Vroom Vroom

So, I mentioned the Red Army Red motorcycle in a previous post, but I finally have pictures of my husband's biggest contribution to the new book and to the launch party.  

Here's a little information about the bike:  it's a vintage 1973 Triumph 750, five-speed.  It was built by Lucas Joyner at The Factory Metal Works, in North Carolina.

If you look closely at some of the photographs, you'll see that words have been painted onto the fuel tank and fender:  red, hand, city, body, years, work, light, dark, click, voice, shopping, words.  These pin-striped words are some of the most frequently used in Red Army Red (as determined using an online word cloud function).  

The seat is hand-tooled leather, made by Ryan Wasson of Anvil Customs and designed by my husband; the design was inspired by the famous Polish logo for the Solidarity movement (Solidarność). The original logo and other Solidarity-related iconography dominates my memories of childhood and adolescence in Poland.  It was a lovely surprise to see that red logo transformed into something new and personal:  red army red, my book.  And, although motorcycles terrify me, I was extremely touched to see the time and money that my husband put into this project.