What is it about bikes that leaves so many of us powerless to resist?

This entertaining guide charts the history of the bike from its origin as a cheap means of transport to its modern incarnations: a symbol of rebellion, a high-tech racing machine and the rich kid's plaything. Richard Hammond, passionate biker and collector of bikes, looks at the machines that have propelled people across the world to work, to school - and occasionally to their doom.

With his trademark expertise and wit, Hammond examines bikers of every type, from the happy farmer trundling through fields on his Honda Cub to the Hells Angel terrorising towns on their hog.

Published by ZG Publishing Co., Box 670, Carbondale, CO 81623. A photodocumentary (with a generous admixture of posed shots) of the remarkable bikers who gather in the Black Hills each August. Verme's (above) presents the same exotics carefully posed and exposed on 4x5" film. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

From the first Harley-Davidson to the latest Ducati, this illustrated history of motorcycles presents more than 400 magnificent machines in full-color detail.

A mix of photos, paintings, reminiscences, movie posters celebrating the hog. The cultists and auto history buffs will want This Old Harley . Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

- Right Beyond the Horizon tells the gripping tale of Christopher's latest voyage between 2012 and 2016: a motorcycle adventure from Germany to Australia - This time, he's taken a right beyond the horizon...What if the journey of a lifetime becomes a lifelong journey? When people say "life's a journey," some take this aphorism more literally than others. Christopher Many embarked on an overland trip in 1997, believing he'd spend no more than a year or two on the road. Well, that didn't quite work out as planned; 19 years have passed, and he is still somewhere out there, doing what he loves most: circumnavigating the globe with vehicles of questionable reliability in a quest to understand, through first-hand experience, what makes humanity "tick." Right Beyond the Horizon tells the gripping tale of Christopher's latest voyage between 2012 and 2016: a motorcycle adventure from Germany to Australia, together with his partner Laura Pattara. Their modern-day odyssey follows the ancient Silk Road from Europe to Central Asia, then across the Pamir Mountains into China, where Christopher and Laura become the first overlanders with a foreign vehicle to obtain legal permission to transit the Middle Kingdom unescorted. Four years later they reach the harbor of Denpasar on the Indonesian island of Bali the gateway to Australia and terminus of the classic trans-Asia overland route. Come along for an exhilarating ride around the global block with this unusual vagabond and witness all the joys and hardships such a lifestyle entails every day will be full of surprises and utterly unpredictable However, you should also be warned: some roads detour into the shadows where the scales of global justice are imbalanced and humanity's failings are all too evident. There's also a major risk that, after the last page, you'll feel inspired to pack your rucksack, free yourself from modern society's constraints and head off into the sunset indefinitely. You wouldn t be the first...

Unique pleces of 20th century Americana, Choppers have inspired motorcycle customizers across the globe and are some of the most sought after motorcycles in the world. This book presents a history of Choppers, tracing the genre from the early days when motorcycles were stripped down, or chopped in an attempt to improve performance, to modern times, when builders like Jesse James of West Coast Choppers create USD 100,000 works of rolling art.

John Hall was a Harley-riding hellraiser who hooked up with a group of like-minded bikers in the 1960s and formed The Pagans, a motorcycle gang that would be called 'the most violent criminal gang in America' by the FBI. This is his full and frank account of his colourful life on the road.

Go on a 60-year ride with Harley-Davidson's Sportster

Things got a little weird in the American motorcycle industry after World War II. People hungered for new motorcycles, buying just about everything manufacturers could build. But on rare occasions a manufacturer produced a machine that nobody wanted. Such was the case with the Harley-Davidson Model K. The Model K had most of the features buyers wanted in a modern machine, like hand-operated clutches, foot-operated shifters, and cool-running aluminum heads, but it lacked perhaps the most important technological upgrade: a modern overhead-valve valve-train design.

The Model K retained the antiquated side-valve design because of arcane AMA racing rules written when Harley-Davidson and Indian competed head-to-head on American racetracks, but by 1952 Indian was on its last legs. This should have made the Model K a massive sales success. What nobody counted on was the British bike invasion. Thanks to their modern overhead-valve engines, the lightweight British bikes humiliated the side-valve Harleys on the track and on the street. Upgrades to the Model K didn't help; Harley finally relented and introduced a new overhead-valve middleweight for the 1957 model year. Dubbed the Sportster, it was everything the Model K was not. More importantly, it was faster than the British competition. Thus began the Sportster's sixty-year reign.

Harley-Davidson Sportster: Sixty Years tells the complete Sportster story. Noted Sportster expert Allen Girdler covers all the bikes--the XLCH, Caf Racer, XR1000, XLX, 883, Iron, Forty-Eight, Seventy-Two, and Nightster--that have made the Sportster one of the most iconic motorcycles on earth.