LUSK & DEVOTION
American-born Robert Lusk is 80 years old and rides dirtbikes nearly every day on his 215-acre property situated on the UK’s Kent/Sussex border. He lives with his Kiwi wife
Susan on the property, which was once a commercial apple orchard, and includes a massive Atcost barn housing three 60-ton steel-lined fridges which have been converted into display areas by Lusk to house an eclectic collection of around
100 motorcycles and assorted paraphernalia. The former fruit-packing room became a restoration area – as well as a workshop for Robert and his chief aide John Rhodes to race prepare the bikes on which, in his ninth decade of life, Lusk still competes in Classic Club road racing – and at the sharp end of the field, too!
“I grew up in the ’50s in the New England countryside in a place where every sort of essential craft was still being practiced on a daily basis,” he says.
“So I had a very grounded practical education. But when I was still in high school, just 15 years old, I’d help out in a gas station after school. Each day a bloke who commuted to work on his Triumph Bonneville would park it outside this gas station. One day, I went over and sat on it, looked down and saw the kickstarter, then put my foot on it and it started – on its centrestand thankfully!
“And in that moment, the only way I can describe it is, God came down and put his hands on me, and said, ‘Robert Lusk, this is your life!’”
A year or so later, Lusk acquired his first bike, a 1935 Harley that had been leaning up against a farmer’s barn for several
