The Mongrels MC memories

Queensland's tough new anti-bikie laws aim to restrict the movements and meetings of gang members and associates. It's a crackdown that intends to break down outlaw culture. But are we handing in our civil liberties in exchange for perceived safety?

 In the 1970's Australian bike club culture was in its infancy.

Many of the outlaw clubs were small and trying to recruit. It was also a time when bikie clubs weren't associated with drugs and crime - but rather with hedonism, drunken gatherings and, most importantly, motorbikes. In the regional city of Mount Gambier, South Australia, the Mongrels MC had just been founded by Bronte Edwards.

 "The idea was to have fun, we weren't out for a greater cause beyond trying to rid ourselves of the boredom that plagues regional Australia…and you know what? We succeeded," he says. Edwards discourages criminal activity of any kind, but he believes that subcultures outside the social norms are vital for forming the cultural landscape of Australia.

 "You can take all these movements and people away and you end up with a endless, bland suburbia. If you quash social expression and discourse that's when you have an entirely new problem. I can't express how much we've become everything we hated, over-regulated, soul operating businessmen. "

Edwards states that new bikie laws unfairly vilify a social group and believes them to be a gross attack at Australia's civil liberties. " It's ridiculous you can't just attack a mode of transport...and those who hang around with them. It's like targeting a sporting or religious group."

 The Mongrels disbanded as did a lot of the smaller clubs during the 1990's - during a period when smaller clubs were either ingested into larger outlaw clubs or simply asked to disband.

But the very territorial nature of outlaw clubs meant that for a lot of motor bike enthusiasts, who weren't interested in joining new outlaw clubs, it was now time to hang up their helmets for good.

Music Credits

 Drunk Mums Eventual Ghost
 British India Black and White Radio
 Ozzie Wrong Never Trust a Bikey if he Don't Drink Beer
 Mr & Mrs Smith Bruises and Bones

Doohan -Black Spot MC safety ad

One of my heroes, Mick Doohan has been a spokes person for MC safety in Australia. I personally like the other one

Their poster is pretty good as well

 

A Cool Chick on a Scooter

Motorcycle Reconstruction

 "The latest TAC public education campaign targets two of Victoria's biggest issues in road safety -- motorcycle safety and speed.

The campaign, titled "Reconstruction", features a slow motion replay of a crash involving a motorcyclist and a car. The ad graphically depicts the rider suffering a broken neck as a result of his speeding prior to the collision.

Victoria Police Major Collision Investigator Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Peter Bellion features in the ad and explains how the crash could be avoided had the rider obeyed the speed limit.

Transport Accident Commission Victoria.
http://www.tac.vic.gov.au "

Pretty nicely constructed safety ad. It sure makes it safer to reduce the speed, but as far as I know, most of bike accidents are occurred by cagers' "oh I didn't see you there" thing.

Paper Craft bike

This is a bit of an old news but it worth mentioning again. I originally wrote about this at other site I was contributing.

As a part of advertisement, Yamaha has paper craft of their popular motorcycle models such as YZF-R 1, VMax, SR400 and so on. The most detailed one is MT01 , which is one of the biggest V-twin motorcycles available (1670cc) . I don't think it is sold in the US.


The paper crafts are all meticulously designed by a Japanese designer, Nobutaka Mukouyama. If you have a lot of time to spare, you should print them out and built one. That will be good hobby for you and your kids if you have any. By the way, the page also have bunch of animals like Panda, Orang-utan, Lion and all so if your kids have no interest on bike, they can still have fun. Kids who do not have fun building stuff with their hands are sad kids. If you do not have kids to build them together, you can pretend you are a kid. I do not recommend luring kids from your neighborhood with candies to build the paper craft in your basement together.

This is the page you can download the paper craft for FREE though you have to have paper (preferably thick kind) and ink in your printer. Enjoy!! Realistic Paper craft/YAMAHA

Addition.: You know if you got a printable realistic paper craft, then you realize that you can build a bigger one by simply print them up enlarged.  This Australian guy, named Jack Chen did just that.  It is not 1/1 scale, but he managed to make it about 60%,  made of card board. Pretty neat huh?

 Jack Chen's original site

SBK onboard Phillip island

Neat footage.

WSBK 2012 Round 01 Australia Race 1

Some nice dude uploaded a whole race, broadcasted by Euro sport channel, which is better than Speed channel of the US in my opinion.

Puretone-Addicted to Bass

reenacts many scenes from "Mad Max" Not into the music but those ladies (Amiel, Megan Dorman) are nice to look at.

It's a Snap

2012 ENROLMENTS NOW OPEN - central.wa.edu.au
Henry & Aaron 'It's a Snap!' Digital Short

Air Bike

Official site

Harley moving Australian plant to China

Harley Davidson has many factories all over the world to fend off high tariff or mainly for lower labor cost and material, It has a factory in Australia as well but recently decided to close its Adelaide plant where it produces wheels and other parts for the motorcycles, laying off 212 workers and displacing production in…..Yes, China.
The decision to close its factory in Castalloy was taken without consulting the Australian Government, which now tries to convince Harley-Davidson to continue to produce wheels in that plant, “is a disgrace, how can an employer to call his employees and say that they are made redundant just before Christmas? is cruelty! “said the Australian Workers Union.

The Managing Director of HD Don Gorgon, retorted by saying that “it is a signal indicating a value of Australian dollar too high, what is happening is only one shift of production which is less expensive, it is pure mathematics.” To limit the damage, the Australian Government offers $ 5000 for each employee fired.
 

Via: motoblog.it