Today in motorcycle history, February 22, 1904

  


  

  One of the greatest American motorcycle racers of all time, Joseph "Smokin' Joe" Petrali is born in San Francisco.

  Joe Petrali was known as one of the last great Class A racing stars who competed in board track racing, dirt track, speed records and hillclimbs. From the mid-1920's to the mid-30's Joe Petrali won an amazing 49 AMA National Championship races, a record that stood for 55 years.





  On March 13, 1937 at Daytona Beach,  Joe rode a specially built streamlined 61" Harley-Davidson knucklehead to a new one-mile motorcycle speed record of 136.183 mph. That record would stand for 11 years until Rollie Free finally broke the mark on a Vincent at the Bonneville Salt Flats. 

  Joseph A. Petrali was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 1998.





  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, February 21, 2003

    

  Celebrity motorcycle crashes #19:"Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff crashes his Harley-Davidson on Sepulveda Boulevard in Los Angeles.

  David Hasselhoff and his wife, Pamela, were riding on Sepulveda Boulevard aboard his custom-built 2003 Harley-Davidson when they were hit by a gust of wind (seriously). Hasselhoff lost control of the bike and collided with a curb, throwing both of them from the motorcycle. Hasselhoff struck a light pole as his wife landed on the soft shoulder of the road.




  According to Los Angeles police spokesman Jason Lee, David Hasselhoff suffered a fractured lower back and several ribs as well as minor abrasions and contusions. Pamela Hasselhoff suffered possible fractures of her left ankle and right wrist. After a quick 'hair and make-up' they were both taken to nearby UCLA Medical Center for treatment, where both were listed in stable condition, Lee said in a statement.




  A spokesman for Hasselhoff, who starred as the studly Chief Lifeguard Mitch Buchannon on the syndicated hit "Baywatch", could not immediately be reached for comment on the accident.


  "Baywatch" debuted on NBC in 1989 and was canceled after one season. But Hasselhoff and his partners acquired rights to the show and brought it back as a syndicated series in 1991 based on its insane popularity overseas.


  The beach drama also made household names of Pamela Anderson, Carmen Electra and Yasmine Bleeth. Okay, maybe not Yasmine.


  David Hasselhoff also starred in the 1980's crime-fighting series "Knight Rider, which featured the uber intelligent 1986 Firebird, "KITT".







  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, February 20, 2006

  

  






  Four-time Isle of Man TT winner, Raymond Pickrell dies at 67.

  Ray Pickrell learned to ride fast on the north London roads around the Ace Cafe and the Busy Bee where bikers used to hold impromptu races.


  After acquiring a second-hand 500cc Manx Norton, Ray competed in his first race, at Brands Hatch, in March of 1961. A long and expensive apprenticeship followed with his father maintaining his ex-Bob McIntyre 350cc Manx. Gradually Pickrell's results improved, helped in part by having the engines rebuilt each winter by the legendary engine tuner, Francis Beart.

  In 1964, he suffered his first major crash. He awoke in the hospital with a broken thigh; a massive pin driven down the center of the bone holding it in place.

  The following season, struggling financially with racing becoming increasingly expensive, he was on the verge of giving up when ex-racer Geoff Monty offered Ray a sponsorship deal which involved him racing a 250cc Bultaco, a 350cc Aermacchi and a Triumph-engined 500cc "Monard" (bastard bike built by Geoff Monty/Dudley Ward).

  Without having to worry about the expense of maintaining the bikes, Pickrell continued to impress, and in 1967 he caught the eye of the south London Norton dealer Paul Dunstall.

  Pickrell responded with a string of successes, and he scored his first major win in the big-bike final at Snetterton, riding a 750cc Domiracer. The results prompted Dunstall to offer him full sponsorship for 1968, and Pickrell responded by winning an astounding 17 races!

  He jumped at the chance to ride for the Triumph/BSA team in 1971 and was an immediate success on their three-cylinder 750cc racers.

  Pickrell teamed with Percy Tait riding the famous Triumph Trident "Slippery Sam"; and finished the year by winning the world's premier endurance race, the 24 hour Bol d'Or in France.

  He won two TT races in June 1972 - the Production Machine Race on "Slippery Sam", and the Formula 750 race on a Triumph.

  The last big race of the year for the Triumph team was the Mallory Park Race of the Year meeting in September.

  Pickrell finished fourth in the feature event, and the team seemed set to take the first four places in the supporting 1000cc event, until his bike locked as he negotiated the "Devil's Elbow" at more than 90 mph.

  "There was nothing I could do," he reflected. "I went flying and when I landed Tony Jefferies' bike came out of the air and fell on me. It smashed my pelvis into six pieces and left me screaming in agony."

  Raymond Pickrell would eventually recover, although he never raced again.





  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, February 19, 1984

  

  

  Russian Ice Speedway rider, Anatoly Vasilievich Gladyshev, dies after getting tangled with another rider while making a pass on an inner lane during a race in Moscow. Anatoly was thrown from his bike directly into the path of oncoming riders. He is killed instantly.

   A master mechanic, the 37 year-old Gladyshev was offered the position of mechanic for the Russian national team if he retired, but twisting a wrench couldn't compare to twisting the throttle. So, he continued competing, mostly as a sub replacing injured teammates.

  After Anatoly Gladyshev's death an annual race was held in his honor in Irkutsk (Siberia).

  A two-time World Champion, Gladyshev won a Gold Medal in 1979 (the first Team World Championship) with team Inzell and again in 1981 as a member of Assen.


  





  Also on this day in 1980, Bon Scott dies in South London.


  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, February 13, 1970

  
    

  

  

  Black Sabbath release their debut album, "Black Sabbath". The album will go on to "change the face of rock music."

 

  The images their lyrics (and sound) evoke are that of skulls, smoke and demons, perfectly suited for motorcycle paint jobs.

  I was in a "biker bar" in Maine that only had Black Sabbath on their jukebox. Only Sabbath CD's. It was great.  I used to work with a guy that had a 1965 ironhead Sportster. He had  the image of the album "Paranoid" on the tank and "Ironman" painted on the oil tank. Man, he thought that was so cool.

  Rolling Stone '​s Lester Bangs described the band as, "just like Cream! But worse," and he dismissed the album as "a shuck – despite the murky song titles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley...."

  

  Forty-five years later Black Sabbath's music can still be heard cranked-up in bike bars worldwide. 

 

  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, February 12, 1972

  


  


  

  The 15,007,034th VW Beetle rolls off the assembly line, breaking the record for total production set by the Model T Ford. 
  Now, what to do with all those old Bugs...it's trike time!

  Join the rearend of a Volkswagen with the frontend of a motorcycle, cover it with a body painted primer grey or candy apple red, chrome-out the motor and fit it with a couple of big-ass Weber carbs, throw on some fat tires and you have yourself a trike!

  The VW trike is fast, lightweight and damn good on gas. Why, it's the perfect blend of car and bike. Whether you're doing the mild, a DIY VW trike kit or the wild, such as "The Bug Eye", a 1966 chopped Beetle body with a 96" Harley-Davidson shovelhead motor, 14" over twisted springer front end with a 21" front wheel. The Beetle is the perfect starting point for a trike conversion.





  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk

Today in motorcycle history, February 11, 2007

   I came across this on one of my internet travels in search of a motorcycle tech or tale.  From "Transversality" by Robert O'Toole, University of Warwick in Coventry, UK, dated February 11, 2007. Maybe it will inspire someone out there to go for a ride.....to a library.

  One of the best accounts of a motorcycle ride, by a great writer and diarist: T.E. Lawrence, from his RAF journals, The Mint.



  The Road


  The extravagance in which my surplus emotion expressed itself lay on the road. So long as roads were tarred blue and straight; not hedged; and empty and dry, so long I was rich.

  Nightly I’d run up from the hangar, upon the last stroke of work, spurring my tired feet to be nimble. The very movement refreshed them, after the day-long restraint of service. In five minutes my bed would be down, ready for the night: in four more I was in breeches and puttees, pulling on my gauntlets as I walked over to my bike, which lived in a garage-hut, opposite. Its tyres never wanted air, its engine had a habit of starting at second kick: a good habit, for only by frantic plunges upon the starting pedal could my puny weight force the engine over the seven atmospheres of its compression.

  Boanerges’ first glad roar at being alive again nightly jarred the huts of Cadet College into life. ‘There he goes, the noisy bugger,’ someone would say enviously in every flight. It is part of an airman’s profession to be knowing with engines: and a thoroughbred engine is our undying satisfaction. The camp wore the virtue of my Brough like a flower in its cap. Tonight Tug and Dusty came to the step of our hut to see me off. ‘Running down to Smoke, perhaps?’ jeered Dusty; hitting at my regular game of London and back for tea on fine Wednesday afternoons.

  Boa is a top-gear machine, as sweet in that as most single-cylinders in middle. I chug lordlily past the guard-room and through the speed limit at no more than sixteen. Round the bend, past the farm, and the way straightens. Now for it. The engine’s final development is fifty-two horse-power. A miracle that all this docile strength waits behind one tiny lever for the pleasure of my hand....







  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disability (NABD). www.nabd.org.uk