The Evil Monkey started as an Instagram account many years ago, whitout any plan or goal, just for fun. But as a lifetime journalist and maybe more photographer an opportunity was served, making the magazine of my dreams.
Plans were made and in August 2019 the first issue were published. The idea was to skip all the distribution middle hands and just aim for the exclusive subscribers within this narrow path of interest. To reach each and everyone lots of events, shows and meetings was the goal for a start.
Minutes before our Big launching of the magazine, Elmia custom show, the pandemic was a reality and the promotion plans were just an idea in the waste basket. With a little less than nothing left of the savings it was truly a personal catastrophy but after a couple of days laying on the couch staring in the ceiling it was time to try to make the most and the best out of it. Despite thoose enormous hills to climb, the magazine managed to survive, but just barly. Lots of part time jobs and a by then a well developed art of surviving of almost nothing we kept struggeling. In the early 2024 we finally took the decision to end the printed version though the rough start finnally catched up and there was no return. A sad day but also some kind of relief.
On the other hand during the early Covid years after attended our first ever flat track race in 2018, the local race track became our sanctuary. It was the obvious place to meet friends, have a practice and feel normal in a, in many ways, crazy world.
It was also about than our other illness became cronic. The flat track fever only got worse and worse and finally out of Covid we spent every weekend practicing or racing in Sweden as well as Norway and maybe most in Germany. We met so many good people and the feel of being at a super great biker meet was there but instead of waking up with a sick hang over we felt great and made some unforgettable memories to bring back home. And of course sometimes even awards.
It was different from the chopper community we grew up with but at the same time with all the same ingredients, just maybe a little bit less booze and a little more excersice and speed.
And this is were we still are at the moment, but life has a tendence to change over time so maybe baby we will come back to the foundation one day, but for now racing is what we like to spend our time and pennies on. It’s just the best feel you can ever get.
But our hearts are still pounding very hard for Kustom Kulture and even if someone belives we left it, we certainly didn’t. We just found another part of it where we feel we have much to learn, be curious about and develop new goals within. We are still spending hours and hours in the garage trying to build the perfect ride, doing the most cruel paint jobs, but its more focused on the speed at the right spot, the suspension and the perfect tires for the next race track, than the perfect height of a zizzy bar or how high the footpegs will be mounted. So we are still in the same boat but at the moment we sat sails aiming for another harbour of our community.
We still use our road bikes, just not so frequent as before. They will always be there and we wouldn’t last without them. And no we wont change them for anything, old is gold and choppers are freedom. And now we added racing is addiction…
So to end this declaration of intent I would like to say, if you are like us, catching the moments, trying to live the way that makes you happy, come along for the ride cause it will not stop, just head towards some new exciting places. JOIN OUR COMMUNITY
Cheers, Mia the editor / “Miss Monkey Boss” 🙂
ENJOY, LIFE IS TOO SHORT FOR ANYTHING ELSE…
The Evil Monkey Magazine is owned and published by Fantasibolaget located outside Vetlanda Sweden. Do you have any questions, editorial, orders or maybe some great ideas, send us a mail and we will be back to U asap. info@theevilmonkey.se