Retrobike

WITH GEOFF SEDDON “The Honda Four ushered in an incredibly diverse and exciting period of motorcycle development” THIS month is the 50th anniversary of the unveiling of the iconic Honda CB750 Four at the Tokyo Motorcycle Show. We think of it these

WORDS & PHOTOS RUSS MURRAY “120 MOTORCYCLES AND 16 OUTFITS ENTERED, COVERING ALL CLASSES FROM VINTAGE TO FORGOTTEN ERA” IN the early days of motorsport, race weekends often catered for both cars and bikes and were referred to as ‘2+4’ meetings. The t

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS ALEX JOVANOVIC “I’VE ALWAYS BEEN THE TYPE OF PERSON THAT, IF I’M GOING TO DO SOMETHING, I’M NOT GOING TO HALF-ARSE IT” A CHANCE encounter with the iconic ‘Jerolamo’ cafe racer while on a European holiday in 2014 was enough t

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS HIROSHI KIKUI JAPAN has a very healthy custom motorcycle culture, building world-class show bikes and thousands of cool daily-ridden street bikes. Leading the way is Kengo Kimura, whose Hiroshima workshop, Heiwa Motorcycles,

WORDS ALAN CATHCART PHOTOS PHIL HAWKINS & DINO PETROCELLI (STUDIO) AFTER restoring a trio of show-winning Triumph twins — including a 1968 T120R Bonneville, which scored 99 (out of 100) at an Antique Motorcycle Club of America concours — upstate New

WORDS MARTIN HODGSON/PIPEBURN PHOTOS LUKAS MAGERL OUT of nowhere they burst onto the scene and, like the proverbial classic rock band, each new release went straight to number one. From Munich in Germany, custom bike shop Diamond Atelier has been a d

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS ALASTAIR RITCHIE “THE BIKE’S HUGE POWER IS TEMPERED A LITTLE BY THE WIND-UP OF THE TORQUE CONVERTOR AND AUTO GEARBOX” MOST motorcycles built around car engines, from the VW-powered Amazonas to the V8 Chevy Boss Hog, are near

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS JOHN DOWNS “IT WAS JUST A PILE OF PARTS SITTING THERE IN MY WORKSHOP LOOKING AT ME SAYING, ‘BUILD ME!’” JIM Mott of Hand Made Racers professes no particular fondness for Suzukis but maybe it’s time to call him out. This is t

WORDS RON KAMPERS PHOTOS MAURICE VOLMEYER SPEED, style, sport and serious fun. That's Sultans of Sprint: motorcycle madmen from all over the world on insane bikes, trying to outperform each other over 200m, or 1/8th of a mile, while putting on a grea

APART from a few four-stroke tiddlers in its very distant past, and the disastrous rotary-powered RE5 of 1974, Suzuki was two-stroke only until the debut of the GS400 twin and GS750 four in 1976. The GS750 had a DOHC eight-valve engine not a million

THE Bombinette was built by Sèb for his wife, Laurence, who races it in the Sultans of Sprint. It is not only a serious sprinter, it's also a dazzling custom bike, with a fairing covered with 24-carat gold leaf and a gas tank with eight different typ

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON ILLUSTRATIONS JEREMY & MARY ANN FURNESS JEREMY Furness is a longtime classic bike owner and racer who, with his wife, Mary Ann, has published a series of children’s books based on the character of a BSA Bantam named Barry, who work

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS NICK WOOD WHEN we tested the then new Triumph Bonneville Bobber last year, we were blown away by its radical appearance and low-slung stance, then amazed how well it performed, especially the grunt from that fantastic engine

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS ARNAUD MOURIAME & GANNET/FUHRER ULFERT Janssen has a great eye for what makes a memorable Moto Guzzi custom, and refreshingly broad tastes in donor bikes. He is after all the bloke who turned a lumbering 1400cc Eldorado into

WORDS & PHOTOS GEOFF SEDDON HOW’S this for an idea? Build a bike with a power-to-weight ratio greater than any road bike before it, then sell it for less than anything of comparable performance. Yes, I know, who’d ever buy it, but it was 1969. The co

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS SIMON DAVIDSON OUTBACK South Australia is home to salt racing and one of the fastest Vincents ever built, Mal Hewett’s 185mph Land Speed Special. Just shy of 300km/h in the new money, it’s a phenomenal speed for any naturall

WITH JAMIE McILWRAITH HAVE you ever had a friend who’s a bit hard to impress? While everyone else is going “Wow!”, your mate is shrugging his or her shoulders and going “Meh”. I was one of those hard-to-impress people when I was road-testing bikes. I

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOGRAPHY THOMAS WIELECKI “IT EVENTUATED INTO A BEHEMOTH OF A BUILD THAT TOOK ALMOST A YEAR TO COMPLETE” THIS is the third BMW R nineT we’ve featured in just seven issues of the relaunched Retrobike, not what you’d expect for a m

WITH JAMIE McILWRAITH “I could hear them saying, ‘Let him just test scooters from now on’” MY MATE described it as a ‘Flying W’, which I suppose is as good a description as any, but I wasn’t really in any position to tell if he was right or wrong, be

WORDS JUSTIN HOLMES PHOTOGRAPHY KENNY SMITH “THE PLAN WAS TO MAKE IT LARGER OVERALL BUT STILL KEEP THE ORIGINAL PROPORTIONS” THIS little Honda came to me as an impulse buy from the Mudgeeraba Swap. After a bit of haggling, I handed over $350 and it w

WITH PAUL BAILEY “58 years later, I’m still sitting on motorcycles and still dribbling over them” LAST week I celebrated my 58th birthday. Bloody hell!! Where has the time gone? So many years and so many memories and time just seems to be getting sho

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON | PHOTOS SIMON DAVIDSON “THIS YEAR SOME 90 BIKES TOOK PART, SPLIT ROUGHLY BETWEEN LATE MODELS AND EARLY GIRLS” THIS was my third trip to Lake Gairdner, the enormous 160km-long dry salt lake in the South Australian outback, for Spee

WITH JIMMI WALKER “In 20 years time, anything that turns petrol into fun will be taboo and boredom will kill us all” YOU may or may not know that I am a member of a bunch of delinquents known as the Aussie Streetfighters, and once a year we have an a

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOGRAPHY BEN CHAN & DANTE DIZON BENJIE Flipperboi has been building custom bikes for 10 years from his premises in Corona, California, better known worldwide as the home of Fender guitars. His business, BCR Designs (for Benjie’s

WORDS STEVEN WYMAN-BLACKBURN & GEOFF SEDDON PAINTINGS TOM FRITZ “THE OLD BIKE'S BEEN HANDLED WITH CARE, REFLECTING THE OWNER'S PRIDE AND MECHANICAL ABILITY” A BOY stares longingly at his father’s Cushman Eagle scooter. Dad can be heard in the garage

THE Shoei J.O helmet combines style and safety, with an integrated visor adjustable to three positions to fit different profiles perfectly. Ultra-compact and super light, the J.O features a small, low, snug fit, fully removable interior liner and wei

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS JOHNNY DOUGLAS HAMILTON “WITH ACCESS TO A FULL RACE WORKSHOP, THERE WAS NO BETTER TIME TO FLEX MY CREATIVE SKILLS” BILLY MacKenzie is the most famous British motocross racer of the modern era, national champion in 2007 and 2

— WORDS & PHOTOS GEOFF SEDDON “I like riding Nortons. I got my first one in 1964 and they went like anything” COL Graham is a stalwart of the NSW Central Coast classic bike community and an acknowledged expert on all things Norton, especially the lon

WORDS & PHOTOS GEOFF SEDDON “IT’S NOT OFTEN PEOPLE LIKE US HAVE THE CHANCE TO GET UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH A LEGEND LIKE FREDDIE SPENCER” IT’S BEEN 31 years since Freddie Spencer won both the 250cc and 500cc World Championships in the same season,

“Talk about the most fun you can have kneeling down!” SITTING in the workshop, my mind drifts back to my motorcycle heritage. I’m a third-generation enthusiast. My grandfather rode a 1924 Douglas, my father rode AJS and Coventry-Eagle and my first bi

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS DANIEL LINNET/LINNET FOTO LAWRENCE Ryan is a 45-year-old professional motorcycle daredevil from Junee in the central west of NSW. He first appeared on my radar more than 15 years ago, as Lawrence Legend tunnelling fire, smas

RESTORING a 1967 Triumph Tiger 90 has brought many pleasures, none more so than working on it with my son, who left home at 18. When I started the project I had energy and passion, but that only lasted so long and it was grinding to a halt. My son, n

PAROLE ALAN CATHCART FOTOGRAFIE KYOICHI NAKAMURA “IT WAS THE FIRST TIME DUCATI HAD WON ANYTHING BIG SINCE THE 125 GPS IN THE LATE 1950S” AFTER winning 14 World Superbike titles in 26 years, and now once again competitive in MotoGP, Ducati’s standing