Blog - El Solitario
My name is Nicholas Coleman, I’m from what used to be the small town of Provo, Utah. Named for the French-Canadian fur trapper Etienne Provost, who wandered into what has become Utah Valley. My father Michael Coleman is an artist as well as myself. I was his little shadow wherever he went. Fishing, hunting, trapping and to a dozen or more of the world's best art museums.
Takashi URASHIMA, aka @ein883, is a fire truck driver who draws illustrations in his spare time. He started making illustrations from photos he took at motorcycle events thinking that illustrations could easily overcome language barriers and share the fun. He was not wrong. This Japanese artist has been drawing El Solitario for years through his original vision, so we decided to ask him a few questions for this article.
"There's one date of the year that I can't afford to miss, and that's in June, around the Summer Solstice, a symbol that's very dear to me, because it represents renewal, my renewal.Our Spanish friends have understood this, and without really organizing things, they know perfectly well how to unite us around San Juan. One message is all it takes, and we all arrive from the four corners of the globe, ready for a new adventure. As one of us said, the road is OK, but the track is much more exciting, and I finally understood this on our last crossing of the Iberian Peninsula. Having spent forty years exclusively on the road, I discovered the immense pleasure of enduro riding. Being inside the landscape is very different from watching it go by behind the visor, whatever the bike.
The last El Solitario OUTLAWS was a story about long lasting friendships. Paying tribute to the freedom of each individual who took part in this, we decided to give a disposable camera to each of them. The result? A scrapbook more authentic than ever. The beauty of a photograph is the personification of the eye that was looking at the precise instant of the shot.
After Thanksgiving, we load our bikes and become desert wolves. Metaphorically (for now) in the form of LA-Barstow-to-Vegas [LAB2V] desert ride in the desert between the cities of Los Angeles and Las Vegas.As for the ride itself: Delightful. But the task is never without its challenges.
Coinciding with our 14th anniversary, we were asked by some avid observers to present ourselves and define where we are going. Instead of manufacturing a long boring document we wrote this one minute El Solitario manifesto and edited some footage to illustrate our DNA and our destiny.