all things bright and beautiful

Now it's about time I gave a shout out to my friend Matt at Machine and the mighty Panhead he built for Joe. It's a snarling beast of a thing and Joe rides it like a bat out of hell. As expected from Matt it's a masterpiece of detail and design - form follows function.

Now another master of the motorcycle craft is the original Zero Samurai himself, Shinya Kimura from Chabott in Azuza CA. He's just about the most resourceful and creative builder I've seen and it was great to visit his workshop with my man Joe.

Everything he builds is like a gorgeous piece of sculpture.

Love Shinya's attention to detail

Now this is why I ride motorcycles - just a typical day out.

My favourite Triumph - 1965 TT special desert sled - now due for a little custom work.

The Triumph desert sled back in the day

circle work on a friend's XR75 - going back to my misspent youth

love this shot of Steve McQueen and his son on a Rickman Triumph

WWII reenactment day Bovington Tank Museum UK

Last summer I went to a recreation weekend at the Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset. Not only is it probably the biggest and best tank museum in the world, starting off as the home of the first tank division in WWI but they also have a testing track and battlefield so most of their tanks are kept in full working order.

The reenactment weekend is an awesome site with large scale mock battles and British, American, German and Russian troops camping in the fields just as they did in WWII - dug into trenches or camped around their vehicles complete with every item troops would have carried on their march across Europe.

The legendary Willys jeep

British paratroopers

A Scout - part of their massive indoor museum

Sherman in action

attention to detail

firepower in the field

The heat of battle

50 cal Browning

Sherman with snorkle - ready for a D day swim