Table of contents for RCBE #25 SUMMER 2016/17 in Retrobike

“THE LESS SUITED YOUR BIKE IS TO THE TASK, THE BETTER SUITED IT IS TO DIRT QUAKE” GOT a motorbike and don’t mind getting it dirty? Latent competitive streak busting to break out? What about a sense of humour? Well then have we got the event for you! Dirt Quake is the brainchild of Gary Inman, founder of uber-cool UK dirt-track magazine, Sideburn. Now in its fifth year, Dirt Quake has spawned similar events all over the world, including licensed events on the west coast of the USA and the excellent Ellaspede Dust Hustle at Mick Doohan Raceway in Queensland that we covered in issue 21. But Sideburn (which Inman modestly and accurately describes as the ‘world’s greatest, go fast, turn left magazine’) and Dirt Quake is where it all…

“THE URBAN HIPSTER TAG WAS NEVER REALLY ACCURATE” RETROBIKE is a big fan of the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, which is why we’ve covered the last two Sydney events and one in Perth. Conceived by Mark Hawwa and the Sydney Cafe Racers, it has always had that inner-city custom vibe about it. Hip young folk ride loud stripped-down customs through the centre of the CBD, but dressed up in suits for fun and charity. Lots of beards and man hugs and pretty girls in frocks, to a backdrop of bridges and skyscrapers. It sounds like a lot of fun and it is, a genuine dead-set hoot in fact — riding with so many other bikes is worth the cost of entry alone — and it’s no surprise the concept swept the…

“THIS IS WHEN SEVERAL OF US FOUND OUT EXACTLY HOW MUCH OIL WE DIDN’T HAVE LEFT IN THE STRUTS” I ENJOY writing. There is nobody to argue with and blame can be shifted wherever I like. In that spirit, this trip was all Kade's and Beau’s fault. We are a group of blokes from an underground workshop at CSA Copper Mine in Cobar, NSW. We have a social club that we pay a few bucks into every fortnight, and our employer also makes a contribution. Kade and Beau came up with a half-cocked idea to buy everyone a postie bike. Momentum gained and in October 2015 everyone agreed to throw in a couple of hundred dollars and Kade and Beau would go to the Aussie Post auctions in Sydney. Low-km…

“There are bits that I like, and bits that I don’t like” LIKE many of you, I love motorcycle videos taken from the rider’s point of view, especially the ones roaring around the Isle of Man’s 37 miles of roads through countryside and village. Insane? Yes. Insanely fast? Definitely. There are dozens of these high-speed rides to watch on YouTube, but my favourite of the genre is an early one, from 1983. Honda made a video called V-Four Victory, featuring the legendary (and late) Joey Dunlop, the Northern Irishman who dominated the Isle of Man TT back then. As it was a slick PR video, the footage quality for those times was exceptional, and I’ve watched it many times. However, the special extra thing for me was Joey’s own commentary…

WAXED COTTON PANNIERS GENUINE Triumph panniers offer a combined 27.6L of storage and come complete with mounting harness. Able to be mounted individually or as a pair. $825 triumphmotorcycles.com.au LEATHERMAN TREAD THE TREAD is a bracelet that contains 29 integrated tools. Remove the bracelet and the links provide enough stability to be used as a tool. Swap the links to personalise for your use. 25-year guarantee. Stainless $306 Black $429 leatherman.com.au BLACKBIRD APPAREL LOOKING for something a bit different? Blackbird Motorcycle Wear has you covered in stylish and practical men's and women's leather and textile jackets. Military Jacket $285 Ladies Waterproof Jacket $329 blackbirdmotorcyclewear.com AKUBRA LUGGAGE AKUBRA has just released a range of luggage and bags in leather and canvas. Made in Australia to…

STEVE McQueen was a Hollywood icon starring in movies such as The Great Escape, Bullitt, Le Mans and On Any Sunday. He was also a genuine petrolhead and amassed an impressive collection of 130 bikes and cars, many of which he raced and often under a pseudonym to retain some anonymity. One of his favourite bikes was this off-road Triumph which now resides in Australia and was recently on display at Motorclassica in Melbourne. Steve’s son Chad was in attendance at the event and happy to talk about his dad’s collection. Of all the bikes Steve owned, this particular Triumph held special significance due to his personal history with it. The bike started life as a 1963 Bonneville — engine # T120 DU 1683, frame # DU 1683 — before…

“THE ENGINE IS MADE FROM TWO ROYAL ENFIELD 500 SINGLES JOINED ON A COMMON CRANKCASE” MAX Hazan is as much interested in art as motorcycles, yet his builds display levels of engineering innovation rarely seen in custom bike circles. His style is minimalist in the extreme which sometimes calls for radical solutions, yet his bikes function. We here at Retrobikecall it art that works. Initially from New York, Hazan moved to Los Angeles, the custom capital of the world, a few years ago and hasn’t looked back. He aims to build just a couple of bikes per year, up until recently just for himself but which he later on-sold. He is grateful that his early builds have now attracted an open-minded client base to fund his art, without in any…

“WITH THE RUNNING GEAR AND ENGINE UNTOUCHED, IT STILL GOES, STOPS AND HANDLES LIKE A BRAND NEW PANIGALE” DESIGN houses will often customise a new bike to promote their work; think Roland Sands’ Indian Scout and Deus ex Machina’s Heinrich Maneuver BMW. Sometimes it’s a commission from the factory or distributor, sometimes a wealthy client and sometimes it’s just for the hell of it. Invariably it will be a retro-styled bike that they start with. Meanwhile the rest of us forage for older models whose best resale years are behind them, or build customs from later-model damaged bikes too expensive to fix. So it’s not often a brand new sports bike gets the custom bike treatment at the hands of its owner, let alone turned into a rat bike, but…

“I WANTED TO SHOW THAT A BACKYARD FELLA COULD STILL BUILD SOMETHING THAT LOOKS ALL RIGHT” ENTHUSIASTS who know their early Kawasakis will pick this Z1 for a highly-modified hot rod in an instant, but it’s those who don’t who give owner Anthony Anderson the most satisfaction. “It amuses me, the comments people make,” Anthony says. “One fella told me I’d done a wonderful job restoring it. Another tried to convince me that he knew of one that was exactly the same. Probably the best was this very rough-looking guy who walked up and said, ‘I don’t even bloody like motorbikes but I like that!’” For the record, the only stock parts on this bike are the fuel tank, side-covers, ducktail, mirrors, indicators, handgrips and seat cover — just enough…

“THE RESULT IS THAT TRADEMARK BMW FLAT-TWIN IMITATION OF A LOW-FLYING AIRCRAFT AT FULL THROTTLE” HELMUT Dähne joined BMW as an apprentice mechanic, aged 15, in 1959. In a 15-year career, he rose to development engineer and chief road tester before moving to Metzeler. He also raced BMW boxer twins in enduro events and, from 1970, in road racing, generally with little support from the factory. He debuted at the Isle of Man in 1972, after a credible 13th on his home-built R75/5 at the Imola 200 behind Paul Smart and Bruno Spaggiari on their all-new desmo Ducatis (Retrobike #23). Riding a stock R75/5, Dähne placed fourth in the Production TT, and backed up with fourth again in 1973. In 1974, BMW released the revered R90S streetbike; Dähne immediately upgraded…

“It’s great when we turn up in great numbers to show solidarity for a cause” THE last few issues I’ve talked about the motorcycle family and how we all have a shared passion for bikes and we are all linked because of our love of the motorcycle. Last weekend I went on a Black Dog Ride that ended at the halfway cafe on the Putty Road. Black Dog is all about depression and raising the awareness of this terrible disorder that can affect so many of us for so many different reasons. Life, it can be bastard sometimes, and sometimes we just can’t handle it alone. I’ve had my Black Dog, after a life-and-death accident that left me lying on the road with no heartbeat and not breathing after a…

ROAD testing motorcycles is a funny old game. I’ve been doing it for 30 years and never rode one I didn’t like; well, apart from the Triumph Rocket III. But only rarely does one come along that makes me want to buy it. The Royal Enfield Continental GT is such a bike. I’ve always wanted to try one but it has taken ’til now for the planets to align. Mine came in GT Green, along with an optional sports muffler and aftermarket bar-end mirrors. I’d just got off a Classic 500 model (which we’ll bring you next issue) and the Continental is a totally different pair of underpants. The GT 535 runs a slightly bigger version of the same engine but there the similarities end. And it is as different…

THE UGLY DUCKLING TOP read on the GSX750. What a sweet bike, I love it! I've always wanted to modernise an old bike, to me it’s best of both worlds. Can I have a go before you sell it, Peter? Glen Hibbard QUAKE CITY RUMBLERS #1 PUKKA last issue. Loved how the Quake City Rumblers made the best of a bad situation. Hope they’re okay after the recent earthquakes. Kit Walker QUAKE CITY RUMBLERS #2 AS an ex-pat Kiwi, permanent Australian resident and lifelong motorcyclist, I really enjoyed the story on the lads from Christchurch. More than two strokes is a wank, what a great line! Bruce Morley AUSTRALIA’S BEST LAVERDA I AM totally in awe of the amount of customisation that has gone into Red Cawte’s Motodd Laverda. I…

“STANCE IS ALWAYS THE FIRST THING YOU HAVE TO GET RIGHT” THIS build is as unlikely as it is possible to imagine. Commissioned by a Dutch clothing brand, designed by an ex-pat German in Switzerland and built in downtown Amsterdam, the Vanguard V8 Racer immediately evokes the style of the legendary 1955 Moto Guzzi 500cc V8 GP racer. But rather than basing it on a lithe sportster, they went for the portliest model in the Moto Guzzi catalogue, a monster 1400cc Eldorado tourer! Yet somehow it works. The original GP racer was an engineering marvel. There were few eligibility rules back then, apart from a ban on turbochargers and superchargers. While most of the 500 field plodded around on production Manx Nortons, the bike to beat was the factory DOHC…

“THIS IS NOT A COMFORTABLE BIKE AND GOOD LUCK PUTTING BOTH FEET DOWN AT A STOP LIGHT” IF YOU have to ask who Mert Lawwill is, then you’ve never seen the best bike movie of all time, Bruce Brown’s On Any Sunday. For Lawwill, now 75, was AMA champion in 1969, and the movie chronicled his bid to defend his title. By the time he hung up his racing leathers in 1977, he’d amassed a total of 161 AMA Grand National race finishes, including 15 race wins and a second in the 1965 Daytona 200. For almost all that time, Lawwill rode an XR750 Harley-Davidson, the most successful Harley race bike of all time and also one of the most distinctive, with twin carburettors mounted high on the right-hand side…

“IF THE MOTORCYCLES ARE TO BE RIDDEN, THEN WE HAVE TO MAKE THEM AS USEABLE AS WE CAN” YAMAHA made no secret that the original SR500, released in 1978, was their version of a traditional British sporting single. They came only in black and gold, with the side-cover decals reading ‘500 Single’ just in case you didn’t get it. The SR400 went on sale in Japan the same year; amazingly, you can still buy one brand new nearly 40 years later. So it’s fitting that this superb cafe racer, based on a new SR400, was made in England by our mates at Old Empire Motorcycles. We’ve run a few of their customs over the years, all of which were based on older bikes, but the times they are a’changing. “As…

“I FOUND MYSELF THE PROUD OWNER OF A MOTORCYCLING CURIOSITY AND A GROWING NUMBER OF RANDOM PARTS” I GOT thinking about custom bikes after talking to Leo Yip on the Ellaspede stand at the Troy Bayliss Moto Expo in Brisbane in March 2014. I developed a vague idea of building a cafe racer with an old-school Avon fairing and a GT stripe but not much else, not even a donor bike, when an MZ Skorpion Tour popped up in Sydney on eBay. There was always something special about them; the large-diameter tube perimeter frame was a real standout. I didn’t know the MZ brand well but the reviews of the time spoke glowingly of the Skorpion at least. And so I found myself the proud owner of a motorcycling curiosity…

“Our mums feared the worst. Our dads were just glad to get rid of us for the weekend” SIZE doesn’t matter, or does it? When I was a wee boy, I used to think that having a big bike was the only way to have fun. The bigger, the better. So I aspired to more numbers on my side-covers until eventually they reached the magic 1000. I found that indeed the big air-cooled four was a monster and took manly muscles to control, but I had had just as much fun on most of my smaller bikes, included the tiddlers. After reading last issue’s Boomtown Rats feature, it got me thinking about those mad Kiwis and the hilarious bikes they ride. We used to have a loosely-organised event called Moped…

SEDDO’S budget Norton Commando unexpectedly went onto one cylinder. It had fuel so he suspected a plug or coil, but swapping in new ones didn’t help. Then it wouldn’t start at all. The bike also had other issues; the battery wasn’t charging and it had taken to blowing the main ignition fuse. Time to call in the professionals! On my recommendation, he trailered the bike to Peter White of Old Mate Motorcycles in Mittagong, NSW. He works on all kinds of bikes and has a reputation for getting anything going. I was also around to lend a hand; with an early start, we figured we’d be done by lunchtime. DAY ONE FIRST up, Peter tracked down and repaired the electrical short before turning to the engine. The life signs were…