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I mentioned this jealously-inducing series a couple weeks ago, but Doin’ It Baja just wrapped up with it’s 8^th episode, which just happens to be the best one of all. And in the process, it reignited my old 17-year-old-self’s obsession with Heath Kirchart.

I feel like it’s an understandable obsession. You know, since he’s The Best. THE BEST I SAY:

As the story goes, Heath’s face was numb for three months after that infamous slam at the beginning of his section which, while unfortunate… isn’t that shocking. This is old news, but slightly more shocking… or perhaps amusing would be a better word. They’re not always the same thing, just usually.

Seriously though, I mean… 

Heath Kirchart - photo by Mike O’Meally

I’m just gonna say it: total man-crush material.

Edit: D’oh… totally missed this and now I just look like an content-starved copycat, but whatevs. The hardest working skate blog out there, The Chrome Ball Incident, posted up a gang of vintage Heath flicks yesterday. Sheesh… they’ve got their own custom Nike Dunks, they beat me to the punch on retrospective Heath Kirchart coverage…

Chabott Engineering's Shinya Kimura is, quite possibly, the most creative motorcycle builder working today. At the very least, he’s absolutely a master of his craft, and is truly gifted when it comes to infusing his intense passion into sheet metal and machinery. Perhaps it’s for this reason, aside from sheer technical ingenuity, that Shinya consistently creates some of the most stunningly different custom motorcycles ever made. This masterfully crafted short feature, directed by Henrik Hansen, gets inside Shinya’s mysterious creative process, and shares his insights on both building and riding bikes. Not to be missed.

It feels nothing like how violent it looks from the outside. It’s very serene. The ground and the sky are so white there is no boundary between them. 

Here are a few photos of my favorite builds, courtesy of Chabott Engineering:

Everything about Kimura’s bikes have a “more than meets the eye” appeal — to me, they kind of look like if Transformers crash landed on Earth during a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-esque future (just with fewer insane screaming phone calls to girlfriends). Which would be incredible, obviously.

Epicly Later’d’s Patrick O’Dell (wow, those apostrophes are practically crossing the streams) has a new series up on VBS called Doin’ It Baja. Terrible name. Regardless, the series is pretty awesome — it covers O’Dell’s (more wild apostrophes, holy fuck) recent motorcycle trip with eternal coolguys Heath Kirchart, Arto Saari, and Keegan Saunder from San Diego to the tip of Baja California in Mexico. Motorcycle mayhem, dreamy skater bois, beaches, beer, Baja California?! So fucking sold.

Here’s the first episode so you can get your feet wet (though not as wet as dipping your pinky toe into the warm, blissful waters of the motherfucking Pacific Ocean). Episodes 1-6 are up at VBS if you feel you haven’t had enough jealousy in your life lately.

I love how there’s a very significant portion of the human population that lives to out-crazy other humans. Some people just won’t be content reaching a stopping point, because to them, there is no stopping point. Their craziness just reaches on into infinity. Indeed, they are the music makers, and they are the dreamers of dreams. They serve their purpose in society, without them, there would be no innovation, no brilliant insights, no horrific car wrecks.

This is just beyond ridiculous — it’s blazing a trail through the wild frontier of completely inexplicable absurdity. The guy’s just chillin’ out, soaking in the sights on his way to work. Maybe he works at a factory that produces really little joysticks that can fit in your pocket and allow you to steer a motorcycle. Come on, it’s not like that would be the most unbelievable thing about this video.

If everyone on Earth was half as smart as Google…

For starters, we actually might be able to avoid getting our minds harvested by the “don’t be evil” corporation whenever domination over the Internet, mobile phone industry, and power grid aren’t enough.

But, failing that, we might not be staging elaborately choreographed motorcycle displays. Incredible + stupid = incredibly stupid? That’s some fuzzy math. Stupid or not, this show put on by Italian police in the 1950s is awesome. Dress rehearsal must have been ugly.

It’s like that old saying — when in Rome… don’t get in a motorcycle chase with the police.

You don’t have a true appreciation for fear until you’ve seen this video. Welcome to India. Welcome to The Diamond Maruti Car Circus. Welcome to the most dangerous place on Earth.

Wonder what the death toll is on this thing. Just imagining a crash in this torture chamber is nauseating. Gotta love the audience, clutching the bars, waving and dangling their hands over the side, with tires squealing inches away, hungry for delicate little fingers.

This sphere from hell, holding three motorcycles (likely not street legal) and three piece-of-fuck Nissan hatchbacks, is made of bamboo — it’s like an evil panda’s morning bowl of death. Seriously, everything about this act screams danger, in a way that makes American Monster Truck rallies look like a tea party with the fucking Cabbage Patch Kids. 

1970 Harley Davidson Ironhead Sportster - photo via streetchopperweb.com

It might be evolutionarily counter-intuitive, but what can I say? I’ve always had an uncontrollable attraction to thick clouds of smoke, no matter what the source. Be it your standard water-filtration smoking device, or the exhaust from the loudest and meanest of the Harley V twin engines, the Ironhead — where there is smoke, there is fun to be had.

…Or maybe just two stroke exhaust.

Yamaha RD350YPVS, photo via The Classic Bike Buyer’s Guide

The caption reads, “Paddock jacket, jeans, trainers, a YPVS and wheelies. Teen heaven.” The Powervalve might have come out almost 30 years ago now, but come on… that moment in time is still looking mighty fucking heavenly. When I saw this photo the universal forces of cool literally bound me to scan it in at once. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but to me, there are only 4 that seem to matter here: living in the moment. Utterly.

That last little “sentence” tacked on to the end technically makes it 5 words, but I was just being verbose — and my writing tends to be full of fat just begging to be skimmed off. And that’s part of the charm of these old motorcycles — there is very little fat here. In a modern age full of fat (both literal and figurative), things that are stripped down to their essential purpose are incredibly attractive. In the case of old bikes, that purpose is obviously being super fucking awesome. And god damn they do their job well.

For me, it’s these ideas that bind skateboarding and motorcycles together — the same things essentially attracted me to both. They’re fast, they’re rugged, and they don’t leave much room for anything besides the fundamentals.

Art meets art — here are the immensely talented eyes of photographer Scott Pommier on Shinya Kimura’s mindblowing 1957 Triumph, “Needle.” This is what it looks like when staggering talents collide and god damn is it incredible.

The model for which all awesome things must follow - via FFFFOUND!

So anyway, I was kind of kidding about that whole avoiding zombies at all costs thing being my New Year’s resolution. Not entirely kidding though, since obviously if I saw a zombie today, I wouldn’t be sticking around to shake hands, feel me?

Anyway, this (see above) is my real New Year’s resolution. I mean, not literally. Although, again, obviously, if I could powerslide on a motorcycle that would be pretty fucking incredible. I suck at making resolutions apparently. I don’t take the sport seriously enough or something. That’s what my high school Track & Field coach told me anyway.

What I’m trying to say is… since New Year’s is basically just an excuse to finally get off your ass and do something you’ve been talking about doing for months anyway, I’ve decided 2010 is the year I finally invest in my very own cool factor multiplier / insatiable money pit / high speed coffin. Can you believe how psyched I was to find out I can actually buy my mom’s worst nightmare?

See you on the other side of the handlebars, squares.

bliss
-noun
supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment
Synonyms:

Classic Panhead where it rightly belongs — on the road.

Photo via the ever-fascinating 4Q Conditioning.