Harley-Davidson Style 1910s-1950s

My obsession with Japanese magazines has been documented many times in this space. I end up at Kinokuniya about once a week looking for new issues, and during one of these trips I became acquainted with the My Freedamn series by Rin Tanaka. On a recent jaunt out to Los Angeles I saw the amazing book on Harley-Davidson style from 1910-1950 at the RRL store and I know I had to get a copy for my dad (who has a few Harleys) for father’s day. Funny thing though, the copy at RRL wasn’t for sale, it was the manager’s book, but I figured I would just get a copy off the internet or when I got back to New York.

Ride Fast Rollie Free

It’s hot. Really hot. Thousands of years ago you would have been swimming in a lake, but climate changes dried it completely up and left behind a 159 square mile expanse of densely packed salt up to six feet deep. This bizarre landscape exists right outside the small casino town of Wendover, Nevada, 115 miles from Salt Lake City. The land is completely inhospitable to plants and is so flat that it’s almost perfectly aligned with the curvature of the Earth. Once a year men and women come from all over the planet to test their mechanical creations against this barren expanse of densely packed salt. This place is known as The Bonneville Salt Flats, also dubbed “The Fastest Place on Earth.”

Steve McQueen in Sports Illustrated

It might just have to be all motorcycles all week. I certainly get fixated on a subject from time to time, but this was too good to not post. While researching On Any Sunday I read a few things about this 1971 issue of Sports Illustrated with Steve McQueen on the cover. Next thing you know, my copy from eBay arrived at my door in amazing condition. So I thought it would be good to scan the article for your reading pleasure. There is a great little story about dirt bikes and Dennis Hopper on page 61 that is worth checking out. I could only imagine what it would be like to run into those guys on the street.