To get in the mood for my hastily arranged head shot photo shoot, I rode my Vincent Black Shadow over to Quadrant Studios (located across the Ohio River in Indiana). I was glad I did when I saw a Beemer parked out front. That meant the photographer--my friend, Bob Hower--had also ridden in on his bike.

We didn't talk about what I should wear. Luckily I had grabbed my Barbour oil skin motorcycle jacket. It still smells of oil and feels of wax. I buttoned it up and then sat down while he went to work. At a loss for what to talk about, I rambled on about how the Barbour jacket with all the snaps done up looked like the Mui Mui leather jacket Paul Weller had taken to wearing around 2005 as here on Jools Holland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qp7ddEacLQ

After the shoot, which I quite enjoyed, Bob and I rode over the Ohio River for some lunch and then I rode home, feeling great for the first time up on my Shadow after the power outage.

*

Happy with the pic Bob emailed me, I have posted it here. What do you think? Also, below is the Hudson Street Press Catalog Copy for my memoir Big Sid's Vincati. Look for it April 30, 2009.

When his father had a near-fatal heart attack and gave up the will to live, Matthew Biberman panicked. Impulsively, Matthew promised his father, an expert motorcycle mechanic, that they would build a Vincati motorcycle together. The Loch Ness monster of American motorcycles, a Vincati—half Vincent, half Ducati—had never been completed in North America. Building a Vincati was considered, at best, a fool’s errand; at worst, an expensive waste of motorcycle parts.
But for nearly sixty years, “Big Sid” Biberman was the mechanic to see to refurbish and repair motorcycles, especially British-made Vincents. If anyone could build a Vincati, it was Big Sid. Despite sharing his father’s passion for motorcycles, his son Matthew lacked Big Sid’s mechanical gift, gave up on tools and became a Shakespearean scholar. As adults, father and son barely spoke. But after his father’s brush with death, Matthew vowed to learn the techniques that had made Big Sid a legend among bikers.
An irresistible combination of step-by-step motorcycle construction mixed with a powerful story of fathers and sons, Big Sid’s Vincati shows not only how the Bibermans built their Vincati (which was featured in Cycle World and Classic Bike) but also how two men reconstructed their relationship, one motorcycle part at a time.

“Big Sid is a permanent part of Vincent lore.” –Jay Leno, Tonight Show host

MATTHEW BIBERMAN teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Louisville. He also works on Vincent motorcycles in his garage with his father, “Big Sid” Biberman.