The Cw Library
THE CW LIBRARY
Bridget & Sidney’s Cross-Country Sidecar Adventure
KUDOS TO SIDNEY DICKSON. NOT ONLY DID HE PERsuade his new bride, Bridget, to ride in the Velorex sidecar he rigged to his dual-purpose KTM (no lie), he also got her to agree to honeymooning cross-country in said outfit. Video camera in hand, the newly-weds set out on a 33-day, 4215-mile trip.
Their journey began in Los Angeles, California, and wound through Nevada, Arizona, Utah. Colorado and Oklahoma, until finally culminating at the Mississippi River in Arkansas. Although the Dicksons resorted to pavement when absolutely necessary, they stuck to fireroads wherever possible.
One would think that such rough, rutted and often-times muddy terrain wouldn’t be good for a sidecar. One would be right. Footage of Sidney’s wrenching and sometimes rebuilding is humorously interspersed with the more serious, breathtaking shots of the Mojave Desert, the Grand Canyon, Pikes Peak and more. Cinematically speaking, the Dicksons are no threat to Francis Ford Coppola. But their charming video is good fun. It’s kind of like watching the slideshow from your Aunt Betty’s trip to Niagara Falls. Only with motorcycles.
Wendy F.Black
Bridget & Sidney’s Cross-Country Sidecar Adventure, Sidney and Bridget Dickson, 44 minutes, $20; Whitehorse Press, PO. Box 60, North Conway, NH 03860; 800/531-1133; www.whitehorsepress.com
Running With The Moon
EVERY MOTORCYCLIST IS CALLED to adventure, and every writer seeks meaning in his travels. Running with the Moon is the story of Englishman Jonny Bealby, whose motorcycling odyssey takes him from Tunisia to South Africa and back through Ethiopia and the Sudan to Egypt. The trip is undertaken after Melanie, Bealby’s love and traveling companion, dies suddenly of a fever while in India, and the experience shatters his life. Two years later, still suffering from depression, he and friend Neil ride into Africa on two Yamaha XT600 Ténérés, in the romanticized hope of uncovering some meaning to life.
Neil, injured early on, is forced to retire, which leaves Bealby to continue alone, occasionally meeting other companions along the way. The journey takes him through dense vegetation and desert terrain; the politics of warring tribes; tense moments at border crossings; meetings with town officials (both friendly and corrupt); and through endless physical hardships. Chapters are punctuated with italicized sections flashing back to his life with Melanie.
When Bealby focuses on the journey, he’s a fair travel writer, detailed and descriptive, though not particularly original. But attempts at penning emotion render him saccharine and cliché-ridden. So, for the reader at least, the search for meaning remains elusive, as Bealby, unfortunately, lacks the skill and depth to bring all the tales together in a true journey of the mind and heart.
Robyn Davis
Running with the Moon, Jonny Bealby, 234 pages, $17; Whitehorse Press, P.0. Box 60, North Conway, NH 03860; 800/531-1133; www.whitehorsepress.com
John Penton and the Off-Road Motorcycle Revolution
THIS INTERESTING BOOK, WRITTEN BY FORMER AMA President Ed Youngblood, is about just what the title says it is: John Penton and the off-road motorcycle revolution in the U.S. Penton’s enduro-riding career began in the 1950s, when off-road bikes were heavy four-strokes, and Youngblood’s book documents both Penton’s impressive competition record and his intensive development of a new kind of lightweight two-stroke machine for off-road use.
Penton realized that lightness was more important than power in enduro riding. Searching for someone to produce such bikes, Penton tried Husqvarna, but was turned down. He found a partner in the small Austrian KTM firm, and so the Penton MX/enduro machine was evolved.
From that beginning came today’s KTM. Because of the vicissitudes of Penton’s extended family, the soft-bound book is at times almost too personal. A particular strong point is Youngblood’s clear exposition of the effects of world financial and social changes in motorcycling-the result of his personal struggle with those forces in his years as AMA president. I learned a lot from this book and gained a new perspective on off-road motorcycling.
Kevin Cameron
John Penton and the Off-Road Motorcycle Revolution, Ed Youngblood, 191 pages, $20; Whitehorse Press, P. 0. Box 60, North Conway, NH 03860:800/531-1133; www.whitehorsepress.com
