Best of
Motorcycle

2009

Stealing Speed: The Biggest Spy Scandal in Motorsport History


Mat Oxley - 2009
    This is the compelling story of how one of Japan's biggest motorcycle manufacturers stole a Nazi rocket scientist's engine secrets from behind the Iron Curtain to conquer the world.

Red Tape and White Knuckles: One Woman's Motorcycle Journey Through Africa


Lois Pryce - 2009
    She put on her sparkly crash helmet, armed herself with maps and a baffling array of visas, and got on her bike. Destination: Cape Town - and the small matter of tackling the Sahara, war-torn Angola and the Congo Basin along the way - this feisty independent woman's grand trek through the Dark Continent of Africa is the definitive motorcycling adventure.Colourful and hilarious, Red Tape and White Knuckles is an action-packed tale about following your dreams that will have you packing your bags and jetting off into the sunset on your own adventure before you know it.

Ring of Fire


Rick Broadbent - 2009
    This is a world where manufacturers invest millions, and where a rider will emerge from a coma with shattered legs and bloody lungs to get back on his bike to save his job.This is the first book to cover the whole of the MotoGP era, at the centre of which is Valentino Rossi. Ring of Fire charts his rise, fall and rebirth, detailing the darker side to his rivalries with Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau and his battles with the tax man and the media. This is a warts-and-all portrait with tales of vandalised cars and the racer who wants to torch "the whole goddamn valley". It is a breathless behind-the-scenes look at what makes these riders tick, from double World Superbike champion James Toseland to warring Spanish starlets Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa.Rick Broadbent looks back at the sport's tradition of reprobates and debauchery. He introduces us, not just to the stars, but also to the officials, parents, doctors, team owners and fans who make up this white-knuckle sport.By turns funny, sad, shocking and uplifting, Ring of Fire brings us face to face with all those who are bonded by a shared love of risking it all at 200mph.

Fruit of the Sixties: The Founding of the Oregon Country Fair


Suzi Prozanski - 2009
    This book takes the fair - an annual celebration of alternative culture staged near Eugene, Oregon - through its first decade.More than just a gathering, the fair became an event that nurtured the values of change-agents who were experimenting with cooperative ways of living and learning. They may have turned on and tuned in, but most didn't drop out. Instead, many became activists who helped create community organizations as diverse as Saturday Market in Eugene, Urban Ore recycling in Berkeley, California, and Alligator Palace in La Conner, Washington.The story also features legendary icons of the counterculture, including Oregon author Ken Kesey, the Grateful Dead band, and pioneers of the New Vaudeville movement. These intertwined short stories weave a larger tapestry showing the fair's substantial contribution to building a West Coast community that embraced an emerging, alternative culture.

Tracks and Horizons: 26 Countries on a Motorcycle


Carlos A. Caggiani - 2009
    At 24 years of age, he embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. He spent time with everyone from poor natives in the Andes mountains, to rich families in the United States. He crossed rivers without bridges, suffered famine, intense heat and cold, guided his motorcycle through rain and snow storms, rode on dirt and cobblestone roads, was chased by the FBI, was shot at in Bolivia during a revolutionary war, and had a serious accident due to a mechanical failure in Panama that left him hospitalized for 17 days. The experiences in this book demonstrate a human being's tenacity and triumph in the face of adversity, and shows that anything is possible. There is always something more just beyond the horizon...and as the horizon expands, our limits disappear.

Twisting Throttle America: A Kiwi's Hilarious Trip Around America On The Smell Of An Oily Rag


Mike Hyde - 2009
    I decided to make the meal educational. Many will be wondering about the difference between buffalo and bison. Are they the same animal? The answer is a resounding no! Bison comes with a pickle, lettuce, melted cheese and shoestring fries. With buffalo, you get red onion, no cheese and curly fries. It's good to be able to clear that up. No sooner had the ointment started to work after Mike Hyde's 17,000-kilometre motorcycle circumnavigation of Australia than his mid-life itch returned. This time his goal was 50 states in America in 60 days, and Twisting Throttle America is the result - classic roadside tales of an ordinary Kiwi bloke doing it alone, on the smell of an oily rag and cholesterol pills. The Land of the Free is also the Land of the Bizarre Roadside Attraction, and, if Bill Bryson was a middle-aged Kiwi biker on a budget, he might have written this book. Come on a road trip with Twisting Throttle - he's funny, irreverent and definitely not taking himself seriously. Thrill to close encounters with American wildlife, join his fantasy ride around Washington with Motorcycle One, share the excitement and wet underwear of out-running Hurricane Ike, and enjoy his unforgettable attempts to understand diner waitresses. Mike Hyde lives in Christchurch. This is his second book about an epic solo motorbike journey. His wife is clearly a wonderful woman.

Band of Bikers 1962/1972


Scott Zieher - 2009
    These photographs, presented for the first time in Band of Bikers , offer an intimate portrait of a group of gay bikers in the city and the woods, and a touching snapshot of an entire generation at its carefree zenith. Newly aware of muscle and biker magazines and their heavy-handed eroticism, photographer and photographed brim with a subtly vibrant, chromatic pride. The photographs as a whole bring into focus a brief, specific period of relative innocence, when middle-of-the-road Americans more often than not failed to perceive the homoerotic undertones of their most heterosexual of institutions. With conceptual light cast by issues ranging from anonymity in homosexuality and underground motorcycle chic, to vernacular photography’s pop-culture ramifications, a warm and generous spirit of camaraderie pervades this subterranean survey. Like a real-world set for Scorpio Rising casually captured by an unpretentious extra, presented as Band of Bikers and accompanied by an essay by Zieher, this found cache of old-school, leather party snapshots attains archeological significance.