Retrobike

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS CAMERON WHITE “ONCE THE AUSSIES GOT THE JUMP IT WAS VERY HARD TO CLAW THEM BACK” THE Island Classic, held each Australia Day long weekend on Phillip Island, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018 in fine style. With more th

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS FRANCO MOTTURA & PAOLO TESIO “I WAS FASCINATED BY THE BUELL’S EXAGGERATED PROPORTIONS AND ITS STRONG PERSONALITY” PAOLO ‘Tex’ Tesio has a day job as an automotive and industrial designer in an engineering firm contracted to

JAMWITH WRAITH JAMIE McILWRAITH A RIDE down to Taralga and back? That’s definitely one of the better long weekend rides if you’re based in Sydney. Less often than I’d like to, but every now and then I ride down to visit an old mate who lives on a cou

WORDS ALAN CATHCART PHOTOGRAPHY KEL EDGE “THE ENGINE IS A REPLICA OF THE MANX NORTON ON WHICH GEOFF DUKE WON THE 1952 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP” CALLING a bike a bobber nowadays has become as ubiquitous a term as cafe racer or street tracker. But Fred Walms

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOGRAPHY MARC HOLSTEIN PLAN B Motorcycles is a small ‘neo-cafe’ custom workshop in northern Italy, owned and operated by the talented Christian Moretti. The workshop’s name comes from Christian’s preference for starting with wha

WORDS & PHOTOS GEOFF SEDDON IT’S almost a cliche to say a test bike attracted a lot of attention, but nothing truer could be said about the Kawasaki Z900RS. Although it shares not a single part with (and is substantially larger than) the original Z1,

WORDS & PHOTOS RUSS MURRAY “MELBOURNE TURNED ON A PERFECT DAY WITH SUNNY SKIES, RESULTING IN A MASSIVE TURNOUT OF BIKES” THE Festival of Italian Motorcycles (FoIM) can trace its origins back to the Pyramid Hill Rallies in the early 1980s hosted by th

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS TOM GRIFFITHS “PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES IS WHAT GIVES CUSTOM ITS MEANING” ONE of the things we like best about the modern custom scene is that many builders — amateurs and pros alike — aren’t too fussy about what they start wi

WORDS ALAN CATHCART PHOTOGRAPHY KEL EDGE LONDON’S Ace Cafe is the spiritual birthplace of the cafe racer. To celebrate its 80th birthday this year, owners Mark Wilsmore and George Tsuchnikas collaborated with local lad Nick Gale of Nick Gale Custom C

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS RODGER KNAPE WITH much of the focus in vintage Japanese motorcycling on the large-capacity "superbikes" that dominated the market from the 1970s on, we forget that it was their smaller bikes that also cemented Japan's perman

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS RYAN KELLY MODEL KRYSTAL “YOU SEE A LOT OF CAFE RACERS ON THE INTERNET AND I DIDN’T WANT IT LOOKING THE SAME” TONY Da Silva has been into motorcycles for most of his adult life, firstly in South Africa and more recently in W

WORDS MR SMITH THERE’S no doubt about it. I’m a typical tradesman. Well, it’s not that I’m a real tradesman. I left the Fixing Things business shortly before The Powers That Be declared it compulsory to possess the State Letter from Dad allowing me t

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS MOTOR RAUSCH THE Province of Parma in the north of Italy is best known for its delicious food, most famously prosciutto ham and Parmesan cheese, but if a bunch of young custom bike fiends have their way, it might also soon b

WORDS ALAN CATHCART PHOTOS AC ARCHIVES THIS year’s Isle of Man TT will mark 40 years since Mike Hailwood’s legendary comeback victory in the 1978 TT, following an 11-year break from racing there while he pursued a car racing career in Formula 1. And

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON PHOTOS RAFE PUGH TRIUMPH’S Bonneville has been a favourite with custom bike builders since its release as a pre-unit OHV 650 twin in 1959. The second-generation air-cooled 790/865cc OHC models from 2001 proved just as popular and n