Table of contents for #27 WINTER 2017 in Retrobike

FROM the dawn of motorcycling, riders have raced each other to determine who was the fastest. We started on public roads, such as they were, but it wasn’t long before more formal arrangements were introduced. Amongst the earliest official motorsport events Down Under were speed trials held on Sellicks Beach in South Australia, organised by the Levis Motor Cycle Club in the early 1920s. The Club was established as the Levis Social Club in 1922 and named after the then popular two-stroke Levis motorcycle; its charter was to organise social outings and events for its members. By far the most popular were occasional speed trials at Sellicks, which became an annual event from 1924, usually on the Australia Day weekend in January. The beach was an ideal location as under…

“THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF TATTOOS, BEARDS AND PRETTY GIRLS, SO IT HAS A VERY COOL FEEL ABOUT IT” THROTTLE Roll celebrated its fifth year with a cracking day/night festival on Easter Saturday, the second event to be held in Railway Parade, Marrickville, in Sydney’s inner west after outgrowing its original digs at the Victoria Hotel in Enmore. Once again, the bikes were outstanding, the bands hot and the crowd chilled. Yep, they close off the whole street, which is amazing enough and testament to the ability of the Throttle Roll crew to make things happen. We love everything about this event and it’s hard to find criticism, apart maybe from a shortage of food outlets in past years which led to lengthy queues. This was addressed in 2017, without…

THE vast outback salt flat that is Lake Gairdner in South Australia is a fickle mistress. The allure of having your way with her for as long as you dare is intoxicating. She is beautiful beyond imagination but difficult to reach. And when you finally get there, you’ll never know which way she’ll turn. Will it be a happy ending, an ego-bruising disappointment or something in between that leaves you lusting for more? “At Lake Gairdner, every year is different,” says Greg Wapling of organising body Dry Lakes Racers Australia. “The surface of the salt in 2017 was probably the best it’s been for many years.” Photographer Simon Davidson, who has covered the event for longer than anybody, says “the salt was superb, magical in appearance. It looked as if…

GOBSMACKED again. I really should only read motorcycle road tests that come with spoiler alerts warning of stupid facts up ahead. The bike test was of a 1690cc tourer — not a sports bike, but a lazy, fat-arsed tourer — and the tester said you’d probably need to snick back from sixth to fifth gear, maybe even fourth if you’re in a hurry, to overtake on highways. What has the world come to? They give you an engine big enough to haul a car and it’s better if you changed down a gear to overtake? They’ve got something wrong here. Surely with a 1690cc engine you could actually dispense with a few gears, rather than add an extra one? This sad state of gearbox internals ain’t progress as far as…

TONY Bianco was three sheets to the wind when the pub talk turned to flat trackers and street trackers. “The younger guys think they’ve just reinvented street trackers, but some of us older blokes have been building them since the 1970s,” he says. One thing they agreed on was the ultimate street tracker would have to be based on the ultimate flat tracker, so the consensus was maybe a replica of an XR750 Harley- Davidson. “I said no, the ultimate flat tracker was Kenny Roberts’s Yamaha TZ750. The younger blokes didn’t know what I was talking about and started Googling on their phones. I not only said I could build one but I could do it cheap. Once I’d sobered up I wondered what had I got myself into.” The…

THE Mooneyes Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show is the largest indoor custom car and motorcycle show in Japan and one of the coolest in the world, drawing an international celebrity crowd. Bikes have long been a big part of the mix and it takes something really special to win it. Enter Kengo Kimura, the quietly-spoken proprietor of Heiwa Motorcycles which he established in Hiroshima in 2005. He and his small team have built more than 100 customs in the years since, mostly based on Japanese bikes but including some 15 Triumphs, almost all of them pushrod twins built before the Meriden factory closed in 1983. This is his latest. Like many elite builders, Kengo prefers not to work from drawings or concepts, instead following his gut feel and skilful eye.…

SWEDEN is the second home of the chopper. The summer riding season is short before the snow comes, with long winters providing plenty of opportunity for customising. Choppers have been part of the mix since the 1960s but, unlike the rest of the world, in Sweden they never went away. Peter Ström is a Harley-Davidson enthusiast in Stockholm with a particular passion for Sportsters. His recent builds include a trike for his wife and bobber for his daughter, both of which featured in local magazines. “With this build I wanted a drag-racing, hot-rod style,” Peter says. “I thought what could be more associated with drag racing and hot rodding than Mooneyes Speed Equipment,” referring to the renowned aftermarket manufacturer. Amongst their most famous and enduring products are small remote Moon…

“IT DOESN’T REQUIRE TOO MUCH EFFORT TO FIT A 1200 BANDIT INTO A GSX-R750” BIKE builder James Mott of Hand Made Racers in Brisbane is careful not to describe his latest build, the HMR XRc 1200, as a replica of the famous Texaco Heron Suzuki XR69 F1 racers. It’s what the muscle car guys would call a ‘tribute’. James likes to call it a ‘celebration’. Team Heron Suzuki was a British motorcycle racing team that competed in Formula 1 and 500GP during the mid to late 1970s and early 1980s. With riders of the calibre of Barry Sheene, Steve Parrish and Graeme Crosby, the team enjoyed considerable success with Sheene winning the 500 GP world championship in 1976 and 1977. Crosby also won consecutive F1 world championships in 1981 and…

IMAGINE the same individual racing both cars and bikes at Grand Prix level on alternate weekends with equal success. It’d be like Valentino Rossi racing a Ferrari to beat Hamilton and Vettel this week, then swapping to his Yamaha the next against Marquez and Vi?ales! But that's what Tazio Nuvolari did back in the 1920s, taking it in turns to win the Italian GP on four wheels for Alfa Romeo and on two wheels for Bianchi, year after year. This is his bike. These days known for bicycles, Bianchi was a major player in the early Italian motorcycle industry. Although involved in road racing from before WW1, it was not until 1924 that they produced the machine which would win 95 races on European racetracks over the next six years;…

TO BE invited to ride what is almost certainly the last 100 per cent original example of the most desirable production racer ever made is an act of unfathomable generosity and implied trust on the part of its new owner Nicolas Dourassoff. So it was important I brought back the ex-Jack Ehret 1951 Vincent Black Lightning in one piece. With just 8682 kilometres on its Euro-spec 300km/h Smiths clock, almost every one of them in anger Down Under, it is living history on two wheels. Now domiciled in France, those kilometres also include my two dozen laps at the Carole race circuit near Paris, to which Nicolas brought the battle-scarred warrior that had been recommissioned for use by Patrick Godet for me to ride on a regular track day. However,…

“STANCE WAS BANG ON SO IT WAS TIME TO FOCUS ON MAKING IT A FUNCTIONAL MOTORCYCLE AGAIN” THE all-new 1200cc Triumph T120 was not yet in full production when the factory first approached Alec Sharp and Rafe Pugh from Old Empire Motorcycles early last year about building a custom from it. It was a big call from both sides. OEM had been approached a few times regarding working for a big brand, but it never came about previously due to their practice of working without preconceived visual references, instead going wherever their muse took them over the course of the build. “It’s difficult to convince the company to just leave it to us,” Alec says. “As we have turned out more and more bikes, that trust gets stronger and the…

THE integration of Tangles’ home workshop into Old Mate Motorcycles in Mittagong is going well. Old mate Peter White and I enjoy getting our teeth into all manner of different problems and projects, and no two days are the same. The best bit is meeting people and talking bikes. You just never know who will walk into the workshop next. I am constantly amazed how people seem to match their bikes and you never know what some people have tucked away in their sheds. People also have wildly different expectations of how they want their mechanical and electrical work done. Also enjoyable is how Pete and I plan our approach to fixing each particular bike; every job is different. The basic bike service is of course quite easy, although some…