The Greatest Motorcycle Photo
93 comments
·April 5, 2025nathan_compton
RandallBrown
From Wikipedia:
> He was stranded twenty miles from the nearest settlement, with only enough food and water to last ten days. To survive, Leray used parts of his broken-down car to build a motorcycle, and twelve days after the accident was able to drive it to a village 20 miles away.
I admire his ingenuity, but I would have probably just walked.
hinkley
Why spend three days doing a one-off task when you can spend 10 days automating it?
DrNosferatu
Did he know the next settlement was only 20 miles away?
stephencanon
Yeah, walking 20 miles, desert or not, is a far better plan.
hinkley
Figuring out how to carry enough stuff might be a problem, but making a sling or primitive backpack from the upholstery should be doable with a knife.
foobarbecue
I don't buy it.
This guy says the bike was built but the situation was staged; that seems possible. https://sahara-overland.com/2017/08/05/the-2cv-motorcycle-su...
elliottkember
The settlement was 20 miles away, but that doesn't mean he only drove 20 miles, or that he knew which direction the settlement was in!
Levitz
Really, really cool honestly.
Tiny question though, where the hell are his clothes?
userbinator
It's a desert. I'm pretty sure the temperature is such that wearing anything but the absolute minimum would be extremely uncomfortable.
incanus77
I enjoy the backstory[1], though, about how he ended up that way:
> He was told the area was restricted and he couldn’t go through. Ignoring the request, he instead drove off at top speed into the rocky terrain of the restricted area, making sure the military officials weren’t following him, according to the site.
> Leray told the UK’s Sunday Times that he had travelled around Africa about 10 times so knew the region well. But before long, his he crashed the car into a rock, rendering it unable to drive.
[1] https://www.nydailynews.com/2012/07/03/photos-man-escapes-af...
worthless-trash
Guess he didn't know the region well.
IncreasePosts
Only if you think his story is true. I'm pretty sure it is more of an art project though. Mostly because from a survival perspective the story makes no sense.
m463
But with all the photographs he took, he could survive years on his fame after a few extra days of tinkering.
mulmen
That’s not a cool motorcycle picture. You can argue that it’s a picture of a cool motorcycle but that’s really not the same thing.
I knew the submission would be a photo of Rollie Free on his Black Shadow before clicking the link. It is the motorcycle picture.
I have never heard of this mad max looking bike and frankly it doesn’t strike a chord with me.
DrNosferatu
More desert Mad Max shenanigans in just underwear!
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HPsquared
That man has complete faith in his rear mudguard.
jcims
Anyone that has stepped on a scooter brake in their bare feet is wincing at the thought of the supports crumpling.
Fastest roasted nuts ever.
pandemic_region
welp that did not occur to me, he probably had it fortified in a way.
skeptrune
I don't think a photo could capture the vibe of American motorcycling any better than this one.
Crazy that he was 47 in it haha. I have always assumed he was younger.
m463
Is it weird I thought about this other sort of adjacent iconic photo:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Blown_Away_Gu...
m463
or possibly https://youtu.be/fHaIEG45JWE
linsomniac
A very cool picture, but a bit hard to look at right now. My daughter's "first crush" (a decade ago) just passed in a motorcycle accident. A "left hook" situation less than a mile from home. Stay observant out there!
WillAdams
This motorcycle was also the subject of a song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0kJdrfzjAg
(which maybe is the greatest motorcycle song?)
Wonderful magical machine (for straights).
rdtsc
Hunter S. Thompson loved it, too, and it shows up in his work:
https://www.vincent-hrd.co.uk/hst.html
> Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1970) > [At the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills, planning to cover the Mint 400 Desert Race in Las Vegas]
---
"Well," he said, "as your attorney I advise you to buy a motorcycle. How else can you cover a thing like this righteously?"
"No way," I said. "Where can we get hold of a Vincent Black Shadow?"
"Whats that?"
"A fantastic bike," I said. "The new model is something like two thousand cubic inches, developing two hundred brake-horsepower at four thousand revolutions per minute on a magnesium frame with two styrofoam seats and a total curb weight of exactly two hundred pounds."
...
"It is," I assured him. "The fucker's not much for turning, but it's pure hell on the straightaway. It'll outrun the F-111 until takeoff."
---
brucehoult
In the mid 80s I used to pace the taking off B737s at Wellington, on the road next to the airport, on my CBX550F2 [1] and later on my K100RT. I could get to about 200 km/h before I had to slow for the corner. The planes were rotating at that point. The speed limit on that road is 50 km/h now, it was a little higher back then ... not enough obviously...
rdtsc
That is an epic story!
cypherpunks01
"If you rode the Black Shadow at top speed for any length of time, you would almost certainly die. That is why there are not many life members of the Vincent Black Shadow Society."
- HST
From "Song of the Sausage Creature" (for Cycle World magazine, March 1995) mentioned there, definitely worth the quick read!
morkalork
Hells Angels a Strange and Terrible Saga is a good read too, that last passage made me want to go out and buy one immediately.
4ndrewl
Never ever thought I'd see the great Richard Thompson on HN. Thank you!
WillAdams
FWIW, I'm surprised that his Millennial Tour/Concert:
https://www.richardthompson-music.com/2003-1000-years-of-pop...
hasn't been mentioned/discussed.
omoikane
I am always impressed at how they managed to capture action shots like these in perfect focus, with the motorcycle moving at 150 miles per hour.
dogman1050
Cool indeed, but this is my favorite cycle picture. [1] It's technically a tricar, but given the handlebar controls and lack of bodywork, I think it qualifies. The vehicle is a Mototri Contal practicing for the 1907 Peking to Paris race [2]. These guys look like they want to win! They didn't, almost dying in the process. The passenger is a journalist. Motor-journalist Denis Jenkinson [3] did something similar later, acting as navigator for Stirling Moss in the 1955 Mille Miglia race, which they won.
[1] <https://ccnwordpress.blob.core.windows.net/journal/2019/02/M...>
ChuckMcM
Presumably this was what inspired Burt Monroe who broke the record in 1967 and was the subject of the movie "The Worlds Fastest Indian". I have always admired the engineering ingenuity of folks who break these records and never quite understood why the risk was worth it. :-)
mulmen
Humans are notoriously bad at risk based decision making. This applies equally to being cautious or daring.
AdieuToLogic
That's a classic for sure. I would suggest a "heel clicker in a supercross race"[0] is also worth consideration, given the difficulty and risk involved.
0 - https://ultimatemotorcycling.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/...
keepamovin
Marvin Musquin won that one too, didn't he?
brucehoult
And I thought Burt Munro was a character....
hinkley
There were a few years of professional cycling when people did this on downhills until they outlawed it. You don’t have much control when doing this. At least on the salt flats the whole point it to try to go in a straight line, so if you need to turn you’re already in dire straits.
K0balt
This technique is still in common use here in the Dominican Republic, among honda cub street racers. It’s interesting that the most vibrant motorcycle racing scene is with motorcycles that were never meant to go fast and lack the frame stiffness or suspension to safely go above 50mph. I think the challenge of overcoming these limitations is what makes it compelling to the young riders and would-be-engineers that typically make up the illegal racing scene.
drcongo
I find it absolutely wild that he did it in just his grundies.
bsimpson
I'm trying to imagine how he slowed down.
Just keeping his legs clear of that 150 MPH tire is its own feat.
pandemic_region
Aren't the break handles on the steering bar much like a bicycle? Never owned or rode a motorbike so I would not know.
joshmlewis
Typically the left lever is the clutch, right lever is the front break, and your right foot has a lever for the rear break. Not sure what the setup was for the record breaking motorcycle though.
loloquwowndueo
No. Usually one of the brakes (I forget which) is actuated with a pedal, and one of the handle levers (what would be brakes on a bicycle) controls the clutch.
pmdulaney
Not to be a kinematics nerd, but the top of that tire was going 300 mph
rjp0008
Not in relation to his body which is the concerning interaction. Though contact with a 150mph tire would have had similar if not the exact same consequences as a 300 mph tire.
HPsquared
Relative to the (local) surface of the Earth, at least.
RegW
Imagine the gravel rash if all goes pear shaped.
zikduruqe
It's typically called "meat crayon". No need to look it up... it is like when a crayon is dragged across a piece of paper, and leaves behind a line of like color.
rqtwteye
It would illustrate the phrase "rubbing salt into someone's wounds" nicely
hnlmorg
At 150MPH, I doubt he’d be alive long enough to care about the gravel rash
whartung
“If hitting water at 150mph feels like concrete, what does concrete feel like?” — road racing saying.
I beg to differ. This picture of Emile Leray, who disassembled his own broken car in the desert and built a motorcycle out of it is profoundly better.
https://thekneeslider.com/images/2022/01/leray-citroen-motor...