April 2016

• Valve Seat & Guide Replacement • Race Prep •
• Porting • Polishing •
Cylinder Head
Specialists
In Business Since 1978
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ENGINE DYNAMICS, LLC
Phone 707-763-7519
Fax 707-763-3759
www.enginedynamics.com
2040 Petaluma Blvd. N.Petaluma, CA 94952
“#FuckYouRideMe.” By the end of the
night, most of the “#FuckYouRideMe”
stickers will be gone.
• Flow Bench Testing • Competition Valve Jobs •
The event organizer and artist, Jean-
Philippe Defaut, moves through the crowd,
chatting and waving, seeming to know
everyone. He shows me the jeans that were
cut off him after he hit an embankment on
Mines Road. They hang cut apart, splayed
and framed on the same wall as posters of
the Wild One; a Captain America comic
book (who’s battling the “Satan’s Angels”);
a beautiful picture taken by Tom Miller of
the engine from Defaut’s Ducati 900ss.
Grabbing a Fort Point beer and a teainfused
whiskey from August Uncommon
Teas (It sounds kind of namby-pamby until
you try it. My initial reaction was: “Well
it’s about damn time someone did this.”),
I wander through the show. Portraits of
riders with their most trusted steeds line
two walls. Each with a quote. Amongst
them, I find the pink Goldwing again. It
belongs to D Baby, of Marin City. “My
mom passed away and I found the connect
with her when I’m riding my bike,” reads
her quote.
There are other conceptual art pieces:
a gas tank wrapped in denim, titled
“Tank Top” by Jean-Philippe Defaut and
Ulrich “Ubi” Simpson. There’s a goldleafed
CB750 titled “750 Super Gold”
by Londubh Studios and Defaut. And
there are several tires with gold writing
on them. “Fuck Failure,” reads one, “I
Am This Motorcycle,” another. The one
that resonates the most with me reads:
“Nowhere. Fast.” There’s simply too much
to take in, so I go back a few days later and
talk with Defaut.
“This was called ‘I Am This Motorcycle’
because really, that’s what you are,” he
explains. “The bike doesn’t exist without
the road or the rider. On its own, it’s just a
nice object.”
Not wanting to have to go to all the way to
Portland to scratch my bike-art itch, my
first question to him is: Will you do this
again?
“I’ve wanted to put this together for a while.
It’s taken a long time to photograph a
hundred and twenty motorcyclists between
London, Paris, New York, LA, Portland
and then San Francisco. It takes a while
to put that together. You can tell the story
in thirty of them, which is what we’ve got
here.”
The portraits were the impetus for the
show and Defaut plans to release them in
a book. But like all good art, the project
looks deeper, examining motorcycle
ownership on many levels. A guiding
inspiration for much of Defaut’s work
has been Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance. One display, titled “Pure
Truths” is composed of 27 copies of the
book, their covers fading from pink to blue
over the years.
“I’ve probably bought 400 in my time,”
says Defaut of the novel. “I give them to
people. I do a creative mentoring program
in London for troubled youth. And as part
of that connect, I look for a way into their
world. You’ve got a sort of sixteen-year-old
kid who’s self-harming or anorexic or doing
drugs or just depressed because they’re
glued to the X-Box. You’ve got to find a way
to connect with them.”
We walk over to a table that displays
motorcycle ephemera from Defaut’s
personal collection.
“Everything has a point,” he says of what’s
been displayed. He gestures from book
to book. Starting with How It Works: The
Motorcycle, he says: “I had this book when
I was a kid and my mother used to read it
to me. That’s a classic read that I think’s
really important. Know Thy Beast, the
Vincent guide. One Man Caravan is written
by an American guy who had a Douglas
built in the Thirties in England and rode
around the world in the Thirties… That’s
an exceptional read. Hell’s Angels, Hunter S.
Thompson—a must read.”
“This is much more in keeping with Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” he
says, pointing at Shop Class as Soul Craft.
“It’s basically looking after your bike,
spiritually. If you fix your own shit, you
walk away with some real feel. Like, you
know. If you don’t and you pay someone
else to do it, then who’s responsible when it
breaks down?”
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Next we go over to the portraits of bikes
and their riders.
“All these portraits happen on the back of
a conversation. Never before. Can’t do it.
They’re not gonna trust me. Who the fuck
am I to demand their moment?”
Defaut points to a portrait of Steven Dewey
Colman, who draws on a cigarette, one
eyebrow raised, leafless trees and a train
yard behind his long brown hair and beard.
He wears a black leather jacket and has
a hand tucked into his black jeans. He’s
standing next to a raked-back CB 750
chopper with an orange frame and a grey
coffin gas tank. Brown saddle bags hang
below a King and Queen saddle and a black
leather backpack and white Gringo helmet
perched against a high sissy bar.
“That’s all he owns,” says Defaut. “So when
it comes to zen and the art of motorcycle
maintenance, he understands. He’ll show
up somewhere and it will break down and
he’ll just need a week or two to fix it…. He
owns that in every sense.”
- Sam Devine
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Hard Core(tech): Sequoia XC
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Well, you finally did it: you finally pulled
the trigger on that dual-sport adventure
bike, and you and the pals are going to
hit the road for a week of camping and
carousing on back roads and in bars. But
your credit card is maxed out and your
bank account is almost bone-dry, leaving
barely enough money for beer, roulette, a
steak dinner, campground fees, gas, trail
mix, and a few crumpled dollar bills for the
gentlemen’s club.
The coup de grâce comes after checking
the weather and discovering that your
old rain gear has somehow shrunk in the
closet. Curses! After demolishing the piggy
bank and flipping the couch cushions, you
scrounge a lint-laden $561 (including taxes)
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to put towards road-worthy garments
without having to skimp tips to those hard
working single moms at Rosalinda’s in
Jamestown.
The fine folks at Cortech understand your
plight (though they surely don’t condone
your activities, you scoundrel, you!). Their
Sequoia XC jacket and pants zip together
into a cross country suit that will get the
job done and do it on a budget that shames
the competition. With a few tweaks, this
two-piece suit can handle almost any
two-wheeled situation you can fling at
its abrasion-resistant 600 denier rip-stop
Carbolex fabric, 1680 denier ballistic
polyester, and removable Rainguard liners.
Giving the most bang for the buck right
out the gate, the jacket comes with an
integrated hydration backpack. That’s
right, this $350 jacket is equipped with
a water-delivering bag that can also hold
hiking essentials like Clif bars, beanies,
baby wipes, band aids and Neosporin.
Wouldn’t hurt to throw some mountain
money in there either (by which I mean
toilet paper, rookie).
The one issue I had with the backpack
was the bite valve for the hydration pack:
it wasn’t very inclined to keep water
inside the pouch and was prone to pulling
apart into several pieces. I recommend
purchasing the Osprey brand bite valve,
which is the only one I’ve found to be easily
operated with one hand. Buying it at REI
will set you back $6. Sorry about the tip,
Brandine.
“But why is it called an integrated pack?”
Good questions—that feature is the piece
de resistance of the Sequoia XC, which can
slip its backpack straps through holes in
the jacket -- one of the best innovations
to riding gear since Kevlar. How many
times have you struggled to get straps
over shoulder armor, surely seeming to be
mid-seizure to those watching at the gas
station? And how many times have you
wanted to shed your jacket without having
to carry the damn thing around like some
pretty boy holding his tennis sweater
on a hot day? And how many times have
April 2016 | 8 | CityBike.com