"The year was 1964, and motorcycle clubs - packs of bikers with names like "Road Rebels" and "Argonauts" - were enjoying a surge in popularity in the U.S. Motorcyclists like Robertson gathered at rallies, where riders swerved around curved racetracks, their speeding bodies tilting toward the dusty ground. Blank went to the desert to film one of these rallies. He left with 45 minutes of footage but never finished making the film."
""When I ride, it's like molding myself to my machine," Robertson says in a voiceover at the start of "Motorcycle Moment." Red-helmeted bikers careen down a desert road, fast enough that the dotted white paint seems to flutter across the pavement. At rallies, spectators stand next to parked cars on the roadside, watching the racers through binoculars. At picnics, bikers lie in the grass and eat off paper plates. Taken as a whole, it's a loving piece of ethnography."
Les Blank filmed a 1964 motorcycle rally in the Mojave with two rolls of Ektachrome and his friend Captain Bill Robertson, capturing 45 minutes of footage that remained unfinished. The footage shows bikers from clubs like Road Rebels and Argonauts racing on curved tracks, spectators watching from parked cars, and bikers picnicking. Robertson provides a voiceover: "When I ride, it's like molding myself to my machine." Harrod Blank later edited the footage into a six-minute short, Motorcycle Moment, which screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival and highlights Blank's early filmmaking and ethnographic eye.
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