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Babes in the Dirt Track Day Feb 5th

By General Posts

Track Day x February 5th @ Fox Raceway

We are so excited to finally bring back our annual track day at our home track, Fox Raceway in Pala, CA. This event is for the entire fam and there is no event sign up or extra cost to attend other than the track fee you pay upon arrival if riding. But hey.. we got so many deets, let’s go ahead and dive into it

Want more info on the track and camping options? Tap HERE

Fox Raceway opens at 8AM and first ladies only moto starts at 9:00AM sharp on the vet track. At the top of the hour, ladies only (15+ up) will have 30 min motos on the vet track which will flow like this…

Regulated Ladies Only Moto Times on Vet Track

  • 9AM-9:30AM
  • 10:00AM-10:30AM
  • 11:00AM-11:30AM
  • 12PM-12:30PM
  • 1PM-1:30PM
  • 2PM-2:30PM
  • 3PM-3:30PM

In between those times above, anyone can ride the track (including dads and dudes). Rider under 15 & true beginners who are learning the clutch and brake should stay on the kids track only.

Track Fees

  • Rider fee at gate $20 for 65cc and under & $30 for 85cc and bigger
  • Spectators are free

Fun Stuff

  • Free Husqvarna demos on the 2023 models (can you smell the 2 stroke?!) for the ladies on a private husky only track (85, 125, 250s)
  • AEO Powersports on site checking your sag and high fiving
  • Free Husqvarna x Stacyc demos for all kids (bring your own gear + helmet etc.) in a private secure area
  • Free USMCA coaching on site provided by Husqvarna for the ladies that are new to moto (perfect for ladies who have never ridden before or have had limited seat time)
  • Free USMCA coaching for the kids on the closed Stacyc area
  • Hospitality + snacks and coffee provided by Fox Racing crew
  • Free Motion boot demos from Fox Racing
  • 805 hospitality area, come properly chill with us!
  • Babes in the Dirt hanging and riding along with you
  • Professional photos of you ripping
  • Bring the entire fam, we want everyone to enjoy a day ripping!

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Babes Ride Out Central Coast 9 x Santa Barbara

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ALL TICKET SALES AND TRANSFERS END TOMORROW FOR BABES RIDE OUT CENTRAL COAST 9 x SANTA BARBARA, CA

LAST CHANCE: Snag a ticket to Babes Ride Out x Central Coast if you are ready to ride, camp, and have the best time of your two wheel life with some like minded riders. Ticket sales and transfers end Monday 9/12 at 12PM Pacific.

*NO ADMISSION TICKET SALES AT THE GATE*

Click Here to Get your Tickets.

What’s in Included in a General Admission Ticket:

  • 2 nights of tent camping (bring your own everything)
  • Unlimited water to fill up your canteen
  • FREE 805 beer until it runs out
  • Workshoppes
  • Games
  • Biltwell riding route maps + options that take you on some of the most beautiful routes along the coast.
  • Nightly entertainment
  • Event patch
  • Best time of your moto lovin’ life connecting with new and old friends!

What is the new campsite like?
High up in the hills above Santa Barbara off of San Marcos Pass is Beautiful Live Oak Campground. Once you turn off hwy 154 it is just a mile up the dirt road. Camping will be spread out under sparse oak trees & hard-packed dirt. There are hot showers on site and drinkable water.

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Arizona Bike Week 2022: All the Action

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The Desert Comes Alive with Roar of Engines, Thundering Wild Parties

by Cycle Source Magazine

Cycle Source reports from ground zero as custom bikes roll in, homemade moonshine flow down, people bond over grease and live music.

After two challenging years, like most of us in the motorcycle industry, Arizona Bike Week got the green flag to have its annual rally at WestWorld of Scottsdale. Unlike the last event, where tiny corrals would be installed to keep people separated, it would be wide open.

CLICK HERE to read this Photo Feature Event Report on Bikernet.com

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Cool Choppers by South Side MC member Patrick

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Chopper builder Patrick, a Member of South Side MC.

A follow-up to our article on Long Fork Run. Southside MC Est 88 Sweden member Patrick’s cool choppers are featured here.

Patrick: “When I built Suicide Machine, I was introduced to stainless which has become a material that I prefer to build my parts as much as possible. So on the white chopper I have made oil tank, flatfender, tripple Trees, barney legs, sissybar, controls, exhaust and lots of smaller details in stainless steel.”

Click Here to See this Photo Feature Article only on Bikernet.com

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Long Fork Run at Sweden

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Second summer with Corona, Southside MC Est 88 Sweden had to be flexible once more with their gathering of long forks. Instead of a hotspot for the show, they made it mobile.

Saturday 21st of Aug, 100+ bikes, choppers and pre 84 were welcomed for the ride. However anyone was invited at the clubhouse noon to 3PM, for burgers and a beer.

Click Here to Read this Photo Feature Event Coverage only on Bikernet.com

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1969 Harley-Davidson FLH Is a Custom Camping Bike for When You Need to Get Away

By General Posts

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com

Had 2020 be any different, we would have gotten the chance of seeing tons of small shop-made custom motorcycles at the various shows across the States. But things being as they are, we’re only left with admiring them online.

To fill the gap left by the canceled shows, Harley-Davidson had the brilliant idea of coming up with The No Show, an event dedicated to custom bike builders who had no place to show their creations this year. Back in July, the company’s YouTube channel was flooded with independent builds, revealing all we could have seen in the flesh.

The 1969 Harley-Davidson FLH we have in the gallery above is one of them. It is a custom-made Shovelhead assembled at the Juniors Hand Made shop in Costa Mesa, California, by a guy named Scotty Dettwiler.

The man hints in the short video below that this is as close to the real thing as the bike can get, while at the same time retaining a custom look. That was possible by mixing stock Harley parts – such as the engine and transmission, which are model-year correct – with tons of other custom parts, made by the builder himself.

The fun part about it that, like many others of its kind do, this bike was not created to be sold. No, it’s actually Dettwiler’s daily rider, and he’s not only taking it down the road, but also camping.

The feeling of having something you built yourself take you places must be extraordinary, and you can see that’s exactly the case here from the way the man gets off his bike, takes a brightly-colored folding chair from the rear of the two-wheeler, and sits down next to the machine in the middle of nowhere.

We are not being told how much the bike cost to build, but seeing the satisfaction on Dettwiler’s we reckon that’s not at all important.

 

Johnny Lewis Launches Flat Track Futures

By General Posts

Johnny Lewis Launches Flat Track Futures and Announces The Inaugural Dunlop Florida Fall Classic at Volusia Speedway Park.

Center Hill, Florida: August 21st, 2019 – Johnny Lewis, American Flat Track race winner and MotoAnatomy training school founder, announces that the newly formed organization Flat Track Futures will hold the inaugural Dunlop Florida Fall Classic at Volusia Speedway Park. The American Motorcyclist Association sanctioned Feature Event will take place October 18-19th, 2019, the same week as Biketoberfest which typically attracts over 100,000 riders to the surrounding area for the week-long festivities.

The Dunlop Florida Fall Classic is geared to showcase the talents of amateur flat track racers from across the USA and abroad with nationwide media coverage at a premier racing facility. A long time advocate of amateur flat track racing, Johnny rose through the ranks as a top amateur in his youth winning the prestigious AMA Sports Athlete of the Year at 15 years old.

Lewis comments, “I’ve been running MotoAntomy training programs throughout North America and Europe working with a range of riders for 4 years now. I’ve come to realize there is a crucial need for an amateur orientated series that can showcase these riders and their incredible talents while gaining exposure required to connect with sponsors. I plan to establish a premier level amateur national series that provides young riders the tools to join the American Flat Track ranks when their time comes. My overall goal is to build an even stronger grass roots flat track community.”

The two day race will feature an infield VIP experience through partnership with STANDARD M/C including, demo rides, free camping, live music and entertainment, vendors, concessions, and of course access to watch 12 classes of flat track racing competition. American Flat Track spec tire manufacturer Dunlop Motorcycle Tires has signed on to support the event as title sponsor. Dunlop will soon be announcing details on how racers can earn their spot on the Team Dunlop Amateur Flat Track Support program for 2020 through the Florida Fall Classic.

Moto Anatomy will also be hosting a two part event that will take place over two days with guest speakers from inside and outside the industry. The Summit will include demonstrations, visual seminars, and question & answer discussions with top professionals in their respective fields ranging from technical training set up tips to motivational speakers, athlete marketing and professionalism, and much more.

More information about the Dunlop Florida Fall Classic and pre-registration as well as a second November event at Travelers Rest Speedway will be announced in the coming weeks.

About Flat Track Futures: Flat Track Futures is an amateur racing organization sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association. It was established to provide a premier level experience to youth Flat Track racers and offers an accelerated path to the professional ranks of American Flat Track while exposing upcoming talent to media and potential sponsors.

Visit http://www.flattrackfutures.com/ or follow @flattrackfutures.

Motorcycle Makers Are Getting Hip to Women-Only Rallies

By General Posts

Anxious to find new audiences after a decade of declining sales, the giants like Harley-Davidson and BMW Motorrad are finally taking notice of a self-made community.

On Valentine’s Day, Sharry Billings posted a photograph on Instagram. Below the image of herself, her hair a red caramel and her smile open, she wrote: “I love you so much I wanna squeeze you!”

The object of her affection? “All the motorcycles I have owned and will own in the future,” she explained. Alongside the photo of her astride a Harley-Davidson, she wrote that bikes “have changed my life, healed my soul, and brought me more love and friendships than I could have ever imagined.”

Billings goes by @sistermother13 on Instagram, but the main account she oversees is @thelitaslosangeles. The Litas is a group she joined three years ago as a way to connect with other women riders in her city. She’s co-led the L.A. branch for two years. When she joined, it provided her with much-needed healing and camaraderie after her kids grew up and she got divorced. Billings had ridden as a teenager and into her 20s but took a hiatus later. “It was always in my heart,” she says. But when she was married with young children, “I thought it was a little too dangerous.”

After the breakup in 2015, she found herself longing for escape. And adventure. “My prayer at the time was, ‘God, I don’t want to date.’ These men are not happening,” Billings says, laughing. “The first thing that came to my heart was the motorcycle I wanted. It was a Harley.”

She bought the bike, took the ride. Then she joined the Litas. “I’m very grateful to have found my heart again,” Billings says.

Founded in Utah by Jessica Haggett half a decade ago, the Litas have expanded to include hundreds of branches around the world (Litas Denver, Litas Lisbon, Litas Rome), with members ranging from twentysomething singles to 60- and 70-year-old retirees with grandkids. They take regular rides, often along wild back roads, including the Pine Mountain Ridge route near Ojai, Calif., that Billings took with 32 other riders one Saturday in July. It’s about riding with your own style and pace but surrounded by like-minded friends.

“If you’re learning to ride, you’re going to kill yourself riding with men—they ride like bats out of hell!” Billings says. “And women—I’m generalizing here—tend to be more careful. We are mothers, we are sisters, we feel obligated to stay alive.”

The Litas are singular but not uncommon. All across California, Oregon, and Utah, from Texas to New York, women-only motorcycle groups and riding events are springing up like wildflowers. They go by names such as the Miss-Fires (Brooklyn, N.Y.), the Chrome Divas (Austin), and Leather and Lace (Daytona Beach, Fla.). They do regular rides: Tuesday night pizza runs, say, or weekend coffee meetups—and they take periodic excursions to women-only destination events such as the Wild Gypsy Tour, which is organizing a festival in Sturgis, S.D., in August, and the Dream Roll in Ashland, Ore.; it’s early June event near Denver was photographed for this article.

The biggest crowd follows Babes Ride Out, a series of events founded by Anya Violet and Ashmore Ellis in 2013. It started with 50 women riders who gathered to camp out in Borrego Springs, Calif. They built fires, pitched tents, drank beer, and played games on Harleys, Husqvarnas, and Hondas while soaking in nature and one another’s company.

These groups are tapping into an undercurrent of the motorcycle industry. As sales have faltered, dropping more than 40% from 2008 to 2010, then recovering somewhat by 2014 but never to previous levels, manufacturers including Harley-Davidson Inc. and BMW Motorrad have struggled to create appeal beyond their core demographic of older white men. Their efforts include offering electric and less-expensive motorbikes and introducing exciting conceptual prototypes. Female riders offer enthusiasm and youth, and, yes, they’re spending money that brands crave.

The number of women who own motorcycles has almost doubled since 2010, according to a 2018 study by the Motorcycle Industry Council. Today, 19% of owners are women, up from 10% in 2009 and 8% in the late 1990s. And the number of female riders gets higher as you go younger: 22% of Generation X riders are women, and 26% of millennial riders are women. What’s more, the average woman who owns a motorcycle spends $574 annually on maintenance, parts, service, and accessories, while the average man who rides spends $497.

While the industry on the whole dropped 40% from 2008 to 2010, the amount of women who own motorcycles has almost doubled

“We are riding a ton,” says Joy Lewis, who started when she was 12. “I have a friend who put 20,000 miles on her bike in one year.” Lewis’s father, an Alaskan crab fisherman who owned a Harley, got her hooked. “We spend a lot of money on our gear and our bikes, and a lot of things to go with them. I think that’s starting to be appreciated.”

Andy Jefferson, a spokesman for Husqvarna, says one of the brand’s priorities must be to provide support for women’s motorcycling. “We were like everyone else—going after a piece of the pie,” he says. “But everyone was looking at men, and there are all these other people—women—that nobody even really talks about in conversations about how to sell more bikes.” The brand lacks figures for how many of its owners are women but is “working to change that,” Jefferson says. “That’s part of the problem.”

Husqvarna honed in on women riders five years ago when it started sponsoring Babes in the Dirt, an offshoot of Babes Ride Out that’s more focused on off-road and dirt-bike riding. Last year the company spent $50,000 to $60,000 in support of the three-day rally, lending 27 motorcycles and nine staffers to service the bikes and teach.

“We counted between 80 and 100 girls out there [trying out] Husqvarnas,” he says. “The number is not huge by any means, but those are 100 people we didn’t have before. It also jumps down to their brothers and sisters and kids. We never would have got these people without doing this.”

But more important, “we want to get you to ride a motorcycle,” Jefferson adds. “If you ride with Babes and have fun and go buy another brand, great. We just want people riding.”

At BMW Motorrad, which on July 1 named Trudy Hardy vice president for the Americas, the company is sponsoring women-only events including the Sisters’ Centennial Motorcycle Ride. It’s also covering travel expenses and appearance fees for brand reps such as Elspeth Beard, an architect who was the first British woman to ride her motorcycle around the world. The brand also sends pro racer Jocelin Snow and Erin Sills, who holds a 242 mph land speed record, to attend events at local dealerships.

Harley-Davidson has expanded its retail line in recent years to include a host of riding jackets, helmets, boots, and gloves sized and styled for women. It’s perhaps the most critical field of growth for the 116-year-old Wisconsin brand, which has seen sales steadily decline since 2014. The average age of a Harley owner is 50. The average price of one is $15,800—more than many millennials will spend on a car, let alone a motorcycle.

“Even just in the last five years the conversation has shifted,” says motorcycle aficionado Lewis. “I’m sitting here in leather Kevlar pants as we speak, about to go into a meeting. Not only are companies making cute technical stuff that you could wear to work—rather than some weird leather pants with pink embroidery all over the butt that you’d never wear—they’re making things we can actually use.”

Attendees at events for Babes Ride Out (or BRO, the ironic abbreviation they’ve adopted) come to America from as far away as Sweden and South America. Some have ridden since they could walk; some can’t operate a bike at all, preferring always to be a passenger and imbibe the inspirational atmosphere. There’s always plenty of denim and leather on-site—but the hipster kind, not the leather-daddy look. Local shops give classes on basic bike maintenance. Some women get tattoos to commemorate the experience.

“People camp, and there are trailers, too,” Lewis says. “The idea is that you grab coffee and breakfast, and then during the day everyone is out riding. And then all the stuff happens in the evenings with bands or karaoke and slow races”—feats of throttle control.

Earlier this year, a 96-year-old woman joined them at camp; she’d first ridden cross-country on her motorcycle 75 years ago. Last summer the annual California desert meetup saw 1,700 women ride in Yucca Valley; 500 attended an East Coast campout in the Catskill Mountains in New York; 700 attended the most recent Babes in the Dirt in Lebec, Calif.

“Maybe people think that women who ride are pretty tough and badass, which is probably true, but all in all, women riders come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and lifestyles, so any label that you want to give them does not really work,” co-founder Violet says. “I can honestly say that there is no ‘type’ … and we like it that way!”

Be Here Next for Motor-Loving Ladies

The Dream Roll
Set at New Frontier Ranch in the southern wilds of Oregon, the Dream Roll offers camping, tattoos, dirt trails, an on-site bar, and water activities near stunningly picturesque Crater Lake. Aug. 23–25; Ashland, Ore.

Wild Gypsy Tour – Sturgis Buffalo Chip
The biggest and baddest Gypsy festival of the year, the five-day South Dakota event will appeal to the truly unbridled spirit with Super Hooligan races, minibike showdowns, the Wall of Death—and multiple concerts including Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Snoop Dogg, and Styx. Aug. 3–7; Sturgis, S.D.

Babes in the Dirt East
A mix of flat-track and motocross riding gives dirt-loving ladies a place to experience and perfect their off-roading skills. Where Babes Ride Out focuses on asphalt routes, here you’ll be on trails. Sept. 20–22; Greenville, Tenn.

Babes Ride Out 7 – Central Coast
BRO 7 will include the jewels of years past: karaoke, free beer, performances from local bands, route maps for area rides, and hands-on classes for working on your bike. B.Y.O. tent. Oct. 11–13; Santa Margarita, Calif.