This is Dot Smith, the famous female stunt rider from the 1930s and 40s, she was a member of the San Francisco Motorcycle Club and a founding member of the iconic “Motor Maids” with Dot Robinson and Linda Degeau.
In this photograph she’s sitting on her 1937 EL Knucklehead and looking damn near perfect with that little ribbon in her hair. They just don’t make ’em like they used too.
Click the photograph for the high-resolution version.
Ben Branch has had his work featured on CNN, Popular Mechanics, the official Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with millions of readers around the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
This is the Husqvarna 400 Cross ridden by Steve McQueen in the seminal motorcycle documentary On Any Sunday – undoubtedly one of the most important motorcycle films ever made. The closing scene of the documentary famously features Mert Lawwill, Malcolm Smith, and movie star Steve McQueen riding over sand dunes and out across a beach…
Valespeed Motorcycles 28 Days Later is a custom GasGas built by Valespeed Motorcycles, a one-man operation run by a friendly Brit named Ben who’s based out of Worcestershire in the UK. Ben’s last build was a land speed racing motorcycle that set three class records at the Pendine Sands in South Wales in 2016 –…
The Ural Air LE is the company’s newest sidecar motorcycle developed for 21st century adventurers who want a third eye in the sky to see the road ahead, scout for campsites, fresh water sources, or to figure out where you are when you inevitably get lost in the wilderness. Ural Motorcycles Ural Motorcycles started out…
The Matchless G80 TCS Typhoon was the fastest off-road version of the G80, with the largest engine, and the highest power-rating that was available to the general public. The Creation of the G80 TCS Typhoon Interestingly the idea to create a 600cc version of the popular 500cc Matchless G80 CS (Competition Scrambles) wasn’t the idea of…
The De Tomaso Pantera GT5 was, in some respects, the blue-collar version of the Lamborghini Countach. Both cars featured a sweeping wedge-shaped profile, big wings, flared wheel aches, roaring engines and more horsepower than half a dozen family sedans. When new, the Countach cost over $100,000 (in 1980s money) and required a king’s ransom in…
This 1982 Barry Sheene interview has been largely unseen for the past 36 years, it includes some fantastic quotes from Barry including him remembering a time he had to steal diesel in from a construction site in Munich to get to a Grand Prix in Austria in 1971. It was originally filmed as part of a…
