Table of contents for Issue 46 in Retrobike

WITH ITS massively finned overhead-cam engine, and the rakish appearance lent by its spindly-looking yet purposeful girder fork, the 350cc Velocette KTT Mk VIII is unquestionably one of the most beautiful racing motorcycles ever built. Racebikes are supposed to be functional pieces of machinery, built for a purpose, but the KTT Mk VIII combines form and function in a way that, on a purely subjective basis, I don’t think any other single-cylinder motorcycle ever quite matched. There’s something indefinably attractive about the square finning of its single-OHC engine with just enough rounding-off of the edges, its ‘dog kennel’ rocker covers, the graceful sweep of the open-megaphone exhaust, and of course that handsome gold-lined black petrol tank with the discreet but classy Velocette logo that was Always in the Picture, according…

A BIG V-TWIN bark was the signal for the rider to accelerate, to try to stay ahead of West Australian racer Owen Coles … but it was always in vain, the Vee Two Alchemy would loft its front wheel and shoot past the Ducati Darmah I was astride, a passenger facing backwards trying to capture Coles’ wheelies on film. That was 30 years ago, and it was pretty close to terrifying as I tried to hang on, shoot pictures, all while the rider of the bike I was on was trying to put me in the perfect place for the perfect photo. That rider was Brook Henry, owner of Vee Two, builder of the Alchemy. The Alchemy — Henry’s frame equipped with Ducati bevel-drive motors, also built by Brook —…

MEMORIES from your youth … it’s the ones that make you smile that are the most precious. As the son of a confirmed petrol head who raced cars and rode bikes, it was clear ‘Super’ fuel was going to run rich in my veins. I’ve so many memories of afternoons at Sydney’s now long defunct Amaroo Park, clambering over the rock-strewn hillsides and watching on as Gally, Gunter and Granquist did their stuff on the motocross track. But one day really stands out: the time I snuck around to the road race track, and the shriek, the wail, the howl, of a then new Honda superbike captured the attention of everyone within ear shot. It was the 1978 Honda CBX1000 on debut and I’ve never forgotten clambering down to the…

“LIGHTER, SMALLER AND CHEAPER THAN THE BIG TWIN HARLEYS …” IT WAS Kawasaki Superbike celebration at the Broadford Bike Bonanza this year, owners keen to show off their bikes and celebrate the model turning 50 years old. Back after a COVID-enforced hiatus, the annual festival was back at the Broadford Motorcycle Complex just over an hour’s drive from Melbourne over Easter, with a small but enthusiastic group of riders bringing their bikes out to play. The event was first held in 2009 with the intent to get bikes out of the shed and onto the track for everyone to see and not just the road bikes but also, race, dirt, scrambles, motocross, speedway and trials, basically numerous forms of motorcycling sports. Each year there has been a tribute and theme…

AS A welder, fabricator and engineering shop owner, Trevor Dodds doesn’t mess about — he builds motorcycles from the ground up, methodically making sure they are right and doing something about it if it’s not. So much so when he decided to slot his 1976 Kawasaki z900 motor into a 1977 z1000 frame he had a cold hard look at where over 40 years of history had shown where the tubular chassis’ weak points were and fixing them. Then, when he could have simply put the bike on historic club registration, he instead paid thousands to have it fully inspected, checked and approved by an engineer so it could be fully registered and easily insured for its full value. “The inspection was really thorough — bolt threads needed to extend…

"… THE MACH 1 THE FIRST HIGH PERFORMANCE 250CC ITALIAN STREET SINGLE TO BE WIDELY COVETED …" WAY BACK in 1964 Ducati engineering guru Fabio Taglioni designed the company’s first customer road bike capable of breaking the 100 mph barrier, the legendary 250cc Mach 1. Just 838 examples of this nowadays much prized ton-up model were constructed in the company’s Borgo Panigale factory in Bologna in 1964–66, weighing 116kg dry and fitted with the ultimate evolution of its first-generation air-cooled narrow-crankcase unit-construction SOHC valve-spring motor, with bevel-shaft camdrive producing a claimed 27.6 bhp at 8500 rpm. Among the Ducati Mach 1’s many accomplishments was delivering the Italian manufacturer its two first-ever race victories in the Isle of Man TT. First came Mike Rogers’ win in the 1969 250cc Production TT…

IT WAS going to be called The Meteor. That would have been unfortunate — Royal Enfield, of course, released a model of that name soon after the ideas for this bike were being bounced around. “We realised that we’d have to come up with something else. It was still going to be pretty much the same bike you see here,” says Lincoln Smart, owner of both Albury’s Fast Fuel Motorcycles. Albury is the town on the New South Wales–Victoria border and although it was technically bypassed by a freeway some years back, it’s still a very busy place — and one of the better locations in the country to live if you like twisty roads and cafe racers. The border, you’ll remember, is the river, and roads following that river…

WAY BACK in the 1980s, a former dentist and Moto Guzzi enthusiast talked the factory into supporting his plans to develop a racing frame for the legendary V-twin: Dr John Wittner’s bike would go on to win the 1987 Battle of the Twins series in the USA, bringing much-needed publicity to the brand and new ideas for its future sportsbike frames. Now, 35 year later, you can buy a Dr. John Tribute kit to make your Guzzi look very special from Italian racing and custom firm Ghezzi-Brian. The kit has been designed to be mounted on models of the 1100 Sport, Daytona 1000, Daytona RS and V11 series; it is installed relatively easily, without making any modifications to the donor bike. Ghezzi-Brian started out building bikes to win races before…

Classic Rebuild 1972 HONDA CB750 BEAUTIFUL WHEN it rolled off the production line in 1972 it may have been, but when this CB750 arrived at Jax Garage recently it was badly in need of a makeover, or maybe even some more serious surgery. According to the owner, it hadn’t run in quite some time. He even considered parting with it as he moved from one of the most isolated major cities in the world, Perth, to Melbourne. But he knew he wanted something unique, and JAX Garage, a Melbourne-based custom workshop, had the team to do it. After some back-and-forth emails he decided to bring it along with him on his 3400-kilometre trek. When the classic Honda arrived at the workshop it was in a sorry state. It was leaking…

COLUMN ROOTHY ROOTH IN DRAG BANG. THE TV lit up. No, not the war news, men in yellow shirts blown around like rag dolls. Chaos, but not really. Already the fire extinguishers, the ambos. It happened in an instance but the response was as fast as they’d practised. Trackside angels if you’re in the middle of that shit. I wandered into a workshop once, moments after a Harley-motored top bike blew its rear cylinder head. Caused because the mix was so explosive it had to be cleared after a miss fire on start up. And they hadn’t. Thank God nobody was sitting on it or their balls would’ve been sprayed across the roof. The sun was shining through a new hole. As a journo I got to hang around plenty…