2012 MOTORCYCLE CANNONBALL: THE ULTIMATE OLD BIKE TEST

Shot over the Teton Range in Wyoming, official Cannonball photographer Michael Lichter makes me look like a hero!I've posted the 'wet plate' photos in Oily Rag, written online articles for Cycle World, and will shortly have print stories in MCN and Café Racers (France)... even the roving Vintagent has to make a living...but patient readers of The Vintagent get a different spin on the Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Rally, an event I entered on a whim last January, well after the cutoff entry date, at the urging of a stranger, over dinner in Las Vegas, during the big motorcycle auction week.  Perhaps the odd circumstance of my Cannonball's genesis was a warning, as some riders spent fully two years preparing their machines for...

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CANNONBALL WRAP IN CYCLE WORLD

Check it out; I'm busy finishing articles for MCN in England, Café Racers in France, Oily Rag magazine, and of course, a special helmet-eye view of the whole thing for The Vintagent.  Gotta pay the rent, but loyal/patient readers get something special...For now, my second installment for Cycle World can be found he...

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VINTAGENT IN 'CYCLE WORLD'

It seems I'll be contributing more regularly to Cycle World online, and my most recent column is a discussion of the vicissitudes of the Motorcycle Cannonball.  Read it here on Cycle World.com.A wet plate/collodion tintype shot in collaboration with Susan McLaughlin,  while prepping my Velocette KTT in Newburgh, New York, at the start of the Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Ra...

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CANNONBALL UPDATE...

More coverage on the Motorcycle Cannonball in Oily Rag magazine; read it he...

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CANNONBALL WET PLATES...

For more Cannonball wet plate/collodion images from Team Oily Rag/Vintagent, visit the Oily Rag webpage he...

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CANNONBALL WET PLATES #1

Shooting with two plate cameras; an 8"x10" and a 5"x7", the larger one an original 1890s model, the smaller a new Chamonix using an 1860s Petzval portrait lens.  Photos by Paul d'Orléans / Susan McLaughlin.  The top shot was taken with a just-coated plate which was accidentally dropped on the van floor (by me! Big plates are awkward to handle), but I'm a fan of the unexpected, so went ahead and made the shot; I love the unexpected chemistry.  The bike is a 1928 Indian 101 Scout, with 1940 Sport Scout barrels and heads.  It was recently purchased sight unseen on Craigslist, and is now being prepared/fettled during the Cannonball.  While all participants are a little bit crazy, some are braver than others...17 Excelsior-Henderson...

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