We have shared the love of Deus before. But the Sydneyside temple of bike and surf culture (taking in two of our passions in a fell swoop of cool), continues to impress with the quality of their vision and output.

Fresh news from down under is their beautiful book, which draws in the lovingly crafted pictures, illos and textures of a world of mechanical (and not so mechanical) pleasures.

Please, santa. I’ll be a good boy, honest.

But even if buying cool bike books is not your bag, it’s worth a visit to lust after the amazing bikes, surfboards and cycles they stock. They manage, somehow to join the dots between the apparently disparate worlds of motorcycling, sliding sideways across the sea and spinning the cranks — something we have understood for a while.

It’s all about movement, after all…

One of the greatest adventures you can have on four wheels is getting off road, travelling as the bison travels, and heading out across country. In this world of regulation, hijack, political and economic strife, it seems that what was once a relatively simple will to freedom is a lot more complex than it ever was.

Round the World in a Jeep, is the collected diaries and pictures of the 1975 adventure of young American duo Will Parish and ‘Perk’ Perkins. Parish went on to become CEO of Outdoor brand Orvis.

The pictures evoke that sort of carefree adventure that everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime.

Myself, I’d rather do it in Landy, but hey…

Stumbled upon this beautiful little piece of artwork today. What appeals to us about it is the way it skillfully re-imagines the whole world of the Hells Angels by using a simple but effect graphic treatment and a bit of colour.

We’re guessing the artwork is from an early paperback edition of the superb opus of gonzo journalism by the great Hunter S Thompson — but we can’t be sure.

We love exactly this kind of alternate take on bike culture that veers away from the greasemonkey clichés.

If any of our knowledgable readers can enlighten us as to who the artist is/ exactly which edition of the book the cover is from, then we would be super happy to hear.

In the meantime when you get the chance, listen to this really interesting piece of audio of the author interviewing one of the main protagonists of this brillliant work of journalism.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There’s a saying ‘The best way to make a small fortune in magazine publishing is to start with a large one.’ But that’s not entirely true. It depends on your targets and motivations. I’m a self-taught journalist. I left school at 16, completed an engineering apprenticeship, then was too dumb to realise I knew nothing before I started applying for jobs on motorcycle magazines. They must’ve been run by dumbos too, because they gave me a job. Fifteen years later, I still specialise in writing about motorcycles, because I’m obsessed with them, but I write about other stuff too. However, this job of mine is a curse. I love writing. I love reading. I love motorcycles. That’s why I’m typing this at 23:04 on a Sunday night instead of doing something else. I can’t switch off.

Which is also how it transpired that I now spend more time than is healthy producing a high-quality, low volume motorcycle magazine called Sideburn in and among earning a living as a freelance writer.

Four years ago I was going to publish a book of a friend’s writing, but he got Shanghaied by a multi-national player and offered a sum he’d have been an idiot to turn down. By the time this transpired I was all fired up to make something of my own, where I could call the shots, so I decided to make a magazine. And I decided to make it mainly about the sport of dirt track racing and the road bikes the sport has inspired. Dirt track is the American sport of racing very fast, very simple motorcycles, with no front brake, around large dirt ovals on road-tread tyres. It’s as cock-eyed as it is enthralling and quite rightly bills itself as the original extreme sport.

I don’t make the magazine alone. Sideburn is designed by Ben Part, a photographer who had never designed anything more complicated than a postcard before he started on issue 1. At the time we made the first one, Ben was living in Amsterdam. We met once during the making of that issue. But his commitment mirrors mine and his style is incomparable.

Ben shot a great deal of Sideburn 1 and the rest of the magazine is illustrated with great photos we could get for free. We even landed an exclusive interview with the then MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden (about his early dirt track days). It took over six months to finish the magazine, because we both have young families and very urgent needs to make a living. If someone was paying us a wage to do it, the pair of us could make it in a month.

We threw in a dash of speedway, more than a splash of style, invested in the best paper, found a great printer and published 2000 copies to sell mail order and through a few hip outlets around the world. And, a while later, it sold out.

This isn’t niche publishing. It’s crevice, no, fissure publishing. No one’s getting rich. No one’s even getting paid, except the printers, but with the support of a few friends who were willing to advertise their kind-of-related products in the magazine I clawed back most of the money I put up to pay for the print. We’ll never get back the hundreds of unpaid hours. But the feedback was incredible. People from all over the globe sent money for a copy of the self-proclaimed ‘world’s greatest go fast, turn left magazine’. It gave us the confidence to make another issue and we found more people willing to donate words and photos. Even moto-journo royalty like Mat Oxley. He was followed by Dan Walsh, Mick Phillips and Rupert Paul – some of the world’s favourite English language motorcycle journalists. We even published an article by Valentino Rossi.

Now issue 5 is about to be delivered and we have enough great stories to fill the next three issues without really trying.

We’ve relaxed the door policy a little. We still pack in a lot of dirt track, but we’re not militant. A smattering of vintage MX creeps, so does speedway and road trips have been a part of the Sideburn too. We’re definitely not a normal bike magazine, though.

While filling the magazine isn’t the struggle we envisaged, the process of making it is not getting any easier. Long nights, tetchy emails and the constant feeling of having bitten off more than I can chew, but when we get that glossy little 100-page bundle of joy back from the printers it’s all forgotten. We don’t kowtow to anyone, instead making the magazine we want to, breaking most of the rules bike mags follow.

Unfortunately, as soon as the magazine lands I have to start writing addresses on jiffybags (it’s too special for a common-or-garden envelopes) and my wife seems to spend half her life in the post office sending the issues out. Then there’s ones the world’s postal services lose… Still, doing it this way means my huge personal fortune remains intact.

www.sideburnmagazine.com

It’s the holy grail for every lover of old cars and every obsessive tinkerer with hopeless automotive projects. Finding that neglected vintage car in a dusty barn is something every petrolhead should aspire to.

Rumours of Aladdin’s caves containing many million pounds worth of sleeping beauties are usually exaggerated — they surface once in a while and have the motoring press fizzing with envy.

But Veloce publishing have taken to stirring the delectable rumour mill with a call to publish pictures of your found gems here.

Our personal favourite on the site so far is the powder blue Mk2 Escort (above), which apparently has shored up and turned into a botanical feature on the fertile island of Madeira.

Coming a close second is this nameless jalopy from down under, which, in its rusted pathos, reminds us of ‘Mater from Cars, the Pixar animated feature of a few years ago.

Is any vintage car enthusiast out there able to identify this senior automotive citizen?

“The hard core, the outlaw elite, were the Hell’s Angels… wearing the winged death’s-head on the back of their sleeveless jackets and packing their ‘mamas’ behind them on big ‘chopped hogs.’ They rode with a fine unwashed arrogance, secure in their reputation as the rottenest motorcycle gang in the whole history of Christendom.”

Anyone even vaguely interested in the written word and the world outside our windows cannot ignore the work of Hunter S Thompson. And if there’s even a smidgin of petrol in your veins, then his work is not to be missed.

Making a scandalous name for himself for his lysergic dispatches for Rolling Stone in the mid sixties that culminated in the fabled ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ – a work of insane anti-narrative based loosely on a magazine assignment to cover a dune buggy race in the Nevada desert – Thompson’s real journalistic opus – on the Angels – was published in 1966.

Hells Angels was the result of an extended sojourn into the notorious biker gang’s countercultural way of being – and though never taking the vows and ascribing his name in Angel blood – the narcotic-obsessed arch observer of humanity got as close as possible to the subject matter without becoming the subject itself.

But ultimately the creed of Gonzo journalism Hunter S Thompson initiated and espoused was built on that blurring of the edges of observer and observed.

‘Hell’s Angels’ is required reading for anyone interested in the history of the biker cult. Check out, though, the video below of the author being dragged across the coals by a less-than-impressed Angel.

Ok, you’re back at work and the bread and butter realities of everyday life are emerging from the frost of a new year. What better way to escape the humdrum, then, than to treat yourself to a visual feast and dream of open roads, clement weather and an enduring propensity for wearing aged leather?

The brainchild of New York-based photographer Cicero Deguzman JR GODSPEED 45/06 is a quarterly collection of photographs documenting bike builders, their work, and their workspaces. Independently photographed, designed, and published these brilliant photo books come in a hard bound, 8×10 Inch format and extend to 160 Pages.

Watch this space for further features from this passionate documentarian of the mechanical cult.

Of all the publishing houses dedicated to culture of cars and bikes, Veloce is surely the most prolific. This time, they’ve come up with something no bike obsessive and consumer of culture will be able to resist.

Alastair Walker’s book is a look back at the glory days of the Café Racer, from Friday night gatherings on London’s North Circular road, through the street specials craze of the Seventies, to the modern day revival.

From its roots in the ’59 Club, home-brewed specials and the creation of the Triton by Dave Degens, the Café Racer became the must-have Rockers’ motorbike. It then became the template for a new generation of fast road riders in the 1970s, with the rise of Dunstall, Rickman, Seeley and many more bespoke bike builders.

The big factories jumped on the bandwagon too. Machines like the Moto Guzzi Le Mans Mk I, Ducati 900SS and the MV Agusta 750S all captured the spirit of the Café Racer. Then the slick, super fast, Japanese sport bikes of the 80s came along, and looked set to consign the Café Racer special to the history books.

But a revival had to happen. The Ace Café London re-opened, bike builders as diverse as Wakan, Fred Krugger, Nick Gale and Roland Sands all began to create lean, back-to-basics motorcycles, but with their own unique twist on Café Racer heritage. From the Buell 1125 CR to the Guzzi V7 Sport, mainstream modern bikes have also re-discovered their street racing soul.

This is required reading for lovers of bikes with a beating heart.

image courtesy Deus Ex Machina.

Anyone who has had the nerve-jangling, adrenalin inducing pleasure of twisting a fiery two stroke-driven bike through the power band will attest to the fact that the noble and threatened form is far superior to the relatively plodding four stroke.

Motorcyle writer Mat Oxley’s recent book is in part homage to the beauty of the two stroke engine and in part the story of German engineer Walter Kaaden – the man Oxley reckons is responsible for the true performance two-stroke.

According to the author, Kaaden, one of the principle engineers behind Hitler’s on V1 rockets during the war, was invited to join the space programme in the states – but chose to stay in East Germany and work for slightly less glamorous motorcycle manufacturer MZ.

Kaaden’s two-stroke technology ruled GP racing through the sixties through his incredible ability to squeeze lots of power from small displacements. The 1961 MZ 125 was the first normally aspirated engine to make 200 horsepower per litre. The 1964 evolution of this (pictured below) was a beautiful little pocket rocket.

But just as he was on the verge of world title glory Kaaden’s favourite rider Ernst Degner defected to the West and sold Kaaden’s secrets to Suzuki – while Degner’s wife and kids were smuggled through the newly built Berlin Wall.

Oxley goes on to tell how Degner and Suzuki copied Kaaden’s know-how to win the world championship the very next year. The company went on to conquer the world while Degner suffered appalling injuries in a racing accident and died a morphine addict. Difficult not to read this as a cautionary tale of reaping what you sow.

It’s a fascinating story and a beautifully illustrated book: perfect for the petrolhead with an eye for intrigue. Check it out.

Degner (in second place) on the limit