Customer Reviews

Big Sid's Vincati: The Story of a Father, a Son, and the Motorcycle of a Lifetime

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 2005, while surfing the `net, I stumbled upon an upcoming movie called, The World's Fastest Indian. I mentioned the movie to my husband, an inveterate motorcyclist, and suggested we see it. This was intended to be one of those Grand Gestures, one of those things wives do to be nice, not because we actually want to do the thing. So much for Karmic Brownie Points...The World's Fastest Indian is one of my all time favorite movies.

With the same intentions, after reading about Big Sid's Vincati, I managed to snag an early copy for myself. I really intended it to be a book for my husband, although I knew I'd need to read it as well. Once again, I thought I was doing something nice for my husband. And once again, so much for Karmic Brownie Points...

Big Sid's Vincati, The Story of a Father, a Son, and the Motorcycle of a Lifetime is the story of a renowned motorcycle mechanic and his son. Big Sid suffers a heart attack, and like many heart patients, loses his interest in life. His son, Matthew, impulsively suggest they build a motorcycle together. A hybrid, made up of an old Vincent and a Ducati. Vincent motorcycles were produced in Britain from 1928 to 1955. For decades Big Sid was THE guy to see for anything Vincent in the United States. Matthew had taken an entirely different path in life and is a Shakespearean professor.

Authenticity is added to the story by the author as he explores the younger years of Big Sid. He is unsparing in the descriptions of Sid's father, the conflicts of Sid's life and how these shaped his own life. While ostensibly the story of motorcycles, the book speaks more to the relationships between fathers and sons. At times it was as if I was reading about my own husband and his father. Through it all runs the thread of the rides. Motorcycles have an almost mystic pull on the people that ride them.

"The rides out in the midday sun, taking graceful sweepers along Skyline Drive, from Front Royal down to Asheville. All those times, all of it merging into this one road, under this one sun, burning hard in the sublime blue sky, while on either side of this ribbon of road, the trees flashed by, my father in my mirror, behind me."

From the practical standpoint, it was helpful to me that I've spent over thirty years hanging around a man who loves bikes. The vernacular wasn't completely foreign to me, and I had my handy reference guide sitting right next to me. And I'll admit to sort of skimming some of the technical passages about the construction of the bike. In spite of that, you should READ THIS BOOK!! It's a good story. And if you find yourself a bit confused about some terminology, it really doesn't matter. The heart of the book might be the Vincati, but it's the soul you'll focus on. And the soul of the book is Big Sid and Matthew.

I've ridden a few, but I've never owned a motorcycle. And I've certainly never worked on one. But I do have a father and I have spent a lifetime working on that relationship. And now I am one as well. And I think that's what this book is about: a father and son who are thrown back together out of necessity, and who learn to appreciate each other. The author is unsparingly candid about some of the most intimate moments in the most important relationships in his family. I think the honesty would resonate with anyone who has tried to understand his own father or tried to be a good one himself.

For the technically inclined, there are detailed specs in the back, but I found that most of the "tech speak" in the heart of the book served more as a frame that gave the story structure. Not to take away from its authenticity, I just wouldn't want those of us who aren't gear heads to think this isn't a book for us. It truly is a book for anyone who has or is a father.

Art Carey, a superb writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer once wrote:

"Part of the attraction (of men to cars and motorcycles) is beauty. It's a form of art appreciation. For many men, a car (or a motorcycle) is sculpture on wheels. On a deeper level, the thing is not the thing. The object - in this case, a car (or a motorcycle) - is really a pretext, a symbol, a medium. It's a token of romance, an instrument of nostalgia, reminding men of an earlier era, of youth, first loves, fathers and friends. It's a bulwark against the passage of time, the inevitability of loss"

Big Sid's Vincati is a story of how a father and a son created an object, a motorcycle, that helped them overcome an estranged relationship. In the process of creating a special motorcycle (a Vincati), Matthew and Sid Biberman transformed their relationship with each other. The Biberman's Vincati is their bulwark against the passage of time and the inevitability of loss.

This story is about how two men created a motorcycle that will stand as a symbol of love and healing between father and son. This is a story of how a thing (a motorcycle) is much more than a thing.

Sid and Matthew Biberman's life stories started as being very different and ended up in many ways, being very similar. First it is important to know about Sid Biberman.

Sid Biberman is known as Big Sid because he was a 6 feet 5 inch hulk for most of his life. Big Sid had a very difficult childhood, and an abusive father. Big Sid was unable to attend college and had to work very hard a good portion of his early adulthood as butcher under his father's iron will. Sid had to work hard overcome the emotional abuse he received from his father. Sid knew he was very talented at tuning motorcycles and eventually he was able to open his own motorcycle shop. In time, and through hard work, Big Sid fulfilled his dream of becoming a world class mechanic. Famous people (Jay Leno, Steve McQueen) came to Big Sid to learn from him.

Sid Biberman is considered by many Vincent motorcycle owners to be the finest tuner of Vincent motorcycles in the world. And Big Sid is loved by many members of the Vincent Motorcycle Owners Club because he is always ready to help when asked, and always kind with his knowledge and wisdom. Sid was able to overcome his difficult childhood (and early adulthood) by becoming a generous person with his time and his superb mechanical talent. Sid Biberman also grew to become a loving father and grandfather.

Matthew Biberman, who wrote Big Sid's Vincati, is an exceptionally intelligent and insightful man. Matthew is a professor of English at the University of Louisville. Matthew was educated at some of the finest schools in the United States. Matthew, as a young man, wanted to be unlike his father and became an intellectual. One of Matthew's challenges was to learn how to love his father warts and all. Matthew describes in his book how he eventually came to understand and become more comfortable with himself by realizing how he was, in many ways, like his father.

In this beautifully written, and at times haunting story, Big Sid Biberman, and his son, Matthew Biberman, create an exceptional, unique, and world famous motorcycle, a Vincati. Only 5 have been built in the world. The Vincati that the Bibermans created combined a Vincent Series B 998cc V-Twin engine into the chassis of a Ducati 750 GT. Peter Egan, a well know author, personally came to the Biberman's home and wrote a five page article in Classic Bike magazine about the Vincati.

The Vincati project started when Matthew visited his father in the hospital just after Big Sid had a massive heart attack.

Matthew and his father had grown distant. And yet Matthew loved his father so much that he gave his father something to live for when Big Sid wanted to give up the will to live. Matthew is a sensitive and loving son and knew what his father needed to regain the will to live. Matthew gave his father a dream. Matthew told his father that they needed to build an incredible motorcycle (a Vincati) and made a promise to his dad that the project would be completed.

Matthew knew that his father had the rare skills to build a Vincati. Both father and son knew that by working together they could rebuild their relationship. And by doing so, the Bibermans created a legacy of love (and a special motorcycle) that would heal the Biberman family. Five years after the commitment was made to build a Vincati, the promise was fulfilled.

In the process of creating a Vincati both son and father learn some key lessons in life that they share with you in their book

Big Sid's Vincati shows you how a relationship between a father and a son can be very difficult. Competitiveness, desire for approval, anger, forgiveness, and love all can come into play to help or hurt both a father and his son.

In Big Sid's Vincanti you will read how Matthew and Big Sid worked hard at improving their relationship while they built a special motorcycle. Their story touched my life. There were times I read about their lives and I thought of my father (who passed away in 1995 of a heart attack) and I wept. When I read Big Sid's Vincati I thought of the things I wished I could have done to help my relationship with my father improve. Even though my father is gone I learned lessons that helped me be more thoughtful and kind to others.

You may dream of building a motorcycle that is unique, fast, and beautiful. And then you may dismiss your dream and think it is impossible.

And yet, in reality, you can build a Vincati. We all can.

We can symbolically build our own Vincatis by making promises like Matthew and his father did to each other. Our Vincatis, our promises, can be verbal or silent to ourselves or ones who we love. The fulfillment of our promises, like the creation of the Biberman's Vincati, requires the capacity of calm, patient endurance.

Your fulfilled promises, like the Biberman's promise to each other, can be your bulwark against the passage of time and the inevibility of loss and can be your Vincati. If you want to create your own personal symbolic Vincati, read and enjoy Big Sid's Vincati.

Read the book with an open heart and learn. Learn the example from Big Sid and Matthew Biberman that forgiveness, patience, cooperation and love can help transform you.

This is the English lit teacher you didn't have but wish you did-a guy who bikes to school, loves motorcycles, is mechanically-challenged but learns from his father (after the rebellion years) how to maintain and repair them. The book's hard to pigeon-hole, it's primarily about at least three things: Big Sid's love of motorcycles, Big Sid's life, and how a son finally got close to his dad through bikes. It's very well written, it's not the novel that the author wanted but it's a fantastic autobiographical tale. Hard to put down once you start it.

This book has a stellar kernel. I was nearly in tears reading the dust cover.
But in execution it falls flat. Too bad, because there are 6 or 10 writers out there who work in the motorcycle world who could have co-written it and brought it to life. Much like "Rebuilding the Indian" this is a book written by a "writer" who knows motorcycles. I think Matthew Biberman has more of the "love" than Fred Haefele, I think he genuinely enjoys motorcycles.
However not with the passion of a Mike Seate, Peter Egan or Aaron Frank to name just three of the best writers on the subject. Don't get me wrong, I know this is not really a motorcycle book. Someone mentioned "Worlds Fastest Indian" in reference to "Big Sid". Excellent comparison, just not favorable. Worlds Fastest Indian is not a movie about motorcycles. While its hard for me to tell because I have such an overwhelming passion about them, I suspect that anyone can enjoy the movie. But what changes the WFI from a story about an crazy old guy on a motorcycle to an epic akin to the Odyssey, are the details. Whether you know it or not, few technical details were fudged in the movie (though many chronological ones were in regards to Burt Munroe's life). Not only that but the film is loaded with tiny pearls for gear heads like me to geek over. I can only believe that the film makers had a real passion for it. That passion is the bass note that even though you don't think you hear it, the music goes flat when it's gone. That passion isn't here in Big Sid's Vincati so what could be a literary symphony of a man, his father, a bike and recovery; physical, emotional and spiritual, falls flat.

I have over a half million miles on motorcycles in my 71 years. My health does not allow me to tour like I used to so I do a lot of mental touring reading motorcycle books. This is a very good book. Much better written than a lot of motorcycle books. Lots of technical details for the bench jockey, but mostly a great psychological study of a boy, turned man, chafing at, yet not understanding, a hard nosed old school father. The sins of both, particularly toward one another, are carefully laid out. To his credit, the son, who wrote the book, is as hard on himself in the look back as he was and is on the father. The growth of the two in respect for one another is the key uplifting part of the book, achieved by fits and starts, with some wonderfully surprising confessions and mea culpa moments at unlikely times. Very little time in the book is spent with them together on bikes. A lot of time is spent together in the work shop, not much of it pleasant until they share the common goal of building the Vincati. But it is through that effort that resolution and closure is achieved. You can do a lot worse than read this book. It rises above other remembrances and far above most family road trip books which are far too often banal and bland. That the author teaches creative writing probably doesn't hurt.

I should say upfront that I am not all that interested in motorcycles. I've only ever ridden once or twice in my life, as a passenger. However, I am interested in the ways in which people invest particular objects - stamps, dolls, comic books, old vinyl albums, motor vehicles - with mythical significance, as a way of making sense of their lives, and of coping with its struggles and disappointments. Biberman has a deep understanding of this psychological process, and has written a remarkable memoir that can be enjoyed by motorcycle enthusiasts and neophytes alike. The bike in this honest and moving book is a lot more than a slick mode of transportation. It is more even than the source of a rekindled relationship between a father and son. Big Sid's Vincati symbolizes the creative urge, the desire to make a mark in the world, to be something more than merely ordinary. Highly recommended.

I bought 1 copy of this for my adult motorcycle loving son and a copy for his motorcycle loving dad. It turned out to be a great read. I sat down on a rainy Sunday and read it all in an afternoon and evening. It really is a heartwarming tale of a son and father bonding over a unique motorcycle project and figuring out their places in relationships and the world.

I heartily recommend it to anyone that wants to explore how fathers & sons connect and that loves good motorcycle tales.

This is an amazing book. Highly recommend it to any motorcyclist. I grew up where Sid lived and many of the places were familiar to me. I must to any rider who had the opportunity to ride with his dad.

am a motorbike restorer so i found it interesting not only on the narrative, landscape description and story development, but also on the technical side to get to know the Vincent motorbikes. Nice easy pleasant ride..sorry, I meant book!