Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Total Heros: My Brothers in the NFK- PART 1

Many of you readers out there may have seen pics posted by one of the Tokyo contributors named MotoYan.
Or perhaps you may have even seen pics of some wild eyed crazy guy tearing around Iowa and on to Wisconsin with Jeff and everyone at the S&S 50th all the while taking pictures of anything and everything.
You might have even seen a mention here or there to something called the NFK and wondered if that was the same group of guys that were shown blasting around in late night Tokyo traffic on the Jason Jesse movie: Pray for me.
And you MIGHT have even seen a bunch of fixed gear bicycle, and bike messenger or skating pictures if you followed a link, or happened across this mysterious MotoYan’s blog, or Flickr page.
So I’m sure many of you have questions that have been gnawing at your brain for some time about this character:
“Who is this guy really?”
“Is it true he is invincible?”
“What is up with this group of guys called the NFK?”
“Where did this rash come from and why does it burn when I pee?”
“And who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Wolverine?”

Well, I can’t help you with those last two, but maybe I can shed some light on the MotoYan and NFK mystery.

I had a chat with Yan about himself, and the No Future Krew or NFK as they are usually referred to as and this is what he had to say:

Bird:
So Yan, I first became aware of you and the No Future Krew when you emailed me one day about my old ratty XS650 chopper and we immediately became friends. I think that was about 4 years ago… and you guys were together before that. When is it that you guys first began riding together?

Yan:
Yeah, that's right. I was really shocked when I saw you and your chopper drifting in the dirt. I saw you on the Bad Motorcycles for Bad People forum.
At the same time, I was managing a BBS called "NO FUTURE" where many people talked about choppers and every time I saw some cool chopper pics, I posted them on that board.
Some of the people on there really liked what I was posting on the board, and they began to stay and talk together.
And then, in June of 2003, we said “Why don’t we ride together on Thursday night".
And that was the beginning of the NFK.

Bird:
Right on, is the NFK a gang, a club, or something else?

Yan:
I don't know. We are just friends. No regulation, no rules, nothing.

Bird:
How many members are there in the NFK?

Yan:
About 15. May be more. I don't know.

Bird:
Is there a particular kind of motorcycle that the NFK members must ride, or prefer to ride?

Yan:
No. But right now, some of guys have started selling their Harleys.
Joytoy sold his chopper and got an old Buell RSS.
H sold his Twincam and got a new Triumph Bonneville café racer.
Disk sold his FXR and he might buy a Gixxer.
I sold my FXR and got GS1200SS.
Yudai will be selling his shovelhead pretty soon.
Some of the members don’t even own a motorcycle. They ride fixed gear bicycles.

Bird:
Why are you guys all selling your Harleys?

Yan:
Actually, we are NOT biker type of guys. We love motorcycles. Not only Harleys.
We all met together because we were riding Harleys though. I can appreciate that.
Riding a Harley has something extra… like…power. I made many friends riding my Harley.
But I also like sportbikes too. And old air-cooled Kawasaki’s. And oil-cooled Gixxers.
I finally realized that I wanted my Harley to become like a 4-cylinder motorcycle.
So I decided to get Jap bike.
I have three kids so I cannot waste money on Harleys any more. Compared to Harleys, the Jap bikes are much, much cheaper to maintain here.

Bird:
I hear that man.
So maybe some of the readers have heard about the Coreride. What is the Coreride?
Yan:
That was a monthly ride we had run together.
Full throttle highway blasts from Yokohama to Tokyo.
It was like a cannon ball run.
Guys were putting new parts on, boring out their cylinders, putting high performance cylinder heads, running higher cams, getting new paint jobs, all for this cannon ball style run.
It was usually 10 to 15 guys came and rode together.
Occasionally 30 and sometimes as many as 60 guys at once.
People came from all over. From Nagoya, from Kobe, from Nigata, from everywhere.
2004 was the peak. 4 guys crashed, and after that the run was never like it used to be.
There is a big bridge across Yokohama to Tokyo called "Bay Bridge",
one guy tried to pass another guy before the bridge, and his handle bar hit the other guys handle bar. The guy that got hit was riding a Buell, and he fell off.
And another guy riding an Evo-Dyna ran over him. The Buell guy broke both wrists.
and another guy crashed into the Evo-Dyna with his Sportster.
Also the fucking police started chasing us every time we run, but we never stopped.
But now Coreride is gone. bye bye.
We stopped riding on the highways, now we run just in the city streets.






No comments:

Post a Comment