A few minutes at a bridge

Cycling to a friends house for a Summer BBQ I stopped at the pedestrian bridge that crosses the busy Gudöbroleden in Handen. My preferred place for panning photos since a number of years. People often walk up to me asking what it is I am shooting and that always surprises me. This time it was a guy from a company inspecting the bridge. Are you hoping to shoot some accidents he asked. Not sure why any normal person would like to do that. So I explained it to him, no I shoot convertibles, old cars, unusual cars, tough guys on motorcycles, tough girls on motorcycles or just anyone who I find interesting. And on this day it was three white cars and a bunch of Harleys.

Vroom!

A Fat Bob Harley-Davidson. A Peugeut Django moped and a Kawasaki VN 1500 Classic. Three panning photos shot from the pedestrian bridge crossing Gudöbroleden earlier in the week. They are all riding down Söderbyleden. My first panning photos this year.

To Each Their Own

Statistics from one year ago says that there were 323 148 registered motorcycles in Sweden in June of 2019. One year on and I'm sure there are a few more out on the roads. Here are a few that I photographed from the pedestrian bridge at Gudöbroleden in Handen. My favorite is the first guy on his Harley.

Motorcycles

That time of the year again when I sometimes jump off my bike on the pedestrian bridge that crosses the busy Gudöbroleden for a few photos of passing motorcycles. Yesterday was one of those days. A fine Swedish Summer day, so maybe 20C cooler than an Aussie Summer day, but still kinda nice.

On Two Wheels

We had an unexpected visitor yesterday. It was Summer that dropped by. A couple of temperature records were broken. We had 18C in Haninge. I don't think that has happened before in March. So I did what I sometimes do on a hot Summer's day. I placed myself on a bridge and took some photos of motorcycles and other two wheelers. One or two cool bikes here. My faves here would be the red Ducati and the chopper.

Let's Ride

A few of the bikers at the Easy Rider Festival at Vegabaren. I'm off to another classic car show today, this one with a great bonus, a pin-up contest, sure sounds like fun!

The Harley Guys

We had the warmest day of the year so far today. I'm guessing around 15C. This is Linkan, (whom you have met here before), and his neighbour and friend Martin (Yellow Fat Boy). They took advantage of the great weather and took out their Harley's for a ride.

Black Leather

...and jeans. For a few hours on Saturday bikers from all over Stockholm arrived to the Easy Rider festival in Handen.

Cool Chopper

I visited the Easy Rider Festival in Handen on Saturday. Held at the same place as the car meet the weekend before. The place was crowded with bikers and cool bikes. Like this green chopper from Carolina MC from Stockholm. It's a Triumph from 1968.They have a great motto in this biker club. Laugh, enjoy a beer and be happy. The chopper belongs to Ratte. My friend Jim took an unusual vertical panorama photo of this bike.

Three Harley Davidson Riders

Here are a few more portraits of some of the bikers I met at the big Harley Davidson meet at Gålö Havsbad. On the top photo you can see Gott&Blandat. Although his real name is Thomas. He is originally from Gothenburg, which his accent gave away as soon as he started talking. These days he lives in Örebro. Gott & Blandat drives a 1948 Harley-Davidson WL. And by looking at his outfit I think it's safe to say that he has visited the Philippines. Second photo shows Maria. She's Thomas girlfriend. Maria's bike is a Sportster. She's been a rider for a decade. If you look to the left you fill find part of the Sportster's exhaust system. I hope they were able to fix that before the ride back home to Örebro. The tired biker sitting on his 1993 Harley Softail is called Fredrik. He is from Vasa in Finland. He was at the big Harley meet with a friend, who was still sound asleep in a tent nearby as we talked. Fredrik got his licence last year, and that's when he bought the bike.

Dos Coronas

This is Knasen. It' s a nickname. Knasen was at the Easy Rider Festival last Saturday with his unique motorcycle. He has built and designed it himself. It's the worlds only Dos Coronas. He told me that when people hear the name, Dos Coronas they just like me, think about the beer. In Swedish that name would be Två Kronor, or Two Crowns if you like. If you look closely at the motorcycle you can actually find two old Swedish coins. I took a photo of one coin that is engraved in the fuel tank. In reality two Crowns want buy you much, and it did cost Knasen a little more than that to get the bike in working order. He told me he reckoned he used something like 120 000 Crowns to construct the 900 cc machine. But it's probably worth it as it is a one of a kind bike. And it got the attention from quite a few people at the meet. As I was talking to him one guy came up and asked if he couldn't start the bike so he could listen to the engine. And as that made it impossible to talk any more that was that!

The Troll Bikes

I met an interesting family at Vegabaren during the Easy Rider Festival. They are mad about trolls! The man in the family, Johan has even taken it as his second name! He is now called Johan Trollet Schalander. Together with his girlfriend Carola (it was her I spotted first), and their young daughter Teresia, he has two Honda Goldwings. There is also a camper that is one big bed. And a trailer that is packed with a big tent and what have you. Both bikes, one of them has a side car, the camper and the trailer are covered with spray paintings of trolls! The artwork was made by a well known spray painting artist. The original troll design comes from the botanist and painter Rolf Lidberg who was Johan's favourite painter. For the last eight summers the family has been travelling around Europe to many motorcycle meets and won countless awards for their bikes. And wherever they come they are the centre of attention! Johan told me that they must have spent around one million Swedish kronor on their machines. That is a lot of money. The more I looked at the bikes, the more trolls I saw. So I decided to photograph as many as I could and make a flickr set so that you could all see them. So just press the white arrow below and sit back and watch the slideshow.

Steffe Reflections

I visited the Easy Rider Festival in Handen last Saturday. Saw some very cool and unique motorcycles. Old and new. And a couple of interesting trikes, plus one or two home-made bikes. And naturally I shot a few portraits. All of which I will show you in the coming days. One thing that is certain is that bikers love chrome and skulls. Another thing that is certain is that I have to shoot Self Portrait Reflections whenever I have an opportunity to do so...

The Biker

Sometimes it's very easy to get good portraits of interesting people. Shooting a couple of photos of this rough looking biker (check out the tattoos), was dead easy. I say rough looking, but it's pretty easy to notice his big smile behind that impressive beard that must have taken a few years to grow. I was at home when I heard the motorcycles drive up the road. A minute later my brother told me that it was probably time to get the camera ready. And a minute after that I was talking to Tony. A long time member of Slackers MC, and he sure looks the business, doesn't he. Tony drives a 1999 Harley Davidson Roadking. If you want one, expect to pay around 170 000 SEK. Slackers MC has nine members, and their headquarters is only a couple of kilometres away, at Håga. I mentioned some of the other bikers and people that I have met since I started shooting portraits, and sure enough Tony knew all of them. And I'm quite sure I will meet Tony again, later this year at the big bike meet at Vegabaren. If you live locally and like cool bikes, be sure to get up to Handen on the fifth of September. I'm guessing you all really want to know what Tony was up to when I met him. The answer is that he was waiting for his girlfriend who was buying some flowers from Blomorado. They got the laugh of the day when I said that I thought Tony would stand out a little in a crowd. Just a little you say? Yes, just a little.

The Harley Man From Hofors

I noticed a biker at the parking lot near the commuter station in Västerhaninge and headed over for a photo. This is Göran. He had just arrived to Haninge after a 250 km ride from his home in Hofors, Gästrikland. He is in town to meet his brother Bengt. The bike is a Sportster 1200. Göran is my second my second Harley Man since I started shooting street portraits. Back in March I met another biker, The Vulcan Rider. Fun Facts:There's a club for Swedish Harley owners with 11 000 members. Apparently the biggest Harley club in the world! All in all there are around 249 000 motorcycle owners in Sweden.