A highlight of 2014 was riding in the Motorcycle Cannonball, and with my partner Susan McLaughlin, we've shot enough Tintypes (like this one of Shinya Kimura, currently on view at the Ransom Gallery in London) to fill a book...which will be one of 2015's highlights! Stay tuned for the first MotoTintype publication...
TheVintagent.com is approaching its 9th anniversary - an overnight success story! I'm often asked how one 'makes it' in the motorcycle writing/blogging/website game, and my only answer is 'a combination of passion and patience'. During the first 4 years (2006-10) of The Vintagent I also ran my own business as a master craftsman decorative painter/plasterer, where I learned that a commitment to quality will take you a long way in this world. Giving up a lucrative career of 25 years (in 2010) to follow a totally new path was risky, but timely, and by drastically 'reducing my circumstances' (ie, going from 3 mortgages to basically zero overhead) my writer's/webmaster's/consultant's income was sufficient, but certainly not generous.
My income in 2013/14 was supplemented by writing 3 books ('The Ride','Cafe Racers', and 'The Chopper'), although the book-writing game today is more about prestige than money. Each of these books netted me around $6-7000, which sounds reasonable until you actually have to write 20,000 ('Cafe Racers') to 60,000 ('The Chopper') entertaining and accurate words, do your research, and find hi-res photos with permissions to use them, over the course of many months. 'The Chopper' was especially arduous, being a field in which I was no expert, with a pathetic body of prior 'research' published on the subject. Breaking new ground as a historian is exciting, but hard work, and I was frankly happy to be done with the job last August - two months late according to Gestalten, but a year early to my eyes! Let's hope someone takes up the torch on the subject of 'chopper as Folk Art', and we see a big exhibit at a major museum soon, to follow up both on the 'Art of the Motorcycle', and Robert Hughes' wish to see choppers taken seriously as Folk Art (Hughes was the true inspiration for 'The Chopper').
My newest job title is Custom & Style Editor at Cycle World magazine, still (I believe) the largest print motorcycle mag in the world, helmed by my friend Mark Hoyer. I met Mark at the very first Cycle World Rolling Concours at Sears Point racetrack in 1999(?), where my 1925 Norton Model 18 flat-tank racer won Best in Show, to my great surprise, after I thrashed the capable old beast through the narrow, winding hills of Sonoma County. It was the first time I'd entered any kind of concours, and it's still the one I most agree with - requiring a good, long ride before judging. Mark is a not-so-secret Vintagent, being a big fan of Nortons and Velocettes (and Jags and MGs and old fire trucks), but as the page count for CW has shrunk, there's been little space for vintage...but Cycle Worldis honing in on a sweet spot for both web and print today. Their website is already generating 1.5M unique visits/month, which is excellent, and I'll be adding spicy content - emphasis on content - to their website every week, so we should see the results soon enough. It's also possible CW readers aren't ready for my voice! Let's hope they like a healthy dose of culture with their motorcycling...
