Sturgis Painting by David Uhl Celebrates 70th Anniversary

The Legends Gallery at Broken Spoke Campground will host a reception at 8 p.m. Aug. 7th for motorcycle artist David Uhl to kick off the  70th Anniversary of Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The reception is free and open to the public to attend.

David Uhl will be presenting his Sturgis Commemorative Collection of fine art prints, including “70 & Counting” – his newest piece commemorating the 70th Sturgis rally. The exhibit will also feature “Stella” and “Evelyn”, which are the two last pieces in the Women of Harley-Davidson Collection.

David Uhl was born in Toledo, Ohio on September 20, 1961. Early on, David began creating amazing drawings and, by high school’s end, had decided to pursue a career in art. He applied for, and won, the only full-ride scholarship to the Colorado Institute of Art offered to a high school senior in the U.S. He was dissatisfied with the design programs the school offered, yet he excelled at the life drawing and illustration classes. Leaving school after one year, he focused his talents on commercial illustration, eventually forming Uhl Illustration, an award-winning firm servicing many prominent clients such as FedEx, IBM, Coca-Cola and Time magazine.

Acquiring a motorcycle in 1988 and riding to Sturgis, South Dakota, David saw first hand the culture of cycling enthusiasts. He entered the world of Harley-Davidson® apparel (t-shirt designs) with great success. Yet, after a time, David felt there was something missing, artistically.

In the beginning of 1996, after 20 years of producing drawings for commercial clients, David entered the world of oil painting. This radically changed everything. Developing his own unique style, he focused his attention around the turn of the century. In 1998 David conceived of a brand new, yet timeless avenue for Harley-Davidson art; museum quality oil paintings. Harley-Davidson, exhibiting nearly a century of history at the time, was the perfect match. David researched motorcycle imagery from the 1930s and ‘40s. This led to his first work; A Change in the Weather. He flew to Milwaukee to present the painting to Harley-Davidson executives. Over a hundred paintings later David feels he is still in the infancy of his painting career.

The Legends Gallery is located at Broken Spoke Campground, 79 North Highway, Sturgis, South Dakota. Phone: 917-763-1334

David’s main collections include: The Women of Harley- Davidson, Sturgis Commemorative, Daytona Commemorative, 100th Anniversary, The Graceland Project, The Rosenkrans Collection, Aviation and Military, among many others.

David’s artwork is displayed throughout the world, and sought by serious art collectors and celebrities alike. Charles Osgood, of CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, referred to David as “The Norman Rockwell of Harley-Davidson artists”.

For further details, visit uhlstudios.com.

Trans-AMA motocross champions

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DeCoster won the Trans-AMA Championship four years in a row (1974-1977), becoming an admired and popular figure in the sport in America as well.



The following is a list of Trans-AMA Champions, from 1970 to 1978. The championship was an international series established by the American Motorcyclist Association as a pilot event to help establish motocross in the United States. The series was based on a 500cc engine displacement formula, although the first year of the event featured both 250 and 500cc events. The races run on American tracks to international standards, featuring the top riders from the F.I.M. world championship against the top American riders. In 1970 and 1971, the highest placing American rider at the end of the series was considered the A.M.A. national champion. After 1978 the series was renamed the Trans-USA series, but had fewer European riders participating. The Inter-AMA series was a similar year-end championship, but used a 250cc engine displacement formula.

• Year Rider...............................Country........................Machine
• 1970 Dave Nicoll...............United Kingdom...................BSA
• 1971 Sylvain Geboers...........Belgium...........................Suzuki
• 1972 Åke Jonsson..................Sweden............................Maico
• 1973 Adolf Weil...............West Germany......................Maico
• 1974 Roger De Coster............Belgium..........................Suzuki
• 1975 Roger De Coster............Belgium..........................Suzuki
• 1976 Roger De Coster............Belgium..........................Suzuki
• 1977 Roger De Coster............Belgium..........................Suzuki
• 1978 Bob Hannah..............United States....................Yamaha

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Dr. Ray's Safety Tips For Motorcycle Riding

Make your first ride your best ride. Take the MSF Basic RiderCourse. Find a course at msf-usa.org or call (800) 446-9227.

If you are a new rider or a veteran motorcycle rider, Dr. Ray has a wonderful guide called "You and Your Motorcycle - Riding Tips".  Dr. Raymond J. Ochs is the director of training systems for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. Ochs has more than 30 years of experience in education, training and leadership functions. Ochs joined the MSF in 2002 where he develops and maintains national curriculum and training functions related to the MSF Rider Education and Training System. Ochs has owned multiple motorcycles in his 35-plus years on the road and currently rides a touring bike. He became an MSF-certified instructor in 1973 and a chief instructor in 1980, and has conducted motorcycle safety training programs and presented papers and presentations all over the country and overseas including Germany and Japan.  

Dr. Ray's guide is in PDF form so you can download it and print it for free. Share it with your club members, friends, family or any one that rides a motorcycle.  It has a lot of helpful tips and insights.  We all can learn something cause no one knows it all.

Here is a brief description of some of the tips you will read in his guide:

• Learn to smoothly squeeze your front brake lever. Practice smooth braking even while rolling your bike out of the garage, so the skill is there in an emergency. 

• The best riders control their bikes to within six inches of their desire line, every mile and every curve of every ride.

• All the levers and pedals should be adjusted so they're easy to reach and operate.

• Practice hard stops when and where it's safe. If you ride with passengers, tell them to hold on and practice some hard stops with them. Just do it with care. 

• Don't tense up. Keep your elbows relaxed and slightly bent. Use a light grip on the bars. You need to control the bike, but you also need to let the steering do its job, not fight it. 

• The front tire of a sport bike can handle braking loads even when leaned over, but not abrupt braking loads. Words to live by: Load the tire before you work the tire. 

• Sport bike riders: Get used to holding yourself up with your core muscles and legs, gripping the tank with your thighs. This takes the pressure off the handlebars. 

• Your front brake has most of the stopping power. But develop a good feel for using your rear brake as well, to further shorten stopping distances. 

• Sport bike riders: Forget tucking in and hanging way off to drag your knee UNLESS you're on a racetrack, where you can safely explore your limits.

• Be smooth whenever you are moving around on the bike. Aggressive, abrupt body movements can be just as wrong as grabbing the brakes or stabbing the throttle. 

• Whichever line you are using through a corner, use all your vision and think and plan. Scan side to side and near to far, keeping eyes up and looking through the entire curve. 

• Remember: Weighting the inside axle of the gyro (aka the foot peg) helps turn your bike into the corner.

• When cornering, don't let your eyes linger.  Jump them to what's next and any possible hazards. 
  
  
  FOR MORE TIPS DOWNLOAD DR. RAY'S GUIDE CLICK HERE
  
  

1966 Honda CB450 Police Special

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If you saw one of these rare motorcycles on the road in the 1960s, you were either very lucky or very unlucky. It all depended upon whether that set of red lights was flashing in your rear-view mirror or someone else's.


Honda imported a mere 25 CB450 Police Specials to the United States in 1966 in an effort to crack into the law-enforcement market. So if you came into contact with one, you could certainly count it as one of the more unique bike sightings of your life.


Based on Honda's "Black Bomber" CB450, introduced in 1965, the Police Special was entirely normal in its engine and running gear. But it incorporated some nifty anti-crime devices.


The large speedometer, for instance, was calibrated in 1-mile-per-hour increments. And with a flip of a switch, Mr. Policeman could lock the speedo reading to preserve the evidence of your illegality.

copyright the Vintagent

Then he'd switch on the lights and pull a lever on the left handlebar that worked the unusual siren-activation system. The lever brought a rotating steel drum into contact with the rear wheel, much like those old electrical generators on bicycles. The only difference was that this drum drove a flexible steel cable that snaked forward to spin the siren.

The Police Special also came with a solo seat backed by a small metal box for carrying an officer's ticket book.


Honda's Police Special took on Harley-Davidson for a place in America's law-enforcement community…and lost badly. Even though Honda billed it as "a big bike with a big ride," the 450 couldn't make a dent in a market that had been dominated for decades by American V-twins. So the initial U.S. shipment of 25 was also the last... Text via the Motorcycle museum hall of fame




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South Wales Naked Bikers Make A Statement

What do we have to do to get noticed? That is the Question. And a group of bikers in South Wales came up with an unusual answer in a Motorcycle Safety video they are promoting on YouTube: How about bikers riding NUDE? That's right!

Tattoo Artist of the Week - Knuckle

Tattoo Artist "Knuckle" owns and operates Knuckle Energy Tattoos in Osaka, Japan.

Facebook: KNUCKLE

Website: knuckle.jp

He also paints and offers fine art prints, posters and specialty items.

Street Tracker Comes To Life

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Via the :

This past Winter was unusually cold for the Houston area. We had snow, a couple of freezes and all around nasty stuff that lasted through April, one of the longest winters in quite a while.


Traditionally during the winter months we take on some sort of project. We have done a few vintage restorations over the years as well as helping a few of our Racer clients prepare and set up their racebikes. This year, our 29th in business, we decided to do something different, a project for ourselves. After some serious though on the matter we decided that Chopper/Bobbers have been done to death and since we have been wanting to build a Street Tracker (Street legal flat track Racer). For some time thats the direction we would go.


We had a Rusted 1975 Yamaha XS650 chassis that had been out behind our shop for about 16 years as well as 3 XS650 engines residing under our stairwell for about the same amount of time. . We pulled em into the shop and had a starting point. Our concept was to use as many parts off of bikes we had laying around the shop and buy as few new parts as possible. Instead we would refinish, replate, repaint, and refurbish parts off of any brand bike that we could make work.


We ended up with Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Harley, and even a few take off parts from a Custom Triumph flat tracker that our buddy Mark Lanoue races at Pikes peak every year on our project. We had help from many friends, James Moody machined the custom rear wheel sprocket adapter, Mark Lanoue and Shane Davis waterjetted brackets for foot controls and Rear Brake hanger.


Shane Davis and Mark Martinez helping with the frame paint as well as design and airbrushing of the paint scheme on the tank & tailpiece. Sam Romeo at Sam’s Cycle Salvage Found us a great deal on a pair of Kawasaki ZRX 1200 shocks. John Easton at Jemco Exhaust Systems built the Exhaust that looks so good on the bike... Read more




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