https://www.yahoo.com/news/cop26-chief-world-must-act-113017481.html

“(1) Human activity is damaging our Earth. (2) It’s imperiling this brilliant jewel. (3) The greenhouse gases that we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution are altering nature’s precious balance, disrupting the finely tuned and fantastically complex system that is the world’s climate, and the effects are now closing in. (4) Global temperatures are rising.

Last year was the hottest on record. (5)The last decade was the hottest ever recorded. (6) And in the past 30 years, the world has lost up to half its coral reefs, half. (7)We’ve seen wildfires in the Pennines and floods in West Lothian, all as pollution chokes occurring. (8)And if we do not act now, the science tells us these effects will become more frequent and more brutal, that we will witness a scale of global catastrophe the likes of which the world has not seen. (9)And quite rightly, future generations will hold us responsible.”

The above link and the above text are……well, the same thing. The text is the written-out shit that the guy in the link is reciting.



The guy in the unintentional Monty Python imitation video is Alok Sharma. Alok Sharma is the chairman of something or other called the COP23. You will read a hell of a lot of articles from all the genius journalists working at all the wondrous news entities before you will find a-one of them willing to tell you what the COP23 is. You’re supposed to just know. Because you are supposed to be so addicted to the imbeciles bringing you the “news of the world” that COP23 should just be part of your everyday vocabulary. Just like “Man, I’d like to tap THAT” is.

The COP23 is the (maybe) 23rd meeting of the Conference of Parties. It’s a UN, or as the Israelis call it the “United Nothings,” swah-ray that they convene to warn you what the global array of world leadership is going to blame you for so you will know why they are preparing to punish you. Hey, the worldwide mask-wearing and solitary isolation and quarantining the healthy and letting grandma die alone worked out without anyone going whatdafuck. Time to ramp things up!

As you watch him flick his dry and lying tongue in and out and posture with his hands and pronounce “occurring” as “oh-surring” in the phrase “all as pollution chokes oh-surring” as though he has memorized something incorrectly or else is reading something incorrectly……as you watch and listen with no attention paid to his facial and body language but hear just the pontifical pronouncements…….if you take the performance sentence by sentence….he is not actually giving you any actual information. He is just making assertions. He might as well be saying “Inanimate Lives Matter.” I will demonstrate.



1: “Human activity is damaging our earth.”

This is something a chained and screaming demon-possessed psychopathic old woman on fentanyl and who just set herself on fire would shout at passing busses in downtown Los Angeles. The earth has NEVER been damaged. It’s 5 billion years old. And it is undamaged. What HAS been damaged is Alok’s ability to articulate anything other than decrees.

The earth PRODUCED humans. And in fact, the earth damages THEM on a regular basis. For him to say that humanity is damaging the earth is broadcasting that he is a lunatic if not a sociopath. He is putting the existence of terrain as being more important than the existence of humans. PLUS, he’s saying all this damage is all our fault. Which is what sociopaths do. They fuck you over….and then say it’s your fault.

We are harming atoms. So Alok is going to punish us, or at least prompt those with the available firepower to punish us to do so. All the while he is proclaiming his sanctimonious concern for our welfare by telling us we need to die. We are violating HIS religion. Which, in case you were wondering, is paganism: declaring inanimate terrain to be an item of worship or at least having more rights than humans. He is declaring “the planet” as “more entitled” than us. He is declaring that rocks have rights, basically. In short, everything has rights….except you. You have duties: to keep people safe from the flu. And to keep rocks safe from miners.

2: “It’s imperiling this precious jewel.”

This is not only an arbitrary conclusion based on no actual evidence that anyone in any field of actual knowledge can actually point to…. it’s inferior, really bad, very amateurish, creative writing. It’s childish fairyland nonsense. He’s calling the earth a precious jewel. This is 6-year-old girl talk. The earth is not a precious jewel. It’s a fucking planet orbiting a fucking star. One of nine, or ten, or whatever they have declared this week as planets.

In addition to being an arbitrary conclusion based on nothing as well as inferior amateur poetry, it’s also a declaration that the planet Earth has more rights than you do. Which is downright mean-spirited if not insane.

EYE think he’s just mean-spirited. Just like all the people now blaming children for being basically immune to the flu and all its variants-without-number. They – children – are being punished for not being old and decrepit. This is called in my personal dictionary “criminal child abuse.”

To continue, the earth is not only not a jewel, what actual jewels the earth has within it are really hard to find, hence their value. Therefore no one pays a high price for limestone. It’s not a precious jewel. And neither is the earth. It’s just the fucking earth. It’s not a precious jewel. Unless you are in love and writing in your diary. Then it’s a precious jewel.

3: “The greenhouse gases that we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution are altering nature’s precious balance, disrupting the finely tuned and fantastically complex system that is the world’s climate, and the effects are now closing in.”

A: Greenhouse gas is the political language for carbon dioxide. There are no varieties of CO2 so “gasses” is purposely used to make his idiot followers assume there is more than one “greenhouse gas.” There is no evidence to prove that CO2 turns the atmosphere into a greenhouse, much less a runaway one. Whatever the fuck that would even be. CO2 is not a greenhouse gas any more than hydrogen is a refrigerator gas.

PLUS…..you can enter a greenhouse and stay there all day and not suffocate. A “runaway” state never even occurs in an actual greenhouse. Why would it occur in the fucking atmosphere? If there was any actual danger in anything he’s saying he would be evidencing a much higher sense of urgency than he is evidencing in his droning memorized series of propaganda sentences that he is reciting at the “wind farm.” Even though wind farms do not actually produce wind. Or electricity most of the time.

He himself is producing more wind out his yap and probably out his ass than all those inefficient expensive toys behind him are actually producing. The war against the Industrial Revolution has been in effect by bureaucrats ever since they all realized that unregulated free enterprise would provide to humanity all the “benefits” that government claims to have as IT’S job to provide. The Industrial Revolution (and there isn’t a public-sector parasite on earth who doesn’t realize this is an “existential threat” alright, but the threat is to the existence of government in all its forms) threatens government.

HENCE…..industry must be destroyed. What was the first thing to disappear when government declared the annual cold and flu season a suddenly horrific “great and mighty plague,” as that easily-duped Donald Trump declared it to be?…employment in the private sector was what got hit by decree by ten million health officials who never got elected.

I notice no bureaucrats or teachers or nurses or professors or bus drivers or cops or judges lost their jobs. Why does government regulate industry and not itself? Because government is perfect! And caring! And moral! And democratic! Unlike “greedy seekers of honest profit from voluntary customers.” When does business make you pay them in exchange for nothing in return? Never. When does government do it: always. 100% of the time. Throughout human history.

B: Nature is not a precious jewel and it does not operate via a precious balance, traditionally referred to as “the delicate balance of Nature.” Nature is not delicately balanced. It is mightily and thunderously balanced. You fuck it up it fixes itself. And then will fuck YOU up. Every living cell is fighting for its life 24 hours a day. Life is a machine that violates entropy. It’s something that reason and sense tells you it could never have come from the senseless, lifeless periodic table. But here it is. Life is fighting “the planet.” Life is using the planet to stay in existence.

The war, if there is one, is rocks against cells. Alok wants the rocks to win. For anyone to say that humans’ Industrial Age “output of destruction” exceeds the power and destruction of one hurricane, one flood, one volcano, one drought, one forest fire, one earthquake or one tidal wave that might show up on any average day in any average global location…..is either a liar or a moron. And Probably BOTH.

C: The effects are closing in? Um, where, asshole. Point those effects of your insight into the atmospheric machine out to me. Melting Ice? Like more fresh water is a problem? So, what is it, we are running out of water on a planet 80% water god only knows how many miles deep, but melting ice is producing too much water? What effects are closing in. Nice List of Nothing that you have provided there, Sparkle. You know what’s closing in? Your cranium. It’s closing in on your brain so much that only vocabulary projectile vomit is coming out of your mouth.



4: “Global temperatures are rising. Last year was the hottest on record.”

How long has it been possible to “measure” global temperature. Whatever that even is. More than 200 years? I’m guessing less than 50. What does it MATTER if “global temperatures are rising”? Who cares? Why is it so certain that idiot humans are “causing” it? There is not one way to determine this. Other, of course, than forcing everyone to live like the Hopi and wait 50 years to see if “global temperatures” have dropped.

Death Valley is STILL the only place in America where if you go there you have to really pay attention with a deep vigilance to how fucking hot it is. Everywhere else in America, today, May 15th?….it’s pretty nice out. Calm the fuck down, Alok, you’ll have a fuckin’ stroke. Which would be fine with me.



5: “The last decade was the hottest ever recorded.”

Yeah, and no one fucking noticed. Other than people with NASA-level instruments and MIT level heads for mathematics. No one else noticed. So, let’s undo the Industrial Revolution!!!!!! That’s Alok’s solution to a non-existent problem. Who pays this Alok fucker? And what exactly is his fucking job?



6: “And in the past 30 years, the world has lost up to half its coral reefs, half.”

Well. Let me sit down and put my head in my hands over this one. I’ll never sleep again. Coral is more important than humanity having air conditioning and diet soda and ice rinks and hamburgers? And where is the cause-and-effect chart explaining how humans on the fucking land are affecting idiot coral in the fucking ocean? Maybe the CORAL are doing something to overheat themselves. Coral? Really? You’re worried about coral? Your concern about the coral is supposed to take precedence about my concern about making a living and having some creature comforts? Fuck you, you pompous self-righteous guru of holiness.

You ever notice it’s always the people who are ordering you around – who you never even met – that are always insisting that if you don’t obey them, you are committing sins? It ain’t just preachers. It’s also presidents and senators and governors and city councilmen and county supervisors and now the UN, which is a smelly horde of prehistoric third world savages….declaring you unholy because you are endangering humanity by not obeying some dumbass fuckhead who for SOME reason is in authority.



7: “We’ve seen wildfires in the Pennines and floods in West Lothian, all as pollution chokes occurring.”

This is what is known as a non sequitur. It is a statement uttered more or less out of the blue that references nothing said preciously or will be said subsequently. Being a non sequitur is the NICE part. SOME of it is pure genuine gibberish.

Air temperature does not ignite wildfires. Not even in the really important Pennines. Lightning, magma, and arsonists ignite wildfires. I don’t know what the fucking West Lothian is but I’m willing to bet it’s a fucking bog. If I know England. And ya know, if something is on fire, put the fucking fire out. Don’t go telling everyone to stop using coal and gasoline and methane and kerosene and propane and U238 so that an arson fire you can’t be bothered extinguishing won’t happen. Regarding the bewildering remark “all as pollution chokes oh-sur-ing”………..I actually don’t know what to do about those osurring things. So, I’ll give Alok that one. “All as pollution chokes oh-sur-ing” could in fact perhaps be caused by me trying to live in the 21st Century AD rather than in 21st Century BC. I don’t know. I mean, regarding o-surrings?….Alok could be right, I could be at fault. Like I say, Alok, I’m gonna give ya this one.

8: “And if we do not act now, the science tells us these effects will become more frequent and more brutal, that we will witness a scale of global catastrophe the likes of which the world has not seen.”

This is the raving of a fucking lunatic. Assuming he actually believes this. Who’s “we”? Well, I’ll tell you who we is: we is you. Not him. What “brutality” has a 1 degree increase in whatever the global temperature is in the past hundred years…..what is the brutality that has actually been inflicted on anyone. Where’s the fucking brutality. Is it Bruising? Bleeding? Broken Bones? Disfigurement? What’s the fucking brutality. What are “these effects”?



What’s next, global warming caused C-19? In fact, what do you want to bet that the news hacks and ‘crats are eventually going to claim global warming created the fake pandemic of the annual cold and flu season currently being called C-19. Wait till they tie the flu to global warming.

Fauci is ALREADY claiming the flu is white privilege because it is hitting the still-enslaved, forever-enslaved, never-allowed-to-be-free negroes the hardest. That’s what he says. Your guilt is being broadcast on all fronts regarding all your amazing “advantages” and “privileges.” They’re basically saying that because you’re apparently superior, everyone is in danger.

And another thing: why can they declare you superior, but you can’t declare yourself superior. It’s like living in a maze created by extra-dimensional monsters, isn’t it? It’s like supernatural crazed beings from Hell are now directing traffic on all fronts, roads, highways and intersections. The only reason you haven’t heard yet that the global warming you created also created C-19….. is because the hacks and ‘crats have not read this article yet. But they will. So, keep an eye out for it. Because you heard it here first.

What will be the exact nature and time of this global catastrophe that “we” will see down the road but which Alok has apparently already witnessed in his seance-room of light-absorbent curtains and from Madame Blavatsky’s messages from the Beyond? Maybe he could tell us what to expect so we can make preparations rather than having to revert to a veldt-level or plains-Indian level lifestyle of living in houses made of animal skins and dried sticks.

Maybe he could be a little more responsible and give us some details of the nature and extent of the danger rather than telling us we are just going to have to believe his idiot crazed Chicken Little imbecilic prophesies based on no previous examples to cite and no previous experiments conducted other than watching PBS and NPR and the EPA for mystical updates from Planet Earth Gaia leprechauns. Because that’s all “environmentalism” is – Reverse Astrology.

Instead of all the planets but earth determining human events…..humans determine planet-earth events. But not events on other planets. Environmentalism is taking something already batshit crazy – astrology – and turning it inside out so that it’s not just crazy…it’s suicidal. But ya know what?….there’s a reason we’re all in clown face-coverings that we believe have magical powers. And it ain’t because we’re all just so strong and so mighty and so intelligent and so brave. So Alok might not be just barking at the moon. He might instead be simply teaching ALL of us how to bark at the moon. Like HE does.

9: “And quite rightly, future human generations will hold us responsible.”

And finally, he unloads the Luciferian accusatory guilt trip that all these creeps keep in their pink handbags, which is “we actually ARE our brothers keepers.” But Alok takes it one dimension further than the fake pandemic plague of Fairyland guilt trippers throw at us, which, their story is, “we are causing harm to those around us” by not obeying these fucks.



But Alok takes it One Step Beyond. He takes it far into the future where people who don’t actually even exist yet will be upset at us if we don’t obey Alok. Oh dear: imaginary people will think badly of us. People who aren’t even sperms and eggs yet…..will be upset at us. Because we didn’t obey Alok The Mighty – the guy who can’t even say “occurring” without falling all over himself.

He spends his entire speech insisting that humanity is doomed to extinction…..which will upset future generations to the point where they will call us names. Even though we rendered them extinct by our Industrial Revolution and alternate current and turbine engines and atomic energy. People who we rendered extinct…..will call us names. After they de-extinct. And who are not even here yet: whether they’re extinct or not. Because they’re in the future. Everything is in the future with this guy. He’s like a fucking fortune teller or snake charmer. But then he WAS born in India. I rest my fucking case.

There’s a REASON he works at the UN. And it’s not because he’s intelligent.

Thank you.


–J.J. Solari
Supreme Commander
Science Overload Class
Bikernet University

by Jenny Leonard from https://financialpost.com

U.S. and EU Set to Reach Temporary Tariff Truce Over Metals

Iconic American products affected by EU countertariffs include Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycles, Levi Strauss & Co. jeans and bourbon whiskey. Business associations and lawmakers have asked that the U.S. lift the duties, saying they do more harm than good.

The Biden administration is set to announce it’s reached a truce in a dispute with the European Union over metal tariffs, sparing iconic products such as U.S. bourbon whiskey from a doubling of EU duties next month, people familiar with the matter said.

A resolution could be announced as soon as Monday, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.

At issue is a high-profile dispute that started in 2018 under former President Donald Trump, in which the U.S. imposed duties on steel and aluminum from Europe, Asia and elsewhere over risks to American national security. The EU has since retaliated and on June 1 was set to double tariffs on a list of American products to 50%.

Under the agreement with the Biden administration, the EU will refrain from increasing those tariffs and both sides will engage in a dialog on steel overcapacity, according to the people.

The European Union had previously proposed to suspend all duties on each other’s products for six months while negotiations on a long-term solution continue.

“We can only reiterate that the EU remains committed to finding a solution with the U.S. to the unduly justified tariffs on steel and aluminium and to working with the U.S. in tackling the root cause of the problem, which is the global steel overcapacity,” a spokesperson for the European Commission said on Saturday.

Negotiators on both sides of the Atlantic are working to eventually remove the tariffs but are not yet ready to do so, the people said.

Spokespeople for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce Department didn’t respond to requests for comment.

President Joe Biden will participate in a U.S.-EU summit in Brussels next month during his first foreign trip as the nation’s leader. Biden and his European counterparts are set to discuss trade cooperation, the White House said.

Trump imposed the 25% steel tariff, along with a 10% duty on aluminum imports, in March 2018, using an arcane national-security provision in a 1962 trade law to justify the move. Some countries, including Brazil and South Korea, negotiated deals to avoid the tariff, and Trump dropped the duty for imports from Canada and Mexico. But the tariffs still apply for much of world.

The tariffs in place “have already exacted a heavy toll from U.S. businesses and the workers they employ,” John Murphy, the senior vice president for international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement Friday. He noted an almost 40% drop in U.S. spirits exports to the EU since the duties came into place.

In a Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai defended Trump’s metals tariffs. They “have really roiled our economy, but were necessary to address a global overcapacity problem driven largely but not solely by China,” she said.

The U.S. has achieved its goal of blocking subsidized Chinese steel from the American market through other tools such as anti-dumping and countervailing duties, Murphy said. Separate tariffs imposed via section 301 of the Trade Act, under which Beijing’s practices were deemed unfair, have also deterred shipments, he said.

Chinese steel imports now account for less than 1% of U.S. steel consumption, Murphy said.

from https://www.bonhams.com

The Summer Sale
The International Classic MotorCycle Show (Three-Day Auction)
2 – 4 Jul 2021
Stafford, Staffordshire County Showground

1940S RACING MOTORCYCLE LEADS SUMMER STAFFORD SALE

An ultra-rare example of arguably the ‘Holy Grail’ of classic racing motorcycles – a 1940s AJS 497cc E90 ‘Porcupine’ Grand Prix racing motorcycle, previously owned by post-war AJS works rider Ted Frend, is being offered for the first time at auction in the Bonhams Summer Stafford Sale on 2 July. It has an estimate of £250,000 – 300,000.

The E90’s reputation was made as the first motorcycle to win the 500cc World Championship in the series’ debut year of 1949, carrying Frend’s fellow works rider Les Graham to his (and AJS’s) first and only world title. Dubbed the Porcupine by the era’s motorcycle press due to its distinctive spiked ‘head’ finning, the E90 remains the sole twin-cylinder machine to have won world motorcycling’s flagship series.

Just a handful of E90s were built by the British firm, purely for its works team. Ted Frend who had tasted earlier success earning a gold star at Brooklands having lapped its outer circuit at over 100mph on his Vincent-HRD Rapide, was signed up by AJS in 1947, thanks to a 4th place finish in that year’s Isle of Man TT. He was the first rider to win on the Porcupine at the 1947 Hutchinson 100 race.

Development on the E90 continued over the next couple of years, while the motorcycle picked up 18 world speed records and a number of podium finishes before reaching its 1949 zenith. Graham won two of the six championship races, the Swiss and Ulster Grand Prix, securing the rider’s trophy, while teammate Bill Doran rode to victory in Belgium to ensure AJS’ manufacturer’s title.

Despite its successes, the E90 was plagued by various problems concerning carburetion and its magneto – a magneto shaft failure caused Graham to retire from the 1949 Isle of Man Senior TT, which he was leading, two minutes from the finish. In 1952, its successor, the E95, was introduced, with a revised engine and new frame. Although the spikes disappeared the Porcupine name stuck. The E95 had a dream debut, with a one-two finish in the season-opening Swiss Grand Prix.

Between 1949 and 1954, the Porcupine, in E90 and E95 guise, finished 24 races, securing five wins, seven 2nd places and one World Championship. Ted commented that ‘for its day, the Porcupine had lots of potential, but its development did not keep pace with the opposition.’ In total, only four complete E90 and four E95 motorcycles were produced, along with an unknown number of spare engines.

Ted Frend, who left the AJS team in 1950, also finished his racing career in 1954 to concentrate on his sheet metal business. He maintained that the Porcupine’s glory year was 1949, not just for its World Championship win, but also for holding its own against the more powerful rival Gileras and early MV motorcycles. He said: “At Spa, I managed third place, splitting the Gileras. Masetti, Pagani [Gilera riders] and I were the first to average over 100mph for a full Grand Prix.”

The motorcycle offered was found as a collection of parts in the estate of Ted Frend when he died in 2006. It was his friend and neighbour Ken Senior who acquired the Porcupine and other motorcycle-related possessions from the executors, including Ted’s TT trophies, also offered in the Summer Stafford Sale. Senior oversaw the Porcupine’s rebuild, with missing parts custom made.

Ben Walker, International Department Director, Bonhams Collectors’ Motorcycles, said: “We have only seen two other examples offered for sale publicly, both of which Bonhams sold for world record prices at the time. With the few known examples being in the world-famous Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum or in the possession of private collectors, this is an extremely exciting, once in a generation opportunity to buy a much coveted and sought-after machine.”

The Porcupine leads the Ken Senior Collection of 90 plus motorcycles to be offered on Friday 2 July, at the three-day Summer Stafford Sale. This just a quarter of the near 400-strong collection of ‘everyman’ classics that Ken Senior amassed in his lifetime.

The Bonhams Summer Stafford Sale makes a welcome return to the International Classic MotorCycle Show, and will offer in excess of 650 lots, comprising important collectors’ motorcycles, important early bicycles, spares and memorabilia over three days from 2 to 4 July.

Sale Days
Friday 2 July The Ken Senior Collection and other important one owner collections
Saturday 3 July Bicycles, Spares and Memorabilia
Sunday 4 July Collectors’ Motorcycles

Viewing Times
09:00 – 1700 Friday through Sunday

Other highlights include:

1940 Brough Superior 1,096cc 11-50HP, estimate £60,000 – 75,000
The very last Brough Superior 11-50HP to have left the Nottingham factory, offered from long term ownership (having been repatriated with its original owner from new), the 1940 Brough Superior 1,096cc 11-50HP is to be sold Without Reserve.

The Ron Cody Collection
Well-known in MV Agusta club circles, the late Ron Cody, a former sports car racer and engineer, turned to his passion for building up and restoring his collection of Italian machines as a retirement hobby. This collection offers 48 motorcycles, including many examples of MV Agustas, as well as other Italian marques.

A Significant Norton Collection
More than 10 pre-War marvels are offered from the stable of a lifelong Norton dedicated collector. The collection also includes more than 150 lots of mostly Norton pre-war spares: from engines and gearboxes to pie-crust tanks.

The sale will be a traditional live auction, welcoming bidders back into the saleroom in addition to enhanced online bidding features rolled out throughout 2020, a record year for attracting £7.6 million in motorcycle sales alone.

The sale will also be streamed and available on the Bonhams App, which provides registered bidders the opportunity to bid in real time online via Bonhams.com while watching the auctioneer and videos of motorcycles on offer. Absentee and telephone bids are also encouraged.

Visit www.bonhams.com/summersale to preview the lots on offer. The full lot listing will be published in early June.

To register to bid, contact: bids@bonhams.com and to discuss selling or buying collectors’ motorcycles at auction, contact: ukmotorcycles@bonhams.com.

3 Hollywood-famous bikes that you can add to your motorcycle collection

What do Henry Winkler, Paul Newman, and Peter Fonda have in common—besides the fact that they’re all entertainment icons? Here’s a not-so-obvious answer: motorcycles.

Although the three weren’t all motorcycle enthusiasts—Winkler couldn’t even ride when he scored the part of Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli in Happy Days—they each portrayed a motorcycle-riding character in the movies or on TV. And three of those Hollywood bikes are up for grabs through Heritage Auctions’ Automobilia, Transport History, and Mechanical Models online auction, which ends May 25.

Click Here to read this Article on Bikernet.

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Both Elf Marc VDS Racing Team riders crashed out of promising positions in the early laps at Le Mans after showing podium potential in tricky conditions.

After heavy rain through the morning, the 2.6-mile Le Mans Bugatti Circuit was soaking wet for Sunday’s warm-up sessions, but dried sufficiently to give riders a clear tyre choice ahead of the 25-lap Moto2 race.

All the field ran slick tyres on a track with numerous wet patches, providing a real challenge for the field. Both Augusto Fernandez and Sam Lowes unfortunately crashed out when fighting for the podium places.

Augusto Fernandez – DNF
Starting from fifth, his best qualifying result of the season so far, Augusto enjoyed a fantastic first lap, gaining two places to sit third.

But there was heartbreak for the rider from the Balearic Islands on the second lap, when he crashed out of a podium place at turn 11 when hitting a damp patch.

As a result of a second DNF of the year, Augusto drops three places in the championship to twelfth with 23 points to his name.

“We will work to arrive stronger in Mugello”

“It was a real shame again. I was so calm at the beginning, trying to not make a mistake like at Jerez. I had a great start and when (Joe) Roberts passed me, I passed him back. At the beginning there were some wet patches. I went just a little bit wide and touched one wet part with the front and lost it so soon. I couldn’t do anything. We have to take the positives. It’s been a fantastic weekend in all the practice sessions, be it in mixed conditions, wet conditions, or dry conditions. I had the pace to win and now I know we can be there every weekend at every track. The Aragon test was really positive and this weekend we’ve seen evidence of that. Now we have a test in Barcelona so we can continue working to arrive stronger in Mugello.”

Sam Lowes – DNF
The 30-year old enjoyed a solid start and held position in the opening laps from tenth place on the grid and then upped his pace, posting a personal best time on lap three.

But Lowes suffered a fall on the fourth lap of the race when attempting to overtake Xavi Vierge for 7th at turn 8. The Briton crashed when losing the front and was unable to restart.

The result means Lowes drops a place to fourth in the world championship with 66 points, 23 behind leader Remy Gardner.

“I’ll take the positives to come out stronger in Mugello”

“I’m really disappointed. I want to say sorry to the team and to Vierge for the accident. I was passing him, I felt OK and that the move was possible. Another rider was wide ahead of us so that meant there was no margin to go wide when overtaking. This might have made me squeeze the brake a little more so I lost the front and then my bike took him down. I’m sorry for that and to my team as we threw away a great opportunity with our speed. But I’ll take the positives to come out stronger in Mugello. It’s nice we go back there after missing it last season. It’s a track that we all enjoy and love to ride. I can’t wait to get there and put this race behind me.”

from https://www.financialexpress.com

TVS announces new top management at Norton Motorcycles: 2021 V4SS to launch soon.

With TVS infusing multi-million-pound investments, the Solihull facility will be the most advanced and modern plant that Norton has operated out of in its 122-year-old history.

TVS Motor Company (TVS), owner of The Norton Motorcycle Co Ltd (Norton), today announced that Dr Robert Hentschel has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Vittorio Urciuoli as its Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of the historic Solihull-based motorcycle brand. Hentschel and Urciuoli will take up their new positions as John Russell steps down from his role as Interim CEO. Dr Robert Hentschel joins Norton from Valmet Automotive Holding GmbH & Co KG, where he has served as Managing Director since 2017.

Before that, he headed Ricardo Deutschland and Hentschel System and was also Director of Lotus Engineering. Vittorio Urciuoli’s former key roles within the global automotive industry include Director of URVI LTD, Head of Powertrain at Lotus Cars and Project Leader at Ferrari and Aprilia Racing.

TVS has created a plan for Norton to transform into the future. Along with the entire TVS team, I look forward to working together with them for the revitalisation of one of the world’s most storied brands. Under John’s tenure, with investment and support from TVS, Norton has returned to a firm footing and made marked improvements to engineering and product quality, which will be seen in the updated V4SS that will be launched soon. In addition, we have established a new, state-of-the-art global design, engineering, manufacturing and sales and marketing HQ in Solihull, Sudarshan Venu, Joint Managing Director of TVS Motors, said.

In January this year, Norton announced it would get back to work in full swing by March at its new facility at Solihull, Birmingham in the UK. The British manufacturer has moved its production base from its former headquarters at Donington Hall after its acquisition by TVS Motor Company in April last year.

With TVS infusing multi-million-pound investments, the Solihull facility will be the most advanced and modern plant that Norton has operated out of in its 122-year-old history. The production of the Commando Classic has also been resumed.

The V4SS will also be one of the first motorcycles to roll out as the company resumes operations. Limited to just 200 units, the V4SS boasts full carbon fibre bodywork contrasted by a bright finish on the frame and engine casing. It gets a single-sided swingarm and carbon fibre wheels. It is powered by a 1,200cc V4 engine that makes 200 bhp and 130 Nm of peak torque. Soon after the V4SS, the company is expected to unveil the updated V4RR as well.

from https://www.malaymail.com

‘Captain America,’ the motorcycle that had a starring role in ‘Easy Rider’ should easily find a buyer at an auction held in Texas on June 5, 2021. ― Picture courtesy of Cord & Kruse Auctions via ETX Studio.

LOS ANGELES, May 15 ― The iconic “Captain America”, the motorcycle that Peter Fonda rode in the movie Easy Rider, will be auctioned off in Texas on June 5, 2021. Famous for the star-spangled banner painted on its gas tank, the motorcycle is currently estimated at between US$ 300,000 and US$ 500,000.

The motorcycle in question, symbol of freedom and the hippie movement of the era, will be sold without a reserve price. This exceptional model, famous across the world, was built from an old 1952 Harley-Davidson bike bought for a pittance at the time. In 1996, the bike’s owner at the time, collector Gary Graham, sold the Captain America bike at the Dan Kruse Classic Car Productions auction to Gordon Granger. Since then, the bike has resided in Austin, Texas, where it even survived a fire in December 2010.

For anyone who needs a reminder, the film Easy Rider was directed by Dennis Hopper and released in 1969. The movie is a cult road movie about two bikers leaving California to reach Louisiana. The authenticity of this model for sale is nevertheless debated among some aficionados. For the record, two bikes were used for the shoot. In 2014, one of them was sold for 1.3 million dollars.

In addition to Captain America, about 20 other vehicles from Gordon Granger’s collection will also be offered at auction on June 5, all without reserve prices. This selection includes, for example, several Rolls-Royces from the 1920s and 1930s, a 1954 Jaguar XK120 Roadster and a 1964 Ford Mustang convertible. Also noteworthy in this sale is a replica of the famous “General Lee” Dodge from the series The Dukes of Hazzard. ― ETX Studio

Henry Winkler’s 1949 Triumph Trophy TR5 500 Custom in Happy Days

This Triumph Trophy TR5 500 (frame TC11198T / engine TR59016133) is one of three that were used by “The Fonz.” Although Arthur Fonzarelli was originally scripted as a bit player, TV watchers just couldn’t get enough of the loveable greaser with a knack for catchphrases and a way with the ladies. And we can thank his jacket for giving the Triumph more screen time. No kidding.

This Triumph is one of three (including a 1952 model we wrote about earlier) that were used in filming the show. Originally owned by Hollywood stuntman and racer Bud Ekins of Great Escape fame, the ’49 was customized so Winkler could handle it easier, and the 500cc classic became synonymous with the Fonz.

Paul Newman’s 1967 Škoda CZ 250 in Sometimes a Great Notion

This Škoda was given to Newman specifically for his role as Hank Stamper in the 1971 movie Sometimes a Great Notion, a film adaption of Ken Kesey’s novel that Newman directed himself.

CZ, a branch of the Czech car company that previously manufactured weapons, began building street motorcycles in 1932. Known for its powerful two-stroke bikes, it had a run of six consecutive Grand Prix World Championships from 1964–69. But CZ couldn’t fend off the rise in popularity of Japanese motorcycles and ultimately sold itself to Cagiva, which went bankrupt four years later in 1997.

Peter Fonda’s 1968 Bultaco Pursang 250 MKII Motorcycle in Easy Rider

Peter Fonda is the third-most famous actor in his family, behind father Henry and sister Jane, but there’s no doubt that he rode one of the most famous bikes in Hollywood history. This bike, however, isn’t the iconic red, white, and blue chopper from 1969’s Easy Rider; it’s the 1968 Bultaco Pursang 250 MKII that Fonda (as “Wyatt”) rode in the movie’s first scene.

One of two used in filming, this 250 MKII (frame 48-00510 / engine 48-00510) is a powerful 250cc, air-cooled, two-stroke competition model that Heritage calls “a winner in virtually any type of high-speed-based, off-road event.” The boattail 250 MKII generated 34 horsepower and was thought to be the fastest 250 in 1968.

June 12th-20th, 2021 – New Hampshire – home to America’s Original Riding Rally

After a COVID-hobbled rally in 2020, Progressive Laconia Motorcycle Week® returns to New Hampshire for its 98th year, June 12 – 20. Ninety-eight years is a long time, longer than most of us have been alive, so you can imagine there are stories to tell about the world’s oldest motorcycle rally. If you’re doing the math, you’ll have to take into account the 7 years the rally wasn’t held to come up with 1916. This was the year a few hundred motorcyclists, organized by central and southern New England motorcycle dealers, traveled north for a “gypsy tour” to Weirs Beach.

Who would have known this would mark the beginnings of a tradition that would span a century? The tour was first sanctioned by the Federation of American Motorcyclists in 1917 and when the FAM disbanded in 1919, the Motorcycle and Allied Trades Association (M&ATA) took over the sanction until 1924, when the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) was formed. Back then, the weekend event centered around races and hill climbs. The number of participants grew each year as did the event’s duration. Over time, the rally blossomed into a week-long event, eventually suffering in attendance and popularity after getting wrapped up in the upheavals of the 60’s. The rally reverted to a 3-day weekend and would remain so until 1991, when organizers revived the week-long event after seeing the success of Sturgis’ 50th Anniversary Rally in 1990. Laconia Motorcycle Week reclaimed the support of local businesses and the AMA as a week-long rally and the oldest gypsy tour in the country.

Today, Laconia Motorcycle Week® is a much-expanded version of the early “gypsy tour” years, offering attendees lots of fun, food, music and, of course, countless miles of scenic riding through New Hampshire’s famed landscape. Over 230,000 riders are expected to descend on the Lakes Region this year, holding the honor of the oldest of the three national rallies with Daytona and Sturgis being Laconia’s sister rallies. Sure, all that noise and leather may seem intimidating, but don’t be fooled. Behind those leather jackets are just regular people; a multi-generational group of enthusiasts, from all walks of life, who all just happen to share in the exhilaration and liberation that riding brings.

So, be a part of Motorcycle Week history. Plan a ride to New Hampshire for this year’s Motorcycle Week (June 12 – June 20). Whether it’s your first or 98th visit, you’ll find the shared passion for riding, around which this event was founded, has never changed.

Laconia Motorcycle Week® gives great appreciation to all of our sponsors, especially our Presenting Sponsors: Progressive, AMSOIL and Team Motorcycle, as well as the State of New Hampshire for their large financial support of our rally each year.

For more information about visiting the state of NH, check out visitnh.gov.

Laconia – where rallies were invented!

by Skyler Chun from https://www.milwaukeemag.com

Preview: A Historic Show at the Harley-Davidson Museum. Learn all about the history of off-road motorcycling at the Harley-Davidson Museum.

A new exhibit – about the storied past of off-road motorcycles and the people who rode them – has rolled into the Harley-Davidson Museum.

“There’s a deep history here with this type of riding,” exhibits curator David Kreidler says, adding that the company has long made special motorcycles designed to be ridden across difficult terrain. After all, when the company was founded in 1903, roads weren’t widely paved, and riders needed to be able to maneuver their bikes across rutted earth, or dodge fallen logs and debris.

The “Off-Road Harley-Davidson” exhibit was created to coincide with the introduction of the Pan America adventure-touring motorcycle.

One of the highlights of the exhibit, “Off-Road Harley-Davidson,” is the LiveWire, the company’s first all-electric motorcycle. The bike was featured prominently in the Apple TV+ show “Long Way Up,” which followed Ewan McGregor and his friend motorbiking from South America to Los Angeles. Older bikes are also on display.

While the museum is open to the public, it’s planning virtual events as well. To replicate the experience of walking through the galleries, Kridler will lead tours of the exhibit space that viewers can access online if they’d rather not visit in person.

“Off-Road Harley-Davidson” looks back at Harley’s history of all-terrain motorcycles. Visit the Harley-Davidson webpage for more information.

“Off-Road Harley-Davidson” exhibit celebrates the company’s past
by Mark Gardiner from https://www.revzilla.com

To celebrate the launch of its Pan America adventure bike, The Motor Company recently mounted a lovely exhibit called “Off-Road Harley-Davidson” at its museum in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, just as the exhibit was due to open to the public, a surge in COVID cases forced Milwaukee County to close museums!

I recently got a private tour of the exhibit from curator Dave Kreidler. You too can join Dave for a virtual gallery chat on Thursday (cost $6 or free for museum pass holders). The museum expects to reopen to the public next month.

The Pan America has been engineered for everything from comfortable touring to exploring gravel or dirt backroads and taking sand, mud and the occasional river crossing in stride. That might seem like a radical change for Harley-Davidson, but only if you forget that the company’s been selling motorcycles for more than a century. For the first few decades of its existence, sand, mud, and water crossings weren’t off-road challenges — they were features of American roads.

Harley-Davidson is older than 99.9 percent of U.S. paved roads

The first modern asphalt roads were paved in the mid-1800s, before cars and motorcycles. Bicycles became popular in the 1880s and bicyclists were the first group to lobby governments for improved roads. Still, by 1900 less than five percent of America’s roads were paved. There was a bit of an asphalt boom during the First World War, but it was limited to roads connecting manufacturing centers to ports. The war in Europe convinced the U.S. Army that trucks — and roads that could support them — were a strategic asset.

After the war, the Army sent 79 vehicles, 260 enlisted men and 35 officers, including a young Lt. Col. named D. Eisenhower, on a cross-country convoy to demonstrate the practicality of trucks and the need for better highways. They traveled from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco on the Lincoln Highway. Eisenhower returned dismayed by the dismal state of the country’s roads and bridges. Dozens of flimsy wooden bridges were destroyed by the Army convoy!

Little was done to improve the situation until the Works Progress Administration improved and paved about half a million miles of roads as part of the New Deal. Many farm-to-market roads were paved; one New Deal slogan was “Get the farmers out of the mud!”

Ike never lost his interest in road construction and as president he signed the bill that created the Interstate Highway System.

That’s a roundabout way of pointing out that the first 100,000 or so Harley-Davidson motorcycles were used on a mix of surfaces that riders of today would say called for an ADV bike, if not a full-on dual-sport. Back then, though, there were just “motorcycles.”

Curator Dave Kreidler shows “Off-Road Harley-Davidson” exhibit

The exhibit’s not arranged chronologically. “We organized it in five sections, based on the type of riding that the company was selling to people,” Dave said as we stood in front of a 1964 BTH model.

Sold as the Scat, the BTH was a 175 cc two-stroke that’s recognizable as a dual-sport in spite of its rigid rear end and a plunger fork with only a couple of inches of travel. It was one of the last models in a line of lightweight motorcycles based on the German DKW RT 125. (DKW’s intellectual property was essentially seized as war reparations, and versions of the RT 125 were sold as BSA Bantams in Britain, Harley-Davidson Hummers in the United States and the MMZ M-1A Moskva in Russia.)

The Scat was a road-legal trail bike sold with a high pipe, high fenders, and fairly knobby trials-pattern tires. An extra-low final-drive ratio was available as an option. It was one of many Harley-Davidsons that, over the years, were marketed as perfect vehicles for hunters and anglers.

Next up were a couple of displays devoted to touring in the 1910s and ’20s, which would be considered pretty intense adventure-touring by today’s standards.

In 1914, the Model 10-F was Harley-Davidson’s flagship. It had a two-speed gearbox and a “step starter” that allowed it to be started without putting it up on its rear stand. That was a real advantage if you were in terrain where there was no firm, level spot for the stand.

While researching this exhibit, Dave found a 1914 article in H-D’s dealer magazine describing a young naturalist named Hamilton Laing, who dropped by the Juneau Avenue factory on a ride from New York City to western Canada.

“I got kind of interested and poked around a little bit more on the internet for him,” Dave told me. “Lo and behold, he became a fairly well known naturalist, worked for the British Columbia Museum, and they had all of his papers.”

Laing’s papers included a memoir of another epic ride, from Brooklyn to Oakland in 1915. Laing “talks about the motorcycle in very poetic terms,” Dave said. “There’s this great passage where a speeding car passes him in Pennsylvania, and he goes on for a few paragraphs about how the motorcycle is a superior form of transportation, if you just want to stop and smell the roses. You know, not much has changed actually in that regard.”

The British Columbia Museum noted that although Laing kept his motorcycle for several more years, he did most of his work travel in Canada by canoe. An intrepid fellow!

Another period touring display is a 1921 WJ Sport, one of Harley-Davidson’s rare boxer twin offerings. “The popularity of this machine for cross country touring is due in part to its ability to travel even a burro trail,” bragged an advertising copywriter of the time.

“We wouldn’t call this a lightweight today,” Dave said. “But it was lighter than our Big Twin. The engine was easier to work on and it got good fuel mileage.” In 1921, those were important considerations. Touring riders had to perform most of their own maintenance and repairs; gasoline was expensive and often was only available from mechanics or automobile and motorcycle dealers.

Although you can see that the WJ doesn’t have much ground clearance, it does have a forgivingly low center of gravity, which was surely a boon when picking one’s way through difficult terrain at slow speed.

The next display we looked at was devoted to purpose-built race bikes. Enthusiasts had raced H-D’s heavy big twins in tough off-road events like Michigan’s Jack Pine Enduro forever but by the mid 1950s lighter, purpose-built off-road motorcycles dominated in the dirt.

The 1958 XLCH Sportster was a true production racer, sold without lights. “In some ways you could say that this was our first real off-road motorcycle,” David noted. (The first road-going Sporty — equipped with a headlight — came the following year.)

Both the Sportster and an elegant 1972 ERS Sprint scrambler evoke an era of spare and elegant production racers like the company’s KR and XR flat track bikes. The Sprint was one of the models that emerged from H-D’s acquisition of the Aermacchi company, which happened in two stages. It purchased a half interest in the Italian firm in 1960, then AMF-Harley-Davidson purchased full control in 1974.

One thing that’s conspicuously missing from the exhibit is an Aermacchi two-stroke motocross bike. Harley-Davidson fielded a factory team in the AMA 250 cc Championship on and off between 1975 and 1979. The ’75 MX-250 was produced for one year only. It used an adapted Kayaba fork instead of rear shocks. Although it was not really a competitive motocrosser, Bruce Ogilvie won the 1975 Baja 500 on it.

In 1978, they produced another limited run of MX-250s but the chassis was instantly obsolete compared to the monoshock Yamaha YZ250. The Aermacchi motor made good power but it was peaky as hell. Harley-Davidson sold Aermacchi to the Castiglioni brothers later that year and abandoned its AMA motocross effort altogether in 1979. In spite of its checkered history, the MX-250 is a bit of a cult bike with the vintage MX crowd.

Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should

The most compelling display may be a much abused 1985 FXRP police model. It’s hard to imagine anything further from a factory off-roader. But Charlie Peet, a Harley-Davidson enthusiast from Florida, chose that bike for his mount in the 9,000-mile Trans-Amazon Rally held in 1988.

Peet’s police bike was modified at a Ft. Lauderdale Harley dealership. They fit a larger fuel tank from a BMW, saddlebags, a skidplate, handguards, extra lights, and louder horns! It was shipped to the starting point in Cartagena, Colombia. It baffled the 170-odd other competitors. Most were two-person teams in cars or trucks; the six other motorcycles entered were all purpose-built dirt bikes.

“They voted Charlie least likely to finish because not only was he on this thing, but he didn’t have a support team,” Dave told me. “It was really dangerous. Normally with rallies, you have sweep teams; there were none. Every country handled its own leg of the rally. The maps were a mess. At one point, Charlie was riding and looking at his map, and what he thought was a road was actually the border between two provinces.”

In spite of that, he was one of four motorcyclists to reach the finish in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Harley-Davidson engineers convinced the company to acquire Peet’s FXRP so they could study it. Evidently they couldn’t believe it had finished the race either.

The FXRs were the first new models released after the management bought Harley-Davidson back from AMF. The chassis was developed with input from a young pup named Erik Buell, and there are people who claim these are the best hogs ever farrowed. Be that as it may, this 1,137 cc beast, which weighed 683 pounds, was a crazy choice for the Trans-Amazon Rally.

Into the modern era

The exhibit also includes a 2006 Buell Ulysses and Ewan McGregor’s LiveWire from the recent Long Way Up TV series.

The Ulysses, recently profiled on Common Tread, is another short-lived model that became a cult fave once it was discontinued. In this case, the whole Buell brand was killed off. It’s often seemed to me that Harley-Davidson employees dare not speak the Buell name, but perhaps the Ulysses reputation will be rehabilitated to help establish the Pan America’s bona fides.

McGregor’s LiveWire might be cool to see but next to Charlie Peet’s FXRP, McGregor and Boorman’s ride was little more than a jaunt.

All of this leads to, of course, the Pan America. Even the museum doesn’t have one of its own yet. The bike on display at the moment is a late prototype or early production model that belongs to the Parts & Accessories side of the business. They used it to test the fit of components and as a photo model.

With the exception of the Ulysses, the motorcycles on display in “Off-Road Harley-Davidson” are too old to be thought of as Pan America progenitors, so it’s up to you to decide whether the exhibit serves to bolster faith in Harley-Davidson’s ADV chops. That said, I admire The Motor Company’s sense of its own history, which obviously includes a lot of very adventurous riding that is nicely shown off in this exhibit. As I’ve come to expect from the Museum, the lighting and displays are beyond reproach.

David Kreidler scoured his employer’s extensive archives for photos, copies of old ads, and other ephemera which round out the stories of the motorcycles on display. As noted, a few models were conspicuous by their absence but it’s better to leave visitors wanting more than footsore and overwhelmed.

In addition to this week’s virtual debut of the exhibit, the museum is planning to reopen to the public on March 5 with hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.