Biker Boyz Weekend
Big-time stunters and some of the nation's best custom bike builders help the third-annual Biker Boyz Weekend put Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the sportbike mapWhen Altered Chrome got an invite to travel down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to take part in the third-annual Biker Boyz Weekend sportbike fest, we were a bit skeptical, to say the least. The Midwest isn't typically known for off-the-chain sportbike events-usually those joints happen within spitting distance of a coast. But the Biker Boyz promoters promised a Pro Builder bike show, world-class stunters (including Jason Britton, Aaron Colton and Freestyle Ingenuity's Tim Barnes), after-hours grudge racing, a bikini bike wash, concerts and more. With a lineup like that, how could you go wrong?
We decided to go on a road trip.
Biker Boyz Weekend can be summed up in two words: scorching hot. Whether referring to the brace of custom sportbikes that showed up, the seemingly endless parade of beautiful women at the bike wash (and everywhere else we turned our head), the excellent stunt shows or, of course, the Midwestern summer weather, things in Tulsa were hot, hot, hot.
There always seems to be invisible energy filling the air after arriving at the host hotel for a big bike event like Myrtle Beach or Daytona, and we didn't feel any different in Tulsa. Packs of sportbikes-a surprisingly eclectic collection of styles, many of them totally tricked out-lined the streets of downtown and crowded the hotel's parking structure.
The event officially kicked off on Saturday morning. First stop was the vendor village set up in the heart of downtown, fenced in and contained so vendors weren't spread out and featuring wares from local shops and aftermarket manufacturers selling bling and stunt products. Even the Oklahoma State Troopers rented out some space showing off their fear-inducing Suzuki Hayabusa "Police Interceptor" motor unit, which drew quite a crowd. Speaking of cops, even though the stunt show took place legally on a blocked-off city street, I still found myself expecting a police helicopter to swoop down and bust it up for doing this on a city street.
The bike show was also a surprise, featuring some of the nicest bikes we've seen since a few months earlier in Myrtle Beach. Chrome, custom paint and trick accessories were plenty, and best of all, the top honors and Pro-Builder champion award went to yours truly for the Altered Chrome-built "Death Dealer" GSX-R1000 (featured on page 62 of the July 2006 issue of Super Streetbike -Ed.), sending us home with a trophy and an interview with Jason Britton for his Speed TV program, Superbikes. Not a bad event-and not a coast in sight!
Stuntlife Shootout 2006
It was Wisco-a-go-go for some of the nation's best stunters, who traveled to Union Grove, Wisconsin, for Stuntlife.com's annual eventStuntlife.com is one of the biggest names in the stunt industry, an online community serving stunters and stunt fans that numbers upwards of 48,000 members and logs some 2,000 posts a day. It's no surprise, then, that when the site hosts a stunt competition, some of the biggest names in the stunt industry will make the long trip to support it. That's why Florida riders like Bill Dixon and Chris "T-Ice" Theis, Missouri's Josh Clem, and Minneapolis-based Aaron Colton all traveled behind the Cheddar Curtain to Union Grove, Wisconsin, to take part in the fourth running of Stuntlife.com's Stunt Shootout. Put together by Milwaukee's Miltown Wheelie Boyz and hosted at the historic Great Lakes Dragway in nearby Union Grove, this year's Shootout featured the aforementioned pros plus some of the best amateur riders from the Midwest, including members of the Vertical Mischief Crew, Midwest Mayhem, Section 8 Extreme and, of course, members of the Miltown Wheelie Boyz, too.
Good prize purses help bring in the riders, and toward this end the Shootout posted up very respectable $1,000 top prizes for both Individual and Team Freestyle competitions, plus $700 for longest endo, $600 for sickest trick and $500 for longest coaster. As has been the case at so many stunt events lately, the majority of the prize money went home with McCoy Motorsports-sponsored stunter Bill Dixon, who switched off between his Yamaha R1 and R6 stunt bikes to dominate the day, winning the longest endo, fastest wheelie, and longest coaster competitions. The only other rider to give Dixon any trouble that weekend was Controlled Insanity's Josh Clem, who relied on his amazing acrobatic skills to lock up the big bucks for individual freestyle and sickest trick.
137 Mph on the Front Wheel!
Talk about coming in hot: Top stunter Kane Friesen rolls one for the record books and shatters the World's Fastest Stoppie mark in front of the Discovery Channel's TV camerasDon't get us wrong, a standard stoppie is plenty daring, pitching the back tire way up in the air at 50 mph with no safety measures to save your butt. If you go past the balance point, you're going over the bars. But hucking an endo up at 160 mph-now that's just insane, and that's exactly what "Insane" Kane Friesen did recently during a taping of the Discovery Channel's Stunt Junkies TV program, shattering the old record (officially 98 mph, held by Gary Rothwell and set in 2002) for the World's Fastest Stoppie in the process.