Friday Fudge

Welcome to Friday Fudge. If it’s weird, funny, or strange motorcycle news, or it just plain won’t fit anywhere else on the site – you’ll find it here.

The Long, Slow Way Across

There are many ways to spend a summer holiday, whether you prefer a trip to the beach, life at the cottage or — shudder — golf.

54-year-old Kevin Strickland from the U.K. has a bit of a different idea of fun, though; he’s on a 10,000-mile motorcycle journey taking him through 19 countries … aboard a 125cc motorcycle.

He’s joined up with his pal Nick Plotnek to take part in the Mongol Rally, a journey that takes travelers across Europe and Asia (including three deserts and five mountain ranges) in a totally unsuitable vehicle (organizers recommend buying a car off your grandmother).

Their team name? They’re calling themselves the Idiots Abroad, and they’re raising money for several charities, including the Children’s Hospital heart unit in Birmingham, England, First Aid Care in Gambia and the Lotus Children’s Trust in Mongolia. There’s nothing like spreading the money around!

If you want to keep track of their team’s progress (they’ve already started the race), check them out here. And if you want to find out more about the Mongol Rally (registration for 2013 opens Monday!), visit the Adventurists’ website here. This is the same group who ran that Siberian sidecar rally last winter.

Cop stop

Motorcycle police officers are usually reckoned to be top riders, right? After all, they take plenty of training, and they’ve got lots of road experience.

Well, that’s usually the case. Usually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngDvJ2H6sTo

An end to the drivel

Once upon a time, YouTube had a lot of great motorcycle content. Now, though, the majority of videos seem to have devolved into one of two patterns. In the first, the videomaker walks around his stationary bike, shooting it from every angle, and narrates in a boring monotone about how he bought his XYZ750R for $500 and it needs new tires and would you like him to start it up and blah blah blah.

In the second, the videomaker rides along his normal commute, videotaping his rider’s perspective while he narrates his “vlog.” At the end of it all, you’re left with a boring monologue during a boring ride that leaves you wishing you had your five minutes of video time back.

Unless, of course, the dimwitted vlogger isn’t paying attention to traffic.

Evel intentions

Evel Knievel is arguably the most famous motorcyclist of all time. The American stuntman thrilled audiences around the world with daft stunts over the years, which usually involved him jumping an underpowered motorcycle over a long line of vehicles. He ended up breaking just about every bone in his body, and claimed he made $60 million in his career (while spending $62 million, he said). He died in 2007.

There were two movies made about the larger-than-life Knievel in the 1970s, but now that he’s dead, Hollywood has decided to give us another one. But who, you ask, will star in the film? After all, Knievel may have been a flashy performer with that cape and cane, but he was rough around the edges – very rough. In his early years, he spent time in jail, he was accused of poaching in Yellowstone National Park and he played minor pro hockey in an era where blood and guts was the name of the game.

So who have the filmmakers picked to play him? Why, none other than Channing Tatum, former male stripper who’s made it big in the movies, only to return to his stripping roots in his latest movie, Magic Mike. His other uber-manly work includes lead roles in such masculine classics as Step Up, Dear John and The Vow.

Surely Knievel is rolling over in his grave right now. With any luck, his zombified corpse will rise from the dead and put an end to this stupidity, before we’re force-fed a 90-minute feature of Tatum starring as a stuntman with a sensitive side who’s just looking for a woman who understands him, while he shows off his six-pack.

Highway to Hell Sideroads to Siberia

And, what would Friday Fudge be, if we didn’t include more Russian motorized madness?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw1vIdH-k6k