PROJECT DESERT RAT

The concept; take two Triumphs out to the desert in southern Utah, for a little dirty fun.  I already have a '73 Triumph Adventurer for the trip; my companion Conrad Leach bought a '71 Triumph TR6R on Craigslist, and ended up swapping the engine for a '60s Bonneville lump, with a 750cc kit. Rough but good.It took a few days to get to the canyonlands of Utah from San Francisco; we stopped in Winnemucca Nevada(after a blast up Donner Pass road), then Springville Utah (to visit Jeff Decker).  Today we made it to the Canyonlands, a unique place on the planet. My favorite of the chain of National Parks strung between Nevada and Colorado is Capitol Reef, which is probably the least visited of the Zion/Bryce Canyon/Moab/Canyonlands continuum,...

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CATCHING UP WITH CROCKER

Pd'O in a Wet Plate image; not as suspicious of the new machine as I lookBack in May at the 2012 Quail Motorcycle Gathering, I met Michael Schacht and had a good look at his new Crocker Big Tank, which he'd just completed.  The bike looked and sounded good, and I wrote a piece for Cycle World on its début.  Schacht invited me to test ride the machine next time I was in LA; last week that opportunity arrived, and I met him at the secret Crocker warehouse/assembly shop.  That first, unpainted Crocker sat with an Indian 101 Scout Schacht restored back in his 'Indian days', the prototype Crocker C4 futurismo mockup, and a frame table on which sat the makings of New Crocker #2.  [For a history of Crocker motorcycles, click here]Cylinder...

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'THE MASTER' AND THE MOTORCYCLE

Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, riding what looks like a Norton 16H across a dry lake bedMonths ago the New York Times ran a story on Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film (starring Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman), 'The Master', a meditation on L Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology.  The principal events of the story were carefully based on Hubbard's life, from the borrowed yacht on which he escapes his troubles, to the threats and intimidation used to silence critics, the school set up in England, and...a lust for motorcycles.L Ron Hubbard aboard a BSA C15 in West Sussex, England, ca 1960'The Master' is a difficult and beautiful film, with a pair of intense and fascinating characters who seem strangely bound...

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CALIFORNIA DREAMING

The '73 Triumph TR5T Trophy Trail purchased at the Bonhams Las Vegas auction last January...overlooking Bolinas Lagoon and Stinson Beach.San Francisco doesn't fit the image of California, mostly because it's always cold in the summer.  Then again, it doesn't get cold in winter; it averages 57 degrees all year long, excepting a few days in the Fall, when a window of perfection opens up.  I happened to be in SF for one of those wonderfully odd, only in Cali kinda days. Across the Golden Gate Bridge by TriumphI've always lived in cities (SF, NY, Paris, London), but riding a motorcycle in the countryside is my release, which requires an hour's escape from the city limits on two wheels, battling the cages and creeps, one of whom will threaten...

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