always have a map handy.

Researchers have traced this inherent urge to explore back to one gene, DRD4-7R, a derivative of the gene DRD4, which is associated with dopamine levels in the brain. This gene has been named the “adventure gene” because of its correlation to increased levels of curiosity and restlessness. Studies have found that 7R makes people more likely to take risks; to explore new places, ideas, relationships; and generally to embrace movement, change, and, most importantly, adventure. Augusta and Adeline Van Buren, sisters, must have carried this gene.

In 1916, the Van Buren sisters were the first women to each ride her own motorcycle across the continental United States. They rode 5,500 dangerous miles from Brooklyn, New York, to San Francisco, each on Indian Power Plus motorcycles. In hopes of encouraging others to embrace change and new ideas during World War I, their mission was to convince the military that women were fit to serve as dispatch riders, a job seen as suited only for men.

Augusta was the elder sister, born in March 1884; Adeline was born in July 1889. The sisters inherited the “adventure gene” from their father, Frank, who raised their family in New York City along with their brother, Albert. Despite losing their mother at a young age, Frank offered an energetic and athletic upbringing characterized by swimming, skating, canoeing, wrestling, and sprinting. It’s no surprise the Van Buren sisters naturally took up motorcycling during their early adult years. It was this free-spirited childhood that would shape two of the most inspiring women that motorcyclists have known to this day.

When the sisters decided to make their motorcycle journey across the States, women were suffering from extreme limitations placed upon them by Victorian society. They didn’t have the right to vote, nor were they considered equals to men. Men of the early 20th century believed women were too occupied with domestic duties to consider political debate, and that women weren’t smart or strong enough to handle the responsibilities of voting. Another notorious argument declared that women should be denied a say at the polls due to their lack of participation in military efforts and because they weren’t risking their lives for their country.

Not only were Augusta and Adeline members of the suffrage movement—organizations of women across the nation fighting for women’s right to vote—but they were also involved in the National Preparedness Movement, a campaign started by former president Theodore Roosevelt that began prior to the United States’ entry into World War I. The movement was started to convince the U.S. of the need for American involvement in worldly affairs and that the country must prepare itself for war.

The sisters’ ride had a dual purpose. The National Preparedness Movement was an effort to get the United States ready for the inevitable. Augusta and Adeline believed women could directly help the cause by becoming dispatch riders—which had transitioned a year earlier from men on horseback to men on motorcycles—freeing up men to give combat support. This would eliminate one of the arguments for denying women the right to vote: that women were historically non-participants in war efforts. They would have to prove this point by showing that a woman could handle the difficulties of motorcycling over long distances and tough conditions. Being a dispatch rider was a dangerous job. Performing basic maintenance was unavoidable, navigating difficult trails was a given, and, most importantly, staying clear of opposing forces was a matter of life or death. Most would see such obstacles as defeat, but Augusta and Adeline saw them as opportunities to define their mission. Thus, their plan was conceived...

To prepare for the trip, Augusta and Adeline immersed themselves in riding and started accumulating long-distance rides in New York. Their intent was to use their vehicles and newfound skills as riders to push the envelope for women’s contribution to society. At ages 32 and 26, respectively, Augusta and Adeline were determined to prove that they were just as patriotic and deserving of the vote as men.

On July 4, 1916, the eve of the nation’s entry into World War I, the Van Burens set out on their journey. They packed their motorcycles with tools, tents, and tenacity as they charged ahead to make a point: that women were capable, strong, and fearless. They left Sheepshead Bay Race Track in Brooklyn and started their route on the Lincoln Highway, which ran from Times Square in Manhattan to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. Their first stop was the Massachusetts manufacturing center that produced their motorcycles.

Indian Motorcycles provided two 1916 Power Plus bikes to Augusta and Adeline in return for the publicity that they were getting for their ride. The Indian Power Plus was the top-of-the-range bike at the time. It was Indian’s first flathead, v-twin engine, and was called “Power Plus” because of its 16-horsepower output. The engine drove through a three-speed, hand-change gearbox with a foot-operated clutch and all-chain drive. Selling for $275, the Indian also ran Firestone “non-skid” tires and a gas headlight that would allow riding through the darkest nights. The downside? The bike had no suspension, no shock absorbers, and poor fuel capacity.

The roads weren’t any better. Most routes were dirty and muddy, some merely cow paths, and fuel was difficult to find. Broken chains and flat tires were left to the sisters’ own ingenuity and know-how. The weather ranged from heavy rain for days to unrelenting desert sun. With no helmets, just a leather cap and goggles, Augusta and Adeline were truly exposed to the elements. Yet weather and murky maps weren’t their only obstacles.

Just outside of Chicago, the motorcycling pioneers were pulled over by police—not for speeding, but for the way they were dressed. In some states it was still illegal for women to wear pants. Though women’s fashion was shifting from corsets to more casual attire, dresses were considered the standard. The Van Burens’ military-style jackets and leather riding breeches, covered in grime and dead bugs, got them arrested again and again by confounded cops. Between ridiculous arrests and bad-weather delays, the sisters’ one-month journey extended into two.

By August they reached Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and became the first women to reach the 14,109-foot summit of Pikes Peak by motorized vehicle, earning their first record. On Aug. 6, 1916, the pair shared their enthusiasm with the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph. “We didn’t really feel that we had achieved anything wonderful until yesterday,” Adeline told the paper while writing a telegram to her family in New York.

Because the sisters were running behind schedule, they abandoned their plan to ride north through Wyoming and chose a more direct path through the Rockies. They endured relentless rain that turned the mountains’ dirt paths into heavy mud that trapped their tires. After mercilessly trying to free their wheels in the freezing weather, the exhausted duo was forced to leave their motorcycles behind and seek out help on foot. Hours later, the sisters found the small mining town of Gilman, Colorado. The miners offered them food and rest, then walked back with the sisters to help free their bikes.

The pair continued their trek, but unfortunately another misadventure came 100 miles west of Salt Lake City. The heavy winds whisked away the desert trail, and eventually it disappeared entirely. Low on fuel, water, and energy, Augusta and Adeline were closer to defeat than ever. Again, fate smiled upon them. A prospector came along who not only had a horse-drawn cart packed with supplies, but also a keen sense of direction to get them back on their way.

With so many remarkable trials and tribulations, news outlets had endless inspiring stories and victories to choose from to share with the world. Unfortunately, much of the media coverage they received was negative. Leading motorcycle magazines focused on the bikes, not the bikers. Others ignored the purpose and historical significance of the Van Burens’ journey, criticizing them for forsaking their roles as housewives. Worse yet, The Denver Post accused the sisters of exploiting World War I to abandon their duties at home and “display their feminine contours in nifty khaki and leather uniforms.” Despite the negativity in the papers, the sisters received nothing but support from the people they met along the way. Everyone they ran into helped them in some fashion, and Augusta and Adeline were never bothered or accosted by anyone. It was this support and motivation that gave them the extra push to get to their end goal.

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Reaching their two-month mark, the sisters arrived at their destination in San Francisco on Sept. 2, having traveled 5,500 miles in 60 days. Proving that women could ride as well as men, the two earned their second record and became the first women to ride solo cross-country on motorcycles. They continued south and completed their journey on Sept. 8 after arriving in Los Angeles. Still they pressed on, traveling across the Mexican border to Tijuana.

After succeeding on their record-breaking journey, both sisters were still intent on joining the military. But even after they’d proven their abilities and courage, their applications to become dispatch riders were rejected by the U.S. Army. Women would wait another four years for the right to vote and another World War for the chance to serve in the military. But that didn’t hinder the Van Burens’ spirits nor tarnish the magnitude of their accomplishments. Instead, the two persevered in a male-dominated world and succeeded in even greater feats.

Adeline went on to earn her Juris Doctor degree at New York University during a time when it was unheard of for a woman to be practicing law. Augusta learned how to fly a plane and joined the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of female pilots established in 1929 by 99 women, with Amelia Earhart as their first president. Coincidentally, the organization played a significant role in the women’s-rights movement, something both sisters were still passionate about.

With one goal in mind, these women didn’t take no for an answer. They were bright, enthusiastic, and broke the stereotypes of their time, proving that a woman could do anything a man could do. In the words of Augusta, “Woman can, if she will.”

While their trip across the country didn’t deliver the impact the sisters had hoped for, today they are remembered as pioneers for women and motorcyclists alike. The sisters’ courageous spirit and extreme independence are celebrated by family members and admirers who have kept their legacy going through similar cross-country rides that traced the Van Burens’ path on the trip’s 90th and 100th anniversaries. Because of the historical significance of the Van Burens’ efforts, they were inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002.

Both Augusta and Adeline lived their truth. They took risks, they fought for what they believed in, and they enjoyed full lives with careers that thrilled them. Having a family that loved them and still cheers them on decades after their deaths at ages 59 (Adeline) and 75 (Augusta), is what carries this legacy forward.

Now it’s time to live our truth, in honor of the Van Buren sisters.

March 7, 2019

META

Teaser: Tom DeLonge

March 7, 2019

META

The Suburban Kid Who Traveled to the Stars

Coming 3/23/19

Join us at our Volume 014 Relese Party for a special screening of the film.

March 4, 2019

META

Endless: Mexico

March 4, 2019

META

A Film by Shift MX

Starring Jimmy Hill

Filmed in Mexico during the Día de Los Muertos festival, Shift MX presents its second film as part of its four-part destination series ENDLESS. Showcasing Shift rider Jimmy Hill, the edit takes you through the open agave fields of Jalisco to the bustling streets of Guadalajara. The film introduces Shift’s corresponding limited edition collection of gear sets and lifestyle apparel. The gear set was worn by Shift’s Geico Honda Supercross team this past weekend in Atlanta and is now available for sale at ShiftMX.com and select retail partners.

Athlete: Jimmy Hill
Edited by: Ryan Marcus
Filmed by: Ricki Bedenbaugh and Ryan Marcus
Art Director: Rob Donegan
Colorist: Patrick Woodard
Music by: Colourmusic "You For Leaving Me"

Photography by: Derrick Busch & Gordon Dooley

February 27, 2019

META

Motorbikes Saved My Life

February 27, 2019

META

A Letter from Travis Newbold

Words by Travis Newbold | Photography by Aaron Brimhall

As I pick up the tipped-over $150,000 motorcycle from the loose gravel, I am completely spent, gasping for air from my burning lungs and soaked in sweat from the prior 10 minutes and 14 seconds, having just crossed the finish line of the last real road race in North America.

This is the end of the story I am about to tell you. Actually, the end happened immediately after picking up the bike and unstrapping my helmet, when I told a newspaper reporter what I thought about the Pikes Peak International Race Committee. It was enough to ban me from further racing up America’s Mountain—ban me from the race up a mountain I grew up with and had spent the last eight years dedicated to, climbing its 156 corners faster than anyone in front of me.

As with many great motorcycle stories, this one begins with dirtbikes. Dirtbikes have been and probably will be the one thing that keeps me out of prison and on a somewhat straight and narrow, or at least a wholesome sweet and tacky twisting singletrack. When I was 10, my single mom bought me a used CR80 and I started racing local Colorado motocross races. I was straight-up C class all the way through high school. Later, the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Phoenix was as good a place as any for a college dropout with an empty box van and a love for fifth gear pinned wide open in the desert. This led me into a job throwing wrenches for my local dealership back home in the Colorado high country. A customer with some money wanted to experience Baja racing, so together we raced several times on the majestic Mexican peninsula.

As things often go in Baja, we met adversity, death, and broken-down race bikes. After an awkward 50-hour drive home from Cabo, we went our separate ways. I was left without money to race and a large speed freak of a hungry monkey on my back. The XR650R that I built with an unchecked credit card and had spent a lot of time on gave me a ferocious appetite for high-speed thrills. It only made sense to try my hand at racing my dirtbike at the mysterious and alluring Pikes Peak Hill Climb. I knew nothing of the race but pictures of dirtbikes pitched out sideways on a loamy gravel road that climbed up a steep mountain. “I got this handled,” I thought as I sent in my entry into “The Race to the Clouds.”

Ignorance can be bliss…or it can scare the living crap out of you like that one exploding monster at the Halloween haunted house, catching you off guard and making you scream like a little schoolgirl. My first day of practice on the hill was like that—and also a bit mixed with my first bad trip. Right before race week, I was informed by a local racer that the proper setup was 19-inch dirt-track racing tires, so I laced up an old rear rim with a bit of a Wang Chung flat spot to my front and shipped some Maxxis CD-5 dirt-track tires to the campground where I would spend my race week. I spooned them on the night before the first practice day.

Race week consisted of three practice days of the course broken into thirds, so the only time a start-to-finish run is made is the one made on race day. Oh, yeah—and on practice days the road had to be open to the public at 8 a.m., meaning we got up at 3:30 and started making runs at 5, just as the easterly sunlight started to radiate out across Kansas. I can vividly remember my first morning on the hill, rubbing sleepy dirt out of my eyes in the race pit as I heard what sounded like a dragon being tortured in a dark dungeon. I later found out it was a Yamaha Banshee on ’roids being wrung out on a dyno inside of a race hauler. Say what you will about quads, but the memory of the premix smoke and sonic waves echoing through the trees still brings me goose bumps.

That morning’s practice was the bottom-third section of the racecourse, and it was all pavement. My knobby mind could not grasp the fifth-gear flat-out foot-peg dragging. It was beyond terrifying. I was all ready to pack it in and go home after that. I realized the dangers of 100 mph mishaps into nothing but trees, boulders, and massive drop-offs. Luckily, that first night I met some old-timer motorcycle racers in the campground with twin-cylinder Yamaha vintage flat-trackers, big-twin Harley-Davidsons, and CR250R two-strokers. They said tomorrow was all dirt, no pavement, and I was about to find out what those dirt-track racing tires were all about. They then started to pass around an old coffee can containing some very potent booze and proceeded to do a rain dance. No joke. These petrol-head long-hairs beckoned the God of the Mountain for hero dirt.

From then on, I was hooked. Sliding decomposed granite pea gravel was the best thrill I had found. It led me to start racing flat track all around the country and making it on the podium six times at Pikes Peak. But the 11.46 miles of racecourse on the mountain once proclaimed by Zebulon Pike to be impossible to climb by any man was in a drastic period of change. We would start one at a time; no longer would we race five abreast and battle each other. The spectators were fenced into corrals; no longer would we brush our handlebar ends on them and no longer could I kick at GoPros left too close to my race line. Every year I returned to race and found more and more tarmac covering what was perfect grip-holding gravel. As racers do, I adapted and found myself lacing up some 17-inch rims. By that time I had tasted the lower steps of the podium, but not the top. I decided I would have to do more than just swap the wheels on my CRF450 that I used for off-road racing. I built a Pikes Peak special CRF450, all from junkyard salvage. Cut the motor mounts on a beat-to-swarf 450X frame and welded the motor mounts with an oxyacetylene torch to accept a Craigslist ’08 450R engine—an engine that I did some heavy breathing on, using everything I had learned about porting and flowing a head, beveling transmission gears, and polishing rotating mass. The junkyard-poverty-built bike put me on top of the podium the first time it raced the hill, in 2012, beating some of the world’s finest supermoto bikes. It earned me the 450cc class record and enough purse money to beckon me to do more than just make another Vegas-style beer run. I decided to pack up my tools and my dog and move to the city, where I would use the money to open up my own motorcycle service shop. I might add there was a rather special girl involved. As with all good stories involving dirtbikes, of course there is a girl involved. With just what most business owners consider pocket change, and the moral support of a good lady, Newbold’s Motorbike Shop was born.

After a few more years of threading the asphalt needle on my trusty 450 up the hill, I could see the tarmac writing on the wall. I needed a faster bike for the now completely paved course. I befriended Carl Sorenson at the first all-paved year. He was the chief of tech inspection for the local road-race series and also an instructor for new racers. I started racing an old SV650 at local closed-course short-circuit road races. With their safe, huge runouts and gravel traps, they are nothing like a real road race, where curbs, signposts, trees, rocks, and cliffs are mere inches away from the race line, just waiting to take your life. But I learned some about how to handle a purpose-built tarmac race bike. Carl was the best instructor and friend I could have asked for. On the hill we were almost always running identical times.

In the spring of 2015 I approached Denver-based motorcycle manufacturer Ronin Motorworks about competing in the hill climb aboard one of their bikes. A local company racing a local race with a local rider: it was a plan of awesomeness. Shit, I was used to racing on takeoff tires, and now I was to race a real factory bike. A small factory, but a real factory nonetheless. And the effort put into building the bike knocked my dirty socks clean off. The front brake alone was more expensive than any bike I had ever owned. The bike, based off of an EBR 1190, had something like 160 horsepower. The Ronin ripped, shit, and get! I was full of respect for how fast the beast was, but it caught me off guard in one practice session; I was a bit late on the brakes coming into a hairpin above tree line. I skidded sideways into an Armco guardrail and made some photographers dive for cover as I slid broadside to a brief halt. My inner motocrosser took over as I dumped the clutch, burmshotted the guardrail, and roosted out of the corner. I ended up making the third-fastest run of the morning.

The Thursday practice was the top section. It starts at what is called Devil’s Playground, named so because the lightning will dance from boulder to boulder. The top section is more beautiful and scenic than any road in Colorado, and that is saying something. It is also home to the Bottomless Pit corner, Boulder Park, and Olympic. Needless to say, it is not a place for a mishap. When punching the envelope, things can and do happen. What exactly happened, I don’t know. But what I do know is that near the summit during practice, my dear friend and mentor Hot Carl went off the edge. He lost his life doing something he loved. He also went off on a corner I was talking with him about minutes before I saw him launch away, grabbing gears and giving his Ducati the beans. He had just got done laughing at one of my corny jokes when I said, “Might as well.” He beat me to getting his helmet and gloves on. Away he went. At the summit, the word went out that #217 had gone off. Everyone quietly waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, an ambulance drove by…but slowly and without its lights on. Sitting atop that beautiful mountain that morning, I felt something inside me break. Something I had loved and given myself to had broken my heart.

The final morning of practice was also used for timed qualifying to determine start position and, more importantly, to measure Johnsons. Every run saw a tight battle between the American Honda HRC–supported CBR1000R ridden by a legit former AMA pro, the factory-supported Victory RSD Project 156, the fast French veteran Bruno, and, surprisingly enough, yours truly. The Honda and I were at the top with less than a second separating us on every timed run we took. He left in front of me and I was sure I smelled blood. As I passed Rookie’s Corner, I saw the skid marks, and upon returning down after my run I could see the mangled CBR1000R hanging upside down in a tree—another reminder of the severe consequences of pushing a bit too hard. I was still coming to grips with what had happened 24 hours before this. I am still, to this day, coming to grips with what happened. Thankfully the rider was OK, but I still smelled blood. I knew he would have a backup bike ready, but I wanted to beat him. I wanted to win for Carl; I wanted to win for all of our friends, and to try to make some light of such horrific outcomes of something we choose willingly to do and expect our loved ones to stand by and watch. Most of all, I wanted to win for my own reasons that I can’t even begin to understand. Glory is precious, it is good to do what you do well, and life is short.

On race-day morning, I waited in staging, inching closer to the start line and mentally preparing to give the course my everything. Carl’s widow, Lacy, was there to send me off, standing with my newlywed wife. I hugged them both with all the vigor and sensitivity that I was about to grasp the Ronin with. We knew overheating on the completed race run was a potential issue for the Ronin, so we did not warm the engine up. As the flag man gave me the signal, I fired the bike up and locked my visor. More than ready, I engaged my launch. The bike sputtered and would not even lift the wheel. The pig was cold and its computer kept it in a limiter mode. I was ready to take every inch of the course as fast as I ever had and the up-until-then-flawless motorcycle was not even giving me half of the RPMs. I tried to hold every bit of speed through the corners, and then, in an instant, it woke up. Coming out of a fast corner, the back end snapped out hard. I corrected and was tossed out of my seat as the handlebars did a tank slapper. Somehow I ended up back in the seat and totally pumped on adrenaline. Go! Go! Go!

“It is time to shine,” I thought as I linked the corners together with everything I had. The tire grip was a lot less than it had been on early morning practice runs. I could feel the back end track out on the gas. On one big, tightening horseshoe corner, I felt the slide and knew I could possibly narrowly avoid running wide and off the road or embrace my inner dirtbiker. I straightened the bike up and throttled straight off the edge of the road, landing in a ditch littered with skull-sized rocks. I kept the throttle on and jumped back onto the tarmac without missing a beat. After the zigzagging switchback section known as The W’s, the bike did overheat, putting itself in limp mode. As I approached the Bottomless Pit, it cooled back down and gave me full power again. Go! Go! Go!

As I passed broken-down race bikes, I stood up on the pegs and caught air as I pinned the throttle through the subsiding bumpy road surface. As I passed Carl’s corner, I fought so hard to not give the throttle any slack with only three corners to go. The back end stepped out again, and again I saved it. I let my eyes take in the glimpse of the checkered flag like a trailer-park hobo takes in the last swig of hooch. I had gotten the bike to the summit.

After the finish line is the only remaining dirt on the mountain, so I grabbed a handful and pitched that bitch sideways. Immediately the steering lock was found and I had to finally let go of the grips as I flopped it over the high side right in front of the TV cameras, where reporters were interviewing the HRC Honda rider who ended up winning by a near 14 seconds over me. It had been an exhilarating eight years of competing on America’s Mountain. What shall I do next? Perhaps go race on the Isle of Man? How about going for some epic backcountry shralping on my trusty old dirtbike?

February 21, 2019

META

The One Moto 2019

February 21, 2019

META

Event Recap presented by Tucker Powersports

The One Moto Show is more than just a SHOW; it's an event that brings together generations of motorcyclists for ONE unique experience. The energy was contagious at the show, and the Tucker crew headed home inspired. Here's some of what they experienced.

Film/Edit: Tucker Powersports

February 18, 2019

META

Films

CXXXI

February 18, 2019

META

Films

A Moto Film

An Open Fire Media and VisualSZN production

Director: Levi Arnold
DP: Parker Foster
Producer: Zach Gramm
Camera: RED Gemini
Music: MusicBed

February 12, 2019

META

Worlds Collide

February 12, 2019

META

Two Wheels, One Love

Words by Ethan Roberts | Photos by Aaron Brimhall

“Among creatures born into chaos, a majority will imagine an order, a minority will question the order, and the rest will be pronounced insane,”

author Robert Brault once wrote. I came into this world as the nephew of Gregg Godfrey, the man who brought Nitro Circus to life with Travis Pastrana and who has spent his entire life mastering the art of reckless fun. Safe to say, I was born into chaos, and by definition I was destined to be pronounced insane. By the time I could walk, I was also thrown onto (and off of) bicycles, motorcycles, scooters—anything dangerous with wheels. As I grew up, I gravitated toward downhill mountain biking, but motorcycling was in my blood.

For most of my life, I’ve dreamt of a way to connect the two worlds. It would become my mission—an obsession to find space where none exists, to create an experience that melds the feeling of motorcycling with the deep natural connection of mountain biking.

Determined to combine these factions, we conceptualized a rack-mounted MTB on the back of a motorcycle. The convenience of instant overland shuttle capabilities gave way to the realization that we could get deeper into the forests than ever possible in the search for the sacred, untouched backcountry lines that existed in our minds. Our first obstacle was to find the right motorcycle—the perfect mix between dirt and street with go-anywhere capability. While vetting virtually every model in current production, we discovered our timing was serendipitous: Husqvarna had just released the all-new 701 Enduro, and at first glance, we knew we had finally found the ultimate machine for the job.

We scoured the web for bike-rack designs, off-road mounts, and anything we might be able to modify or pull inspiration from to make our own moto mount. After hours of combing for ideas, it became clear that the only real way to find out if it would actually work or not was to just go for it and make something. We were flying blind on this one.

My first call was to Uncle John. (I know—really getting lucky here in the uncle department.) John is an engineer, specializing in automated conveyor systems, but he has watched us ride from the beginning and understood our idea perfectly. What would likely take me two full weeks to create, he helped us design and build in two days: a fully functional aluminum frame with space to strap all our camping gear and bags. Prototype in hand, Husky 701s in the garage, this concept turned into a mind-blowing reality.

Drawing a line on a digital map of where we wanted to go was simple. But getting there was a whole ’nother story. We skipped any sort of testing or R&D, opting to head straight to the backcountry and into the unknown. It was questionable whether our setup would hold up to the challenges ahead, but our lack of foresight made these questions burn less in the midst of impulsive, adrenaline-fueled action. I was confident that we had the right crew to make this trip successful.

Joining me on this journey was my older brother, Josh Roberts, renowned photographer Aaron Brimhall, and talented filmmaker Kollyn Lund. Thankfully, these boys are also talented motorcycle riders—a trip prerequisite for sure —and on balance, there’s nobody else I would want joining me on this trip. There was no trailering to a drop point on this mission; we were rolling out straight from the garage. As we geared up and made a few last-minute adjustments to the bikes, we eyeballed the setup and were off—all four of us, packed to the brim with bags, cameras, tents, and mountain bikes. If there is a trial by fire in this world of chaos we call Spaceship Earth, we had just approached the bench.

We rode 75 miles from Salt Lake City and stopped for fuel at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. Towering black clouds soon rose over the horizon, gaining momentum and swallowing the canyon behind us. Sunshine ahead, danger behind, our blissful cruise became a flat-out run to escape a wall of water and a 40-degree drop in temperature. Thirty miles deep into the canyon, the clouds enveloped us in a torrential downpour, turning to massive flakes of snow as we gained altitude to the canyon summit. For the next 75 miles we pressed on through the fringes of hypothermia, smiles frozen to our faces all the while in the happiest bit of misery one could experience.

Finally making it to Price, Utah, we huddled in a gas station, trying to thaw our frozen limbs. We felt resilient and proud, but the daunting realization that we still had 100 miles to go before reaching our camp spot kept us from resting on our laurels too long. Layering up with everything dry we had packed, we rode out into the middle of the desert, guided by the stars and the beating hearts of the 701s beneath us, brothers-in-arms who overcame the worst weather Nature had in store, pushing on to the real prize, way out there.

Riding up to our campsite and scaring away lingering cattle, we circled quickly for a level patch of dirt to call our home for the evening.

“Home” never sounded so good after this opening day of adventure. Pitching our tent over the smoothest spot we could find, we fixed a campfire to warm our bones and settle into the kind of sleep you can only find outdoors.

Josh fell asleep fireside; Aaron harnessed an inspired second wind and captured stunning long-exposure shots of the night sky over the campsite. Nestled in the hills of this wild desert, we were just a group of wanderers in search of the next frontier. As we lay in our tent, I couldn’t help but think we were in the same desert that Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid once ruled, hiding in the hills with loot they had just stolen.

Waking up to the sound of raindrops bouncing off our tent had never been so disheartening. We listened as the rain seemingly crushed our dreams of riding that day. As the pounding rain stopped, we ripped the tent fly open and couldn’t believe what we saw. It looked like we woke up on the moon. The Utah desert was still absorbing the rainfall, popping, gurgling, and shifting as it ingested all the moisture. With a pastel desert backdrop, these huge gray hills, steep chutes, and perfect dirt were untouched, ready and freshly groomed by Mother Nature herself.

This story was playing out exactly how we had envisioned it, and now it was time to take our mission to the next level. We picked a line up a mountainside that could have been decorated by Dr. Seuss and wasted no time getting to the top. Parking the motorcycles, we unloaded our mountain bikes, spotted our down lines, and it was on. Josh and I pulled on our helmets, threw up a fist bump, and yelled “Dropping!” to alert Aaron and Kollyn that it was time to speed the film: It’s getting real. In a dreamlike sequence, we released the brakes and tucked, ripping down a wide-open face, finding new lines in perfect chocolate-cake dirt with nobody around to witness.

In that moment, grins wide and my best friends cheering, I realized that this was it; this was exactly the reason we set out on this adventure.

I looked left to see my brother, Josh, side by side with me, carving matched lines down virgin dirt, each action unfolding seamlessly in slow motion into the next. Locked into a total state of flow, time dilates. Your actions lock into sync with others’. Your focus is in hyperdrive as your brain recruits every ounce of resources to the task at hand. It’s a magical, beautiful thing, on the verge of gaining superpowers. After carving up gorgeous faces like Thanksgiving dinner, my appetite shifted; I had to find a jump. Creativity pulsing at a level 10, I found a line near the top that set up perfectly to jump my mountain bike over my Husky 701. With no time to soak it all in, our fun was cut short as another round of downpours and flash flooding chased us out of the desert and back to the safety of the open road. Heading south, we hoped we could escape the rain and find some red rock and sand somewhere near Moab. Rolling into our second campsite, we narrowly beat the weather and hunkered down for the night. Still surprised that the storm had chased us this far, we were hoping for better luck in the morning.

As the sun came out from behind heavy gray skies, we had to kick Josh out of bed to hunt for that perfect morning light. Eyes half open, we were back on the prowl, riding our 701s and looking for a new zone suitable for both motorcycle and mountain bike. After a few hours, we came across a massive natural arch carved from sandstone, formed over thousands of years of erosion. On the trail leading up to it, there was a fun downhill line ending at the top of the arch. Layers upon layers of sandstone mountain gave infinite depth to the shot and framed out a perfect stage for the action that was about to unfold.

Perched on top of a 3-foot-wide sandstone bridge, with 60-foot drops on both sides, I couldn’t help but do a wheelie across the top. It was an incredible way to finish a mountain bike ride.

While we were enjoying the awe of the natural wonder surrounding us, the rain had started once again, but this time with more intensity, each passing minute progressing from an inconvenience to a definite problem. In the desert, water moves at a rapid pace, and before our eyes, our exit trail turned from a stream into a small river—then our tracks were washed away entirely. Swallowing down the bitter tightness of panic in the midst of a life-threatening situation, we managed to navigate our way out of the deadly desert labyrinth back to high ground, defeated and retiring our tents once again.

Wet and cold, we endured a brutal night only to wake up to the sun on our faces. The sun’s rays brought us back to life like butterflies emerging from their chrysalises—barely stirring at first, but soon peeking out from our tents with a smile at the weather having turned in our favor. Itching to find some red-rock riding for the moto, we left the mountain bikes at camp and set off for the sandstone dunes. Looking around and seeing red rock as far as the eye could see, we kept going. The farther we went, the more unbelievable the scenery got. Our theory proved correct: Beyond the roads and parking lots we access by car lies another world, pristine and rarely explored, in the natural folds of Utah’s vast landscape.

Finishing our final day with a bang, we loaded up and started our trek home holding the unique satisfaction that comes with knowing you just broke new ground. When we began this mission, we had a hunch. And, like archaeologists, we started to dig in the face of doubt and emerged victorious, finding our prize and proving the theory undoubtedly true. The ride home was filled with thoughts of the next adventure—our new addiction that pairs man with our favorite forms of two-wheeled misadventure.

January 29, 2019

META

Chad Reed

January 29, 2019

META

Against the Current

Words by Brett Smith | Photos courtesy Fox Racing

Tampa, Florida. Saturday, February 24, 2018. 10:45 P.M.

The checkered flag stopped waving an hour ago, but in a grassy parking lot in Tampa a crowd swelled, the Coors Light flowed and a team member passed out commemorative T-shirts. Aside from one subtle clue, the scene looked like a championship celebration: The person responsible for the party—the reason for the gathering—struggled to have a good time. Chad Reed just wanted to go home.

Three dozen people gathered around Reed’s Team CR22 truck as his four crew members packed up, working around the revelers. Children played, running with the elated enthusiasm one possesses when fighting the urge to fall asleep. Selfie-seeking spectators loitered with their screens aglow, ready for the chance to grab a moment with Reed. He obliged every request.

Wearing street clothes—dark work shorts, a navy blue T-shirt and team hat—his smiles revealed both gratefulness and grimace. For a professional motorcycle racer, a two-time Monster Energy Supercross Champion in the middle of his 17th consecutive season in the series, the 2018 Tampa race wasn’t a good night. He seeded in 19th, transferred through the last-chance qualifier, and didn’t finish the main event because of an electrical problem. After his bike cut out for the third time, he pulled into the mechanic’s area and handed the motorcycle to Mike Gosselaar. Instead of heading back to his truck in warranted frustration, Reed stood in the dirt and watched the rest of the race.

Maybe he wanted to study the lead riders who, in better circumstances, he believes he can still beat; maybe it was just because he loves motorsports and wanted to watch the battle between Eli Tomac and Marvin Musquin. Maybe he wanted to spend a few more moments absorbing the one positive moment from the night. Competing an hour away from his adopted hometown of Dade City, Florida, in front of 42,411 spectators, Reed became the new ironman of supercross by starting his 228th premier class main event, surpassing a record Mike LaRocco owned for 12 years.

Winning the last-chance qualifier, he gave the crowd a nac-nac over the finish line and then stood on the podium, where the event announcer whipped up the crowd in recognition of Reed’s long—and continuing—career. Ninety seconds later, the moment ended. He went from genuine joy and thankfulness right back to preparing for the one record he truly has his heart set on: oldest supercross winner, which is 33 years, 11 months. Reed turned 36 on March 15.

The post-race party gave Reed’s fans, friends and family a chance to observe a rare achievement, put life on pause and appreciate the two-decades-long journey. “That’s what 228 meant to me,” said Chad’s wife, Ellie, from her dining room table less than 12 hours after the party ended. “You reflect on how much you’ve actually done, but you’re in the zone and [sometimes] you forget to stop and look up and go ‘Hey, what did we do?’ And that’s because [looking at Chad], you’re so head down, ass up, go, go, go. Nothing is enough for you. But he’s always been that way.”

When Reed showed up in Anaheim on January 6 for the opening round of 2018, he hobbled around on a bum right ankle. The two fractures he suffered in October to the talus bone had not fully healed. Medically speaking, he had no business racing a motorcycle. The talus sits below the tibia and fibula and forms the lower part of the ankle joint. It bears the entire weight of the body and, for Reed, that body was nearly 20 pounds over his preferred racing weight of 170 when he started the season.

The injury notwithstanding, Reed could not have chosen a more difficult path to go racing in 2018. He had no team, and he came out of pocket for the Husqvarna FC 450s he rode (he bought five of them). Chad and Ellie hastily assembled Team CR22 between Thanksgiving and Christmas, an effort that measured up far shy of the $4.2 million annual operating budget TwoTwo Motorsports (2011-2015) had. One of his primary sources of funding was a $1,200-a-person VIP fan experience open to 10 people a weekend. The money went to pay the travel expenses for Team CR22.

“I mean, we came into the [2018] season where I was like, ‘How are we going to pay our mortgage?’” Ellie said. Their inner circle had shrunk. Friends who said, “He doesn’t know when to give up” or “Doesn’t he know when enough is enough?” were clipped. When his agent appeared to give up hope, they parted ways.

Despite an uninspiring season, by far the worst complete season in his 20-year professional career, Reed scored points at all 17 rounds of supercross, one of only six riders to do so. He finished 13th in points with a best race of seventh. As his ankle healed, the speed and intensity he’d been known for didn’t return, and he plodded through the season as if in a [bad] dream. Yet, in August he spent one day testing with JGR/Suzuki and gelled so well with the bike and team that they asked him if he wanted to finish the rest of the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross season. He agreed to run the final round in Indiana on August 25. Off the couch, and 38 months after his last AMA Motocross, Reed went 5-8 for 8th overall.

“There’s so much more there,” Reed said. “I honestly believe that I can still win. That feeling of going out and riding and going at the level, like when I see—and I’m around it—nothing special’s getting done. These guys, the Tomacs, the Andersons, they’re not doing anything that hasn’t been done before. And I don’t believe they’re doing anything that I can’t do.”

The Reeds have always felt like they were in a school of salmon, fighting to swim upstream to survive, shouting “can” when others said “can’t.” What they are doing is perceived as going against the current, and they are OK with that. But why? Why is Reed still racing at 36, 10 years beyond his last championship, four years beyond his last win? If he qualifies for any main event in 2019, he would become the oldest of all time.

To answer this, it’s important to understand how he got here.

New South Wales, Australia. Circa 1997

Jay Foreman had never seen so much drive in one kid. The team manager for Suzuki Australia, Foreman couldn’t believe how quickly Chad Reed thrashed bikes. He destroyed a clutch a day on his RM 125s; the countershaft sprockets sometimes came back to the shop missing teeth. The bikes got no rest. At a natural riding area called Crazers, Reed often rode 10 minutes through the bush with a 20-liter drum of fuel between his legs. When it was empty, he rode home, filled it up and came back. He developed this habit when he heard a story about how Ricky Carmichael didn’t stop riding until he had burned through five gallons of gas a day. It could have been a tall tale, completely fabricated, but this was Ricky Carmichael, and Reed had a poster of the guy hanging above his bed. What he knew for certain was that Carmichael, only two and half years older, was already winning championships on the other side of the Pacific, so Reed told himself, “Yup, that’s what I gotta do.” So, he burned through as much fuel as he possibly could. And he took full advantage of the fact that Foreman’s shop was 20 minutes away from home. He’d ruin a bike and simply take it back for another one.

“It didn’t matter who was around helping him, he was going to make it,” Foreman said, dispelling any notion that Reed caught lucky breaks. “Nothing was going to stop him. He wanted it so bad.”

Foreman watched Reed grow up on the local motocross scene in New South Wales and picked the kid up to compete for Suzuki in the Australian Junior championships. When it was time to turn pro, however, Reed made it clear that he wanted to bypass the 125cc class completely. He found the displacement gutless, and he’d been riding 250s since he was 12. It was a highly unconventional move. “And a hard thing to convince my bosses at Suzuki Australia,” Foreman said. In New Zealand, riders could move to the senior (pro) division at 15. In October of 1997, Foreman sent him to Australia’s neighbor to compete in their professional motocross season on 125s and 250s. Foreman said the deal was that if he could beat rising star Josh Coppins (who was 20), then he could bump straight to the 250 class in Australia.

Reed doesn’t recall racing in New Zealand as being a “tryout period,” but he was definitely dead set against racing a 125 and viewed it as an opportunity to race pro. “When I make my mind up, it’s going to happen,” Reed said. “I wasn’t intimidated, nor did I look at those guys, such as Cameron Taylor, Andrew McFarlane, Michael Byrne, Peter Melton and say, ‘Oh my gosh, these guys are gnarly.’ My cousin (Craig Anderson), who was the Australian champion, would kill them, and I got to see everything he did, and I rode with him all the time. In a naive, overconfident manner, I didn’t believe I had to worry about anything, and the 250 class was where I needed to be.”

In one of many examples of growing up fast and finding his own way, Reed went to New Zealand alone. A man named Dave Craig looked after him, but they couchsurfed their way around the two islands, practicing whenever and wherever they could. It was during these months that he blossomed into a young adult. Reed didn’t beat Coppins, but Foreman granted Reed’s wish to compete on a 250 in Australia’s 1998 National Motocross series. The fact that a 15-year-old could go to a foreign country alone and adapt well enough to stay in the championship hunt was impressive on its own.

Figuring it out is part of the Reed fabric. His parents never mollycoddled him. They couldn’t. They were too busy breaking their backs and blistering their fingers to provide for their three kids. Robyn Reed cleaned the schoolhouse, often leaving her own home by 4 a.m. Mark Reed, a concreter, left around 5:30 a.m. In West Wallsend, New South Wales, Australia, the Reeds lived across the street from the K-6 school. Aunts and uncles lived nearby. but Chad remembers he and his younger brother, Troy, getting themselves out the door in the mornings.

The obsession with motorcycles started in July 1986.

An uncle on his mother’s side raced locally, and he introduced four-year-old Reed and his aforementioned cousin Craig Anderson (four years older) to motocross. One of Reed’s earliest memories was the horse truck arriving and taking away Fern. His parents sold her so they could buy him a Yamaha PW50. Within a 45-minute drive, Reed and Anderson had five different racetracks to choose from, including the Cessnock Motorcross and Lake MacQuarie Motor Bike Clubs. Reed can still hear the heavy metal clunk of the forward-falling starting gate at his first race. “When it dropped, it literally just scared you, scared the hell out of you,” he said. “It was a daunting experience, but I remember deciding that motorcycles were what I wanted to do.”

Anderson said they often rode every day, straight into the bush until sunset, and then came home through the dark. Progression came quickly. “We didn’t get taught. We just figured it out,” he said. “And both of our families had little money. Our bikes looked like shit and our tires were always bald.” Anderson knew his little cousin had a special desire to succeed at six years old and, despite their age difference, their competitiveness pushed one another to be better. Reed wanted to both be like Anderson and beat him. Being four years younger, Reed always had a displacement disadvantage. It just meant he had to ride that much faster.

Racing in America wasn’t just a goal; he talked about it constantly, and he wore the heads off a friend’s VCR watching videotapes of Jeremy McGrath. At 13 he moved to Kurri Kurri, where Mark purchased 25 acres. The first track they built was crude, filled with tight corners and long, fast straightaways about the width of a skid steer. Blowing the corners meant getting tangled in the shrubs and tea trees of the bush.

In Kurri Kurri, Reed excelled and picked up support from Suzuki. He’d finish a full day of racing, come home and continue riding on his own property. He burned nearly 200 liters of fuel a week, and at $1 a liter for avgas, affording his dream became a stretch. The Reeds lived in a trailer for two and a half years while Dad built a modest 1,000-square-foot home. Affording handlebars even required creativity. Suzuki had a large supply of stock takeoff bars and grips from the team’s stable of race bikes, and Mark scooped them up and put them on Chad’s practice bikes. He went through them like tear-offs.

“I picked up Chad’s RM125 once to prep it, and it had bent-up stock bars and a left-side grip stretched over the throttle tube,” said Kristian Kibby, a mechanic for Team Suzuki Australia who now works for GEICO Honda. “To top it off, the grips were wired on with some old fencing wire, similar in gauge to a coat hanger.”

When Reed was around 14, he learned of a development tour that gave young Australian talent the opportunity to travel to the United States to ride and race. It had an expensive price tag, and Reed can’t recall if he actually got an invite—but he knew he couldn’t afford it. What he does remember is being a young teenager and “realizing that it’s a very political world we live in, and it’s not all based on talent,” he said. Kibby once asked Reed why he didn’t go. The amount of spite-filled cockiness in his reply is burned into his memory: “I don’t care, because I’ll kick all their asses when they get back,” Reed told him. The kids came home with enviable amounts of swag, including helmets painted by Troy Lee Designs.

“Of course, he would have been slightly jealous and had a chip on his shoulder,” Kibby said. “These were Australian kids with money that probably didn’t have the burning desire Chad did, and they were the ones going on the trip. I bet he stayed home and practiced even harder.”

As if the sting from not being able to go to America wasn’t enough, his high school math teacher told him to stop dreaming when the subject of racing came up. “You think you’re going to go out and do what Jeff Leisk did?” Mr. Rumford would ask Reed. Leisk’s accomplishments included several podium finishes in AMA Supercross and runner up in the 1989 FIM 500cc World MXGP championship. “I remember looking at him and saying, ‘No, I’ll be better,’” Reed said. After a few years of racing in the United States, Reed received an apology letter from Mr. Rumford.

Even though Reed skipped straight to the 250cc class in 1998, Suzuki Australia’s introductory salary for young rookie motocross riders was still only $5,000. To save money, he co-piloted a team van with Kibby while his teammates jetted in to the races. Only 16 and still on a learner’s license, he couldn’t legally pull trailers, but they shared driving duties. Reed enjoyed the process, which included pumping gas on the side of the road from a metal drum stored inside the trailer, because of the barren mileage between fuel stations in South and Western Australia. They ate sausage rolls, meat pies and other mystery foods from stores along the way; Reed’s beverage of choice was chocolate milk, while Kibby enjoyed Jolt Cola. Reed had no music preferences—still doesn’t—and when Kibby’s CDs weren’t spinning, they talked about racing and life. Kibby once asked what he thought about Carmichael, the 125-class champion in the United States. “I remember Chad saying,

‘I have two hands, two feet and a heartbeat and so does the next guy. I can do whatever that guy’s doing.’”

Reed simply echoed what his father had taught him: that no one is above anyone, that all can be beaten.

Reed had extreme confidence, but still harbored some doubts. At 16, his siblings and friends went to school, his parents to work and he sat home, bored. One can ride only so many practice laps, and he didn’t enjoy training in a gym. Still doesn’t. For his favorite non-riding routine, he pulled on a set of board shorts, rode his BMX bike three miles to the Kurri pool (“which felt like so much longer”), swam 20 laps and rode home.

“It was a huge shock,” Reed said of adjusting to the life of a professional athlete. “Here I am, it’s 1998 and I’m a kid, really kind of lost, and I didn’t know what to do. I was like, ‘Do I go back to school and try to do them both [racing and school]?’ I ended up sticking with the motocross thing.” Today, he chuckles when he sees a teenager whose life and routine are under constant scrutiny and surveillance via various handlers. With that kind of pressure, it doesn’t surprise him that so many careers end at 26. “You’ve got to figure some things out on your own.”

In August, at the end of the 1998 MX season, Reed broke his lower leg while trying to pass Andrew McFarlane and secure a 1-1 finish. It happened on the final straightaway of the final lap at Hervey Bay, a rough, sandy course in Queensland, 12 hours north of Kurri Kurri. His leg required surgery and six screws, and he used a Suzuki scooter to get around town and see friends. With forced downtime, he stepped out of his racing bubble and lived the life of a normal teenager.

On August 30, he rode his scooter to a birthday party about a mile from his house. Many of his friends and former classmates were there (he had dropped out of 9th grade in October 1997). One was Ellie Brady. He had seen her for the first time two years earlier, on the first day of school. They made eye contact from across a room in the library. She had brown hair and lively dark-brown eyes, but it was those teeth that struck him. “Smiley-teeth Ellie,” he called her. The daughter of a school teacher and a coal miner, Brady had spent her whole life in Kurri Kurri and planned to become a teacher like her mother.

At the party they connected. Brady sat on his lap, and they joked about how Chad’s cast stuck up from his knee like a fake leg. She finally had the chance to really study him and noticed his stunning blue eyes. “When I want to have children, I’m going to come find you so my kids can have blue eyes like yours,” she told him. Today, she laughs about how bizarre and bold that sounds, but she remembers being completely sincere and nonsexual about it.

When the party wound down, the boy with the broken leg kissed her before he left. He was cocky but cute, and she liked his infectious personality. If he’d been healthy, he wouldn’t have been at that party. It was the best broken bone he ever had.

Brady quickly learned that her dirt-bike-racing boyfriend had a dream to relocate to the United States. She knew of his profession in theory, but didn’t know exactly what it all meant—and she didn’t consider herself part of the plan. “It was never like, we got together and we’re going to be together forever,” she said. “It was like ‘OK, we’re just having fun and dating.’ But it kept getting more serious.”

In late December 1998, Reed went to America as part of a contract clause he’s still particularly proud of, because he fought hard for it. In addition to a $25,000 salary with Suzuki of Australia, he wanted to try a few races in America before the Australian Supercross season began in late January 1999. Foreman greenlighted the request and joined Reed. They arrived just before New Year’s Day and picked up a flogged and battered factory RM125 that had been used as a dyno bike. It didn’t even have graphics. Reed spent the entire month sleeping in the living quarters of a horse trailer owned by Allen Knowles, a friend of Foreman’s who often took visiting riders into his Rowland Heights, California, home. Reed spent his spare time mountain biking in the hills above Anaheim, eating at Marie Callender’s restaurant (chicken and pasta, every night) and watching WWF with Danny Ham (another Australian rider) in the living room until the wee hours of the night, “laughing like schoolchildren while my wife and I tried to sleep,” Knowles said.

At the Suzuki test track, he watched Greg Albertyn flail through the huge set of whoops. “This is impossible,” Reed told himself. Then Larry Ward rolled out on the track and smoothly skimmed across them. Impossible changed to, “I could do this!” Reed can still hear the sound Jeremy McGrath’s YZ250 made when the defending champion turned laps on the Yamaha test track across the canyon. “I couldn’t wait to get done riding so I could drive over there and watch Jeremy.”

The trip suffered a setback when he caught a hairline fracture in his right thumb at an annual warmup race. He rode practice at the supercross season opener at Anaheim, but was still too sore to race. He lined up a week later in San Diego with a throbbing thumb and won his daytime qualifier to transfer into the evening program.

In a rented Penske truck that carried a sad assortment of plastic totes and cheap lawn chairs, the 16-year-old blended in with the rest of the privateers in the back of the Angel Stadium parking lot. He couldn’t even grab the attention of the very man who had loaned him the motorcycle: Team Suzuki’s Manager, Roger DeCoster.

The media completely overlooked Reed. His name got a mention in the body paragraphs of Cycle News, but only in the context of listing the riders that qualified for the main event. On ESPN2, Art Eckman said “Reed” when running down the list of riders in the Suzuki Starting Grid, but Reed’s actual name didn’t appear in the on-screen graphic. A Harold Hageman #874 showed up as the 22nd rider on the gate, but Hageman didn’t actually race in San Diego. Hageman finished 17th one week prior, so the most logical explanation is that the TV crew pulled the template forward and didn’t delete Hageman’s name. Reed, running #967 or #997—nobody involved can quite remember—never got a single second of television time. He finished 17th. About five years later, after Reed started winning championships in America, Foreman had a conversation with DeCoster about the apparent 1999 snub. “I should have taken more belief in your word about how good he was,” Foreman remembers DeCoster telling him. “I made a mistake. I couldn’t see it in him. I just thought he was arrogant, and I didn’t like that.”

Reed likes to joke that he wasn’t “French enough” to turn heads. Today it seems ludicrous that a future champion was nearly invisible at his first race in America. Many forget that Alessio Chiodi, the two-time 125cc World MXGP champion, was on his own three-race American tour at the same time. He finished fifth at round one in Anaheim—his first-ever supercross in the U.S.—and backed it up with a fourth in San Diego. Later that summer he won his third world title. Reed went back to Australia without ever making a ripple in the States.

Over three years passed before he raced another American supercross.

He returned to Australia and pounded laps on the supercross track he and his father built on the Kurri Kurri property. Thick with tea trees, the family cleared the land by hand, often leaving behind the small stumps that proved arduous to dig out. Friends who rode there still speak of the little landmines that gave them flat tires or ripped their feet off the pegs. Mark and Chad did their best in building the course, but their amateur shaping skills left them with landings as steep as the takeoffs. Riding the track well required more-than-precise timing.

The 1999 Australia Supercross Championship opened in late January at Newcastle Speedway. The first professional supercross in Australia for Reed was also the first race Ellie attended. Her whole family came, and her sister and their friends wore shirts that spelled “R-E-E-D” with the letters sandwiched between thick black lines (as in, “Reed between the lines”).

Reed crashed twice and sat seventh on lap 15, but still pulled off the win against his cousin, Anderson, the defending champion, and Peter Melton, whom he passed on the final lap. In a post-race protest, officials ruled that Reed had cut the track and docked him to fourth place. According a Transmoto magazine article by Andy Wigan’s article, Reed confronted the officials and the protesters: “I won fair and square and you’re all scared to admit it. You know what? I don’t even care, cos I’m going to whip you all so bad next week. And you all know it!” Reed had plenty of speed and showed acumen for the discipline, but he spent a lot of time on the ground—and the media didn’t let him forget it.

“I’d tell him, ‘Don’t let it worry you. You’re pushing the boundaries. You’re going to crash,’” Foreman said. “The magazines would say, ‘This guy is never going to do anything until he stops crashing.’ He took massive offense to that.” Even with the round-one setback, he won the championship, becoming the youngest to do so.

In 2000 he moved to CDR/Fox Yamaha, but had to learn even more independence because the Melbourne-based race team was over 10 hours from Kurri Kurri. He managed his parts stock and maintained his two practice bikes, changing tires and top ends on his own. He looks back on this fondly, believing it helped him grow up a bit. His relationship with Brady flourished as well, and when she wasn’t in school, she helped in the garage, which had formerly been a toilet block container. Ellie cleaned filters and held the tire irons. “This garage was the shittiest thing you’ve ever seen,” she said.

“It was literally an old shitter,” Reed said, laughing. In 2000, Ellie was 18, a high school senior, working part-time at a grocery store, and she had been accepted to university. Late that year, Reed got an offer to compete for Jan de Groot’s Kawasaki team in the 2001 250cc World Motocross Championship. He went to Japan in the fall to test with the team, and he raced the Bercy Supercross in France. When he came home, he knew he had a big decision to make. At the time, he didn’t know it would be the most difficult decision of his life, one that deeply affected his relationship with his parents.

Reed couldn’t take either of his parents to Europe; they had to work and raise his younger siblings. His first instinct was to take Brady, whom he had been dating for nearly 18 months. His parents suggested he take a friend instead. Two teenage boys alone in Europe? Reed knew that would turn into a “shit show.”

The issue over the companion escalated into an argument, and Mark tried to barter, offering to pay for the flight of anyone else he wanted to take. Finally, a line was crossed; Reed said his father told him, “If you take Ellie, I wipe my hands of you.” The hurtful words left scars that remain today and put a heavy strain on their relationship.

“I’m trying to contemplate it,” Reed said. “So, I said, ‘All right, I’m going to make this call.’ I took it personal. All these years later, that’s what’s so badass about what we achieved [is that] I made huge decisions on my own.” Reed absorbed the blow on his own and elected not to tell Brady. She didn’t know the full details until much later, but she could sense the tension.

Next, he asked her if she even wanted to go. He knew about her schedule to attend university, and he worried about her getting homesick because she comes from a tight-knit family, which includes two sisters and a brother. Brady liked the idea, and they spoke with her parents, who gave the teenaged couple their blessing. Like any concerned parent, Brady’s dad opened the Q & A portion with, “How is he going to support you?”

Reed’s Kawasaki contract—sent Down Under via fax—was worth $80,000 (USD), with expenses paid in Dutch guilders (physical euro banknotes didn’t go into circulation until 2002). They would be living on their own in Belgium, driving through foreign countries and managing their own logistics. It wasn’t a simple backpacking-across-Europe excursion. Reed looked Mr. Brady in the eye and assured him he’d take care of his daughter. Brady deferred her education for one year and prepared to leave her home country for the first time in her life.

“And as much as I wanted to—or at least as much as I had confidence in myself—I never saw myself failing, right?” Reed said.

“It was just [telling myself] ‘You’re going to make it.’ That was the only option.”

In late January 2001, Reed won the first two rounds of the Australian Supercross championship, beating his cousin on night one and Peter Melton on night two. Days later, with just two gear bags full of personal items, they left behind their humble homes, their friends and families, and took on the world.

Brady cried first. They connected in Hong Kong, and Reed thought to himself, “Oh no.” She chalked it up to a combo of homesickness and facing another 10-hour flight when one had just ended. She recovered, and they continued to their new (temporary) home in Lommel, Belgium. “Everything we bought, everything we purchased, everything we did, was the …”

“Bare minimum,” Brady cut in. “We tried to save our money.”

Australia held the only event outside Europe that season, and they drove to the rest of the races—Belgium, Germany, Austria, Sweden, France, Switzerland, etc.—in a little motorhome. That alone provided a lifetime’s worth of stories. A day or two before Reed’s 19th birthday, they got to the end of their driveway and didn’t know which way to turn to go to round one in Bellpuig, Spain, about 15 hours away. Remember, this was 2001; the cell phone they shared did nothing more than make phone calls. So, they went to a gas station and Brady bought a map and learned how to read it. “The amount of fights and arguments we had over directions …” but Brady interrupted: “I think we did pretty good! We’d do well on The Amazing Race.”

On April 1, Reed cried. At that moment, Brady discovered her true role. Round two took place in Valkenswaard, Holland. Reed came into the weekend exhausted after hammering moto after moto at a local sand track. In the race, he crashed three times and struggled in the deep, sandy ruts that were unlike anything he’d ever seen. He finished outside the top 15. When he came back to the truck, he removed his helmet, sat on a bike stand in the back of their camper, and sobbed. Brady saw him, steeled herself, and laid into him.

“WE DIDN’T COME ALL THIS WAY FOR YOU TO BE SITTING IN HERE AND CRYING IN THE TRAILER AND RIDING LIKE SHIT!” she yelled. Seventeen years later she retells the scene with the exact emphasis and tone she used in the Netherlands. He felt like a failure, and Brady wasn’t going to let him do that. They had both sacrificed too much. “Ellie bought into the goal, and that was to make it to America and do whatever it was going to take to do it,” Reed said. “And I think that made us stronger. That brought us closer. We worked as a team.”

Reed spent the early part of the season outside the top five while Mickaël Pichon ran away with the championship. After five rounds, Reed sat 11th in the standings. At round six, on May 27 in Spa, Belgium, Reed got his first podium, a third. Before the season’s halfway point, talk of Reed’s heading to America spread, and nobody tried hard to keep it a secret.

At round 12 in Lierop (September), he became the second Australian to win a World MX GP (Jeff Leisk, 1990). By that point in the season, however, Reed had already signed with Yamaha of Troy to race the 125cc (now 250) class in the United States in 2002. The move surprised de Groot, who wanted to keep Reed so badly he told Pro Circuit’s Mitch Payton that he had already re-signed Reed for 2002. Reed said he would have given MXGP one more year in exchange for a guaranteed spot with Team Kawasaki USA in 2003 in the premier class. They wouldn’t do it.

In October, Reed returned to Australia and won the final two rounds of the Australian Supercross Championship (beating Travis Pastrana, the 2001 125cc East SX champion). Later that fall, Reed and Brady arrived in the United States just like they had arrived in Europe less than a year earlier: wide-eyed, with only a couple of gear bags in tow. With little money and a tight budget, they spent six weeks in Sharon Richards’ two-bedroom condo with Richards and her then-21-year-old daughter. The director of client services for the agency that orchestrated Reed’s contract, Richards remembers them as two sweet, impressionable and excited kids, happy to be living a dream come true. She helped them navigate purchasing insurance, an automobile and a small house in Southern California.

Yamaha allowed Reed to race the first three rounds of the 250cc supercross season while he waited for the eastern regional series to begin. On January 5, 2002, he finished 6th in his first-ever premier class attempt. On February 9, he won the first of six-straight 125cc races. In his no-filter, love-it-or-hate-it manner, he let the crowd know that A: This was his lifelong dream, and B: He didn’t really want to be in this class, and C: “I expected to win tonight.”

A little over two years later, he won the premier class championship.

“Those early memories are probably the ones that make me most proud, because we were so young and made such huge decisions and things like that, and you don’t realize that it could have went one way or the other back then,” Reed said. “I feel like all these years later, that’s the core of who we were. And here we are.”

Dade City, Florida. Sunday, February 25, 2018. Morning.

The morning after the Tampa Supercross, there is no sign of life outside the lakeside golf community home of Chad and Ellie Reed. All four garage doors are closed, and no vehicles sit in the tiled circular driveway. Spanish moss trees form a natural privacy barrier around the property. The neighborhood is so quiet at 10:30 a.m. that it feels abandoned. Inside, kids in pajamas race around the living room, tumbling over couch cushions and gymnastics blocks. Ellie is vacuuming while her three children—Pace, Kiah and Tate (age range 3-7)—play. They’re especially happy this morning because it’s rare when Dad is home for breakfast on a Sunday in winter. Still sporting bedhead, Chad makes a pot of oatmeal. Pace eats his so fast everyone wonders if he threw it all on the ground or fed it to the dogs; his face is covered in chunks of cooked oats. But Lulu the Shih Tzu and Milo the French Bulldog puppy are loitering on the other side of the kitchen, and the floor is clean. Pace grins and laughs. Chad smiles.

This is Chad Reed at home, the Chad that only family and close friends get to have. He’s a father who shows up at school functions, soccer games, gymnastics practice, who rescues turtles, helps with homework and puts kids to bed every night he’s home, where they talk about their day before turning out the lights. At home, Chad perfects his baking skills with a damn-fine chocolate soufflé and cracks open cookbooks to try something new. The kids especially love Daddy’s eggs. And, in case you’re wondering, the two boys did get Daddy’s piercing blue eyes.

“He is the sweetest, happiest childlike adult I know,” Ellie said. “I hope one day the other layers peel off and people get to see that. But, of course, it’s the other side of him that helped him get to where he got professionally.”

The kids’ lives might be very different from how their mother and father grew up in Kurri Kurri, but Reed knows there’s plenty of value to pass on from his own humble upbringing. “My dad wasn’t an athlete, but I remember him coming home and his hands were red and raw from being a concreter. I want my kids to know that you have to work for it, and I want them to have their own dreams.”

At the races, he balances Chad the racer with Chad the dad, turning one persona off and operating in another. But he doesn’t hide it when he’s upset or frustrated. They don’t want their kids to be satisfied with performances that are less than their best. “The way I grew up, I’d be more disappointed in them if they come off and they’re OK with losing and average. I don’t think [being OK with losing] is a healthy thing. Maybe people will frown upon that but …” he said, trailing off.

Reed struggled in 2018, spent most of his season in frustration, and was not at all OK with his results. Fans grimaced. Watching a legend like Reed (whose 131 supercross podium finishes and 44 wins are the all-time first and fourth) struggle in 2018 was painful. But his fan base didn’t shrink. It grew. Autograph-seekers lined up an hour before the official signing sessions begin. Maybe they want to see a champion one last time before he’s gone. Maybe they’re like Reed, and they just haven’t had enough.

Foreman, the Suzuki Australia team manager, said he’s never seen a rider that likes riding a dirt bike as much as Reed. And his ability to adapt—to a new country, a new brand, a new setting, a new way of life—has made him even more special. As a professional, Reed has had moments, years, bikes and teams that he didn’t gel with, that made him wonder if it was time to move on. There was a period when he thought 26 or 27 years old was his time, too, just like it was with Jeff Stanton, Ricky Carmichael, Ryan Villopoto, Ryan Dungey … But then something reignited the passion.

The thought of not racing anymore seems nonsensical, especially since Chad and Ellie feel like they’re still arriving. “That’s always been our thing,” she said. “You never arrive. It’s not all of a sudden, ‘Good, we’re here, yes!’ No, it’s like you’re constantly trying to get somewhere.”

Maybe Chad Reed is still dreaming. He’s dreaming of another podium, another win, another title, another year of doing the one thing he’s loved more than anything since he was four.

2019 is his 22nd year as a professional athlete. And it doesn’t matter what he wants to do next. Because he hasn’t reached this finish line yet. Because right now he’s still swimming upstream.

And if this whole thing really is a dream?

Well, he doesn’t want to be woken up.

January 21, 2019

META

Dram

January 21, 2019

META

Foraging in the Colorado Rockies

Words by Maggie Gulasey | Photos by Aaron Brimhall

Today the forest is enveloped with an unusually thick blanket of fog, swallowing the towering mountaintops and illuminating the multitude of greens splattering the woods. So gently the rain falls that when it comes to rest upon a blade of grass, it barely bows. There is, however, enough moisture that it turns the rocks lining the trail into a glistening, slippery surface and constructs miniature ponds at every dimpled point along the terrain. These mountains are undeniably majestic, teeming with brilliant plant and animal life. To hike to this elevated splendor on foot, particularly with today’s weather, would be unreasonable and entail an entire day or more. To travel via auto would guide you only a short distance, as you would quickly encounter trails too narrow and especially intricate and unyielding for any four wheels.

If you wish to access the botanical bounty near tree line, then a degree of creativity must be applied. Brady Becker and Shae Whitney of DRAM Apothecary have achieved exactly that, utilizing a tool that grants them unique passage to forage untapped regions of the abundant Colorado mountains: a motorcycle.

If you are fortunate enough to discover Silver Plume, Colorado, it would not be unusual to experience a sense of enchantment upon arrival. This “living ghost town” is lined with charming Victorian homes, dirt roads, and a gentle creek that slowly meanders through town. It is the kind of area that would fully ignite your imagination with its rich history and 150-year-old architectural remnants that still haunt the streets. In the 1880s this area would have been swelling with over 2,000 residents, mainly composed of silver miners and their families. Legend says silver was so plentiful during the time that much of it lay in feather-like formations—a plume—giving Silver Plume its name. Though present-day Silver Plume is home to less than one-tenth of its peak population, it still retains plenty of mystery and magic. One of the more enigmatic buildings still standing is the Knights of Pythias Lodge (the K.P.), where a secret society once held their private meetings and where an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” was filmed. While some may call this structure haunted, DRAM Apothecary just calls it home.

The K.P., located 9,114 feet above sea level, is where DRAM crafts their exquisite bitters, syrups, sodas, and teas. In 2011, motivated by their passion to create a healthy, sustainable, and completely natural product, Becker and Whitney moved to Silver Plume and founded DRAM. The area’s surrounding plant life fuels the pair’s creativity as well as the ingredient list for their bitters. A high concentration of medicinal herbs, roots, or flowers in either alcohol or glycerin, bitters can be incorporated into your daily diet for vibrant health and agreeable digestion or as a flavoring component for cocktails.

Today, Becker is going to prepare a batch of their Wild Mountain Sage bitters. Although the sky is ominous and the rain is drizzling, it does not stop him from venturing into the woods on his dirtbike in search of the main ingredient: wild sage.

Becker’s KTM 500 EXC vastly expands his foraging grounds and provides him access to areas that would otherwise be too remote to reach. As a proficient motorcyclist of nearly 20 years, Becker is just as connected to his bike as he is to the environment that surrounds him. Raised by a mother who is a master gardener and florist, Becker has an uncanny understanding of and respect for plant life and knows precisely where to take his motorcycle to uncover the sage.

A brief jaunt down a frontage road and Becker is at the trailhead of Grizzly Gulch, located between two magnificent 14,000-foot peaks being devoured by fog. Swiftly moving through the freshly made ponds and rushing rivers, Becker effortlessly maneuvers his bike higher and higher up the trail. Though the rugged terrain is daunting to tackle on foot, the two wheels glide over it with ease. The trail becomes steep and covered with wet, shifty boulders. Unfazed, Becker coasts up the ice-like surface without even the slightest wobble. What would be an all-day adventure to set about afoot Becker accomplishes in less than an hour on his motorcycle as he finally reaches the secluded haven.

As if Mother Nature were expecting him, the rain ceases and the fog dissipates, unveiling the impressive mountain peaks still capped with snow. There is an incredible silence blanketing the woods, with the occasional chirp from a bird or splash from a water droplet meeting the ground, interrupting the peaceful quiet. An imaginative brain isolated in these woods could conjure the most terrifying scenarios; every rustle amongst the trees could be a mountain lion stalking you, a hungry bear lurking about, or even an giant bigfoot fuming over your intrusion on his territory. With no time for such head games, Becker sets off to gather wild sage for his bitters. Luckily, the field is generous today and there is more than enough sage to fill Becker’s large bags, which fit perfectly on the back of his bike.

A mere two hours later, Becker is back at the K.P. ready to produce a batch of Wild Mountain Sage. Becker and Whitney carefully handpick most of the ingredients for the bitters, intimately connected to every bottle they create. They both boast an extraordinary understanding of their environment and how to artfully utilize the plants in their own backyard to create a delicious and healthful product. Equally impressive is Becker’s knowledge of the land and crafty use of his motorcycle to source the ingredients. This batch of Wild Mountain Sage will contain glycerin, water, sage, orange peel, gentian, and a dash of love provided by Becker and his rainy day adventure on his motorcycle into the foggy Colorado woods.

January 4, 2019

META

Endless

January 4, 2019

META

Jimmy Hill: Iceland

A Film by Shift MX

Introducing our first ENDLESS project: The Iceland Collection.

Endless represents the limitless opportunities from new products, to new moments that will define the culture, to the endless places to ride a dirt bike. We were inspired by Iceland's black sand beaches, abundant glacial masses and grey overcast skies and it is reflected in the design of this gear set. But our inspiration didn’t stop at just color. More importantly, knitting in Iceland is a traditional craft that has shaped both the lives of locals and the culture that surrounds it. We incorporated this purpose-driven construction in a way specific and beneficial to moto. The end result, our completely redesigned 3LUE Label 2.0 chassis now utilizes engineered knit in our jersey’s and premium materials throughout the rest of the kit. The Iceland gear set: as unique as the craft, the people and the island that inspired it.

SHIFTMX.COM

January 2, 2019

META

Films

The Catalyst

January 2, 2019

META

Films

A Message from ATWYLD

Words by Anya Violet

People find their way to a life on two wheels for many different reasons. For some of us, it is not a choice, but an absolute necessity that is deeply engrained in our DNA. It takes a certain genetic makeup to find joy atop a machine propelling you through space at a high velocity.

It’s easy to wonder why someone would do something that is considered to be so dangerous. Why do people climb mountains, jump out of airplanes or go to the moon? The answer most certainly is: Because we can. The thrill of the ride outweighs the fear of death. What is life without challenge and risk? Within everyone there is a drive to explore and experience, but it is up to the individual to feed that drive or not. Some of us need a little motivation and inspiration.

Think about the first time you saw someone on a motorcycle. Something clicked in your brain. The aerodynamic curves of the bike shaping perfectly around the human body. The power of the machine placed right in the palm of your hand. The motor growling and beckoning to be pushed further and further. The allure of the bike draws you in, and if you allow it, that can introduce you to a new world.

As motorcyclists, the love for the sport resides in our very souls — an almost primal instinct to reach far beyond our comfort zones to the edge. The machine is the catalyst, forever an inspiration to pursue the unreachable and explore the boundaries of what is possible with human and machine.

You can feel the adrenaline build with the twist of the throttle. The day blows off you in the wind as your mind becomes clear and focused. The person that you are away from your bike is gone, and the ride has taken you to a new level. A version of yourself that you did not know was there emerges as you become one with your machine.

A motorcycle can ignite a drive and passion within you that may otherwise lay dormant for an entire lifetime. Giving in, and letting the thrill wash over you, provides an entirely new way to see life. All of the senses are heightened atop this perfectly built machine as you escape the norm. A bond grows with every mile and every turn. Whomever you are in the world can be enhanced with a motorcycle.

December 27, 2018

META

Ryan Cox

December 27, 2018

META

Lost in the Details

Words & photos by Todd Blubaugh

As I studied his motorcycle before shooting it, I couldn’t help but notice how much it spoke to what I know of Ryan Cox as a person: He is a calculated man who considers many decisions before making one.

The first time I saw this 39 was in Palm Springs at the Paradise Road Show. It stood out among the usual suspects not because it was loud (visually), but because it quietly held my attention over the rest of the noise. I knew immediately who had built it.

Ryan has always impressed me. His bikes are concise – he designs them without gimmicks, and every detail has a noticeable function. This 39 is thus far my favorite, so I called him on a Friday night and asked if I could shoot it. Thirty minutes later, he was at my office dropping it off after a long day of work. Ryan is a wardrobe stylist here in Los Angeles, which makes a lot of sense if you are looking at this bike – he does not cut corners when it comes to the smallest detail. Although his bikes are custom, he builds them to production standards … taking the time and money to find the proper vintage for all his components. Ryan tells me that he can’t help his OCD, but it clearly has its advantages when styling a job or one of his bikes.

His introduction to motorcycles started in the dirt: He was born in Astoria, Oregon, where a lot of his family still resides. Motorbikes were a household item, and his father used to ride Ryan around on his gas tank at age 2. Ryan had a mini bike by age 6 back in 1986; after mowing lawns all summer, he bought a brand-new XR 80 for $1,200 from the Honda dealership.

Most of Ryan’s formative years happened in Southern California after his family moved to Thousand Oaks. He fell in love with racing dirt bikes, but always kept an appreciation for Harleys (his father had been an enthusiast since the ’60s). In his 20s, Ryan started turning his attention toward Choppers. After building a pan, a knuckle and even a Triumph, he started looking at side valve motors. A friend he knew and trusted was selling an 80” 1939 UH. Ryan decided to start this project the moment he saw the motor. It took him a year and a half to collect all the parts and another 10 months to build. He finished the night before David Mann Chopperfest, where the bike received the David Mann Memorial Award (the most prestigious honor of the show). Since then, the 39 won Best in Show at the Paradise Road Show and Best Flathead at Born Free 10. In September, the bike will head to Milwaukee for the 115-year Harley-Davidson anniversary party.

He told me it was never his intention to build a celebrated artifact. But that’s just what happens when Ryan gets lost in the details.

By the time I finished shooting his bike, I felt like I knew him a little more deeply. I still consider Ryan to be quiet, but now I understand why. Who needs to explain themselves when their work can do it for them?

December 23, 2018

META

First Ride

December 23, 2018

META

A We Went Fast Production

Written & produced by Brett Smith | Cinematography by Spencer Grundler

Do you remember the first time you rode a motorcycle? Your first bike? That magical moment became a lifetime memory.

Kids today are not discovering motorcycles at the rate their parents and grandparents did. The motorcycle industry needs new riders. The dealerships need more youth coming in their doors and the local race tracks need more kids signing up to compete.

When the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame asked for a video to kick off the Class of 2018 ceremony, I pitched a concept that aimed to inspire a future hall of famer rather than celebrate the present inductees

“First Ride” acts out the imagination of one boy discovering motorcycles. One child whose life is forever changed.

December 19, 2018

META

Films

The Alaskan

December 19, 2018

META

Films

Built for the Last Frontier

Words by Alex Earle | Video by Chris Thoms | Photos by Boyd Jaynes

Exploration. What does that even mean in a time when everything has been Google-mapped? Maybe it’s as simple as getting out of your own headspace and challenging yourself in some less familiar game, eschewing the comforts of the routine. And so you enter the Wilderness. And what a place! Powerfully flowing rivers, vast mountains, glaciers, large animals, bush planes: Alaska. Dramatic weather changes favor the well prepared. The endless summertime daylight encourages movement.

An inspirational landscape matched by the lore of the many rugged individuals who have gone before. An opportunity to get off the grid and truly stretch your legs.

A year prior, I came to this place with Michael Vienne on a scouting trip. Seeking routes and identifying what is required to comfortably disappear for a time. We encountered mid-August temperatures as low as 39 degrees and six straight days of driving rain that turned every track into a slimy river of mud. We never saw McKinley, as its 29,000-foot summit was constantly hidden by the clouds. It was a grueling rental bike marathon, but plans were laid and the course was set.

Returning to my temporary shop space in California, I began to strip down the Ducati Desert Sled that would be transformed into the “Alaskan.” A very simple and robust machine that proved a worthy foundation for the concept. The great distances between fuel stops demanded increased range, so I set about hand-forming larger tanks. The broken terrain demanded taller, super-aggressive tires. The anticipated rock strikes and inevitable get-offs required skid plate and crash bars, and so on. Months of late-night flogging followed by ridiculously limited testing, and the thing was done. Shipped, unproven, to Anchorage.

Dan Trotti, Chris Thoms, Boyd Jaynes, Nathon Verdugo, Robie Michelin and I converged and collected our bikes. Not one of us has a great deal of experience off-road with fully loaded bikes. And my bike has never before been completely outfitted. It’s all strapped down. New waterproof riding gear zippered up, and we are off. It’s not until an hour of riding has passed that I start to shed the normalcy and thrill at what is to come.

A few hours later we are on a glacier. The beautifully marbled, glowing ice is compelling, and I am euphoric like a dog let off the leash, hopping across floating ice blocks. The team scatters across the flow.

Chris expertly pilots a drone above the team as we cross a deep gorge. Quietly capturing the expanse and just how small we are within it. This new tool reveals weather beyond our earthbound line of sight.

Unlike the previous year, the weather is ideal. Never any real sense of menace. Raining only long enough to produce a spirit-lifting rainbow. Combined with the endless daylight, you quickly lose all sense of time. You ride longer, eat later and drink a lot of beer. It doesn’t take long to revert to being a limitless, feral animal. Sitting cross-legged in the dirt, well provisioned and happy — grateful for the wall of campfire smoke that is keeping the mosquitos at bay.

Day Two, and Nathon is wheelying my fully loaded Alaskan through a massive puddle for the camera. Looks fantastic splashing past at speed.

The bike is resplendent covered in mud and finally has some trail cred. I am elated! It’s holding up to some serious abuse and sounds great. Very comfortable, but still raw enough. I don’t wish to be isolated from the elements — I want to master them.

As luck would have it, Nathon’s mom, Kathie, was spending the summer in a camp near Denali National Park. Kathie is an accomplished rider herself who could certainly still outride any one of us. I’ll never forget how disappointed she looked while inspecting the tracks we left in the mud leading to our camp. “I don’t see any roost!?” She hooked us up with cabins, hot showers and a chance to make some required repairs to the bikes. My bike was suffering from a split fuel line. Replaced and rerouted, we carried on.

The next destination was Manley Hot Springs to the north. Of course, we already had been experiencing mosquitos, but in this place they were truly outstanding. So many mosquitos. We beat a hasty retreat into the surreal tropical greenhouse enclosing Japanese-style tubs of naturally heated water. Amazing. Refreshed, we spent the night drinking at the bar, while helicopter flight crews kept watch on a nearby forest fire, before returning to our tents. We arrived just in time to watch an immense moose and her three calves swim across a slough and clamber up the bank on the far side.

It was at about this point that I lost all track of time.

We headed south towards Talkeetna and Petersville Mining Road. Dan was occasionally trying his luck with the fishing reel. Robie was on a mission to ride every singletrack bypass, and Boyd tirelessly captured images of everything. We established camp on a hilltop surrounded by low, vibrant green shrubs with Mount McKinley looming high in its own atmosphere to our north. This place was heaven. No deadlines or reception. We were in the middle of a network of mine access roads, river crossings, mud and snow. This is where I fully realized the capabilities of the bike I had conceived and assembled for this very purpose. We spent days just exploring various tracks, and I grew to appreciate the machine. Not merely as a motorcycle, but as a conveyance that affords us an experience such as this. It does not shield us from the elements, but rather plunges us more deeply into them.

December 15, 2018

META

Films, Featured Content

Cruzadores Del Sur

December 15, 2018

META

Films, Featured Content

Tacos & Treasure in Mexico

Words by Forrest Minchinton | Video by Cameron Goold

Lace up your boots the same way every time. Laces tight, jeans over the boot. Much like how you saddle your horse. She’s made of steel; her tires got air and the chain seems tight. Grab a jacket to keep you warm and the sun off your back and a helmet to catch your brains in case you crash and don’t end up right. Pack some gloves, a pair of shades, and a bedroll for when the sun goes down. Surfboards strapped to the side of your horse and a bar of wax that’s gotta last ya’ ’til you turn home, if or when you decide it’s right. You’re not the first, nor will you be the last. And as soon as the dust settles across the valley, there comes another rider with the same plight. We’re off in search of gold, diamonds, tequila and maybe a nice woman to rub our feet if she will. You might become distracted as the wind blows you to sea, from the shore and into the ocean. Here everything is real. Try it yourself and see how you feel. The waves will make you dance if you do it right. Swell, wind, the land, everything must be just so. It takes a man a lifetime of searching and waiting to really know. Eventually you will forget why you have started south, but then you paddle back out. Washing away the dirt, the dust, the bugs, and if you’re lucky maybe catch a buzz. It may just stick around and that’s all right.

You forge on because nary an idle man has ever found what he was after. The next town south. It faces the great Pacific. She has weathered many a storm and not much is there except a watering hole. From the distance you’ll hear laughter, fishermen, and ranchers. They’ll give you a long, hard stare as you enter…Who the hell are you? And what is it you’re after? De donde eres? Y porque estan aqui? A motorcycle, a surfboard, and not much else to offer. With that you will become friends when they learn it’s just good times thereafter. Neither the fisherman nor the rancher have any interest in the waves you are searching for. It is not a commodity to them. They cannot box it, they cannot sell it, and their children, these men won’t let go hungry. And so the waves, they can be yours forever after.

For 1,200 miles the Pacific Ocean kisses this rugged peninsula. The wind is relentless, the desert harsh and unforgiving. Fresh water is scarce, and the farther south you go the worse it becomes. That is, until it doesn’t. Eventually it gets better, the ocean begins to warm and worries of home fade with every sunset and every mile. Tacos get cheaper and your appetite grows stronger. You learn and you adapt. Your motorcycle is made of steel, but not even she will last. So you take it easy and only give her as much as she can handle. The road is rough and long, and you can’t afford to be stranded. You ride long enough until the next bay, the next swell, and when the wind hits just right, take off your boots, and paddle out. You’re headed south and there’s something you’re after. I think it was gold or maybe it was diamonds or tequila? Once you get there you might realize it’s really just freedom that you have come to master.