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Matthew Biberman, author of Big Sid's Vincanti, our guest blogger for the week of 5/4

Fri, 05/01/2009

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Matthew Biberman is our guest blogger during the week of May 4th. If you have any questions for Matthew Biberman, add a comment to any of his posts.

Here is more information about Big Sid's Vincanti: The Story of a Father, a Son, and the Motorcycle of a Lifetime:

Read an excerpt.

A father and son build a legendary motorcycle and, along the way, reconstruct their relationship in this moving memoir

When his father had a near-fatal heart attack and gave up the will to live, Matthew Biberman panicked. Impulsively, Matthew promised his father, an expert motorcycle mechanic, that they would build a Vincati motorcycle together. The Loch Ness monster of motorcycles, a Vincati-half Vincent, half Ducati- had never been completed in North America. Building a Vincati was considered, at best, a fool's errand; at worst, an expensive waste of motorcycle parts.

But for nearly sixty years, "Big Sid" Biberman was the mechanic to see to refurbish and repair motorcycles, especially British-made Vincents. If anyone could build a Vincati, it was Big Sid. Despite sharing his father's passion for motorcycles, his son Matthew lacked Big Sid's mechanical gift, gave up on tools, and became a Shakespearean scholar. As adults, father and son barely spoke. But after his father's brush with death, Matthew vowed to learn the techniques that had made Big Sid a legend among bikers. Reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Big Sid's Vincati is an irresistible combination of step-by-step motorcycle construction mixed with a powerful story of fathers and sons, and shows not only how the Bibermans built their Vincati (which was featured in Cycle World and Classic Bike) but also how the two men reconstructed their relationship, one motorcycle part at a time.

Watch the video:

About Matthew Biberman:

Matthew Biberman teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Louisville. He also works on Vincent motorcycles in his garage with his father, “Big Sid” Biberman.