Retrobike

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON MAX Hazan has a house style that transcends his trademark metal-finished bodywork, elegant simple frames and always innovative engineering. He is first and foremost an artist, which is reflected in everything from his choice of don

WORDS & PHOTOS RUSS MURRAY ANYONE who has been involved in the restoration of a 1970s Ducati will have come across Damien Birch’s business, Bevel Rubber, which produces and supplies high-quality parts for bevel-drive Ducatis. The Melbourne-based busi

WORDS ALAN CATHCART HOLLAND’S Nico Bakker is the couturier of chassis builders, the welding wizard who’s the man to consult when you want a high-class piece of hardware to wrap around a motor to create a unique bike that handles well and looks the bu

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON ACCORDING to Wikipedia, camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, colours or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see or disguising them as something else. “THE ONE-OFF SEAT UNIT I

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON WE WERE surprised to learn at the launch of the new Speedmaster that the Bobber, on which the Speedmaster is based, is Triumph’s best-selling model. Not surprised because we didn’t like it, because we did, a lot (Snake Charmer, Ret

WORDS & PHOTOS GEOFF SEDDON TO LOOK at, Suzuki’s new SV650X isn’t the most in-your-face cafe racer on the market, but it impressed from the moment we fired it up. The clip-ons are in exactly the right place relative to the solo-style seat and slightl

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON LONGTIME salt racers say there is only one constant in land speed racing, and that is that every meeting is different. The surface is always changing, and that perfect tune one year will be lean or rich the next. And then there’s t

WORDS JIM GIANATSIS & GEOFF SEDDON RICHARD Pollock from Mule Motorcycles in Southern California is a legendary custom bike builder, best known for his street tracker style of bikes. He works with almost any type of motorcycle engine, be it an old jun

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON THE annual QBE International Festival of Speed at Sydney Motor Sport Park is the biggest motorcycle sporting event in NSW. With more than 400 classic and post-classic bikes competing in 50-plus races over three days, the on-track a

WORDS SALLY-ANNE FOWLES TRAVELLERS on the long overland route across Australia were amazed to see a girl, travelling alone on a high-powered motor cycle, flash past them with a cheery wave,” reported People magazine in April 1951. “The lone rider was

WORDS GEOFF SEDDON IF THIS bike looks kind of familiar, it should, especially if you ride a modern Harley-Davidson big twin. For this is the great-great-great-grand-daddy of all of them, Harley-Davidson’s first proper V-twin, and so successful that i

WORDS & PHOTOS RUSS MURRAY THE 1969 movie Easy Rider was a story of two freewheeling bikers who rode across the American south-west carrying the proceeds of a drug deal and aiming to reach New Orleans in time for the Mardi Gras festival. Starring Pet

WITH GEOFF SEDDON “Nick built his own salt racer, from scratch, around a 40-year-old Yamaha XS650 engine” I FIRST travelled to Lake Gairdner in South Australia for Speed Week 15 years ago. I was the editor of car magazine Street Machine at the time

WORDS ALAN CATHCART THIRTY years ago, the Moto Guzzi Daytona high-cam eight-valve engine made its public debut in the US Battle of the Twins, before reaching production for customer sale in 1992. The saga of American dentist Dr John Wittner and his ‘

WITH JAMIE McILWRAITH MY 89-year-old mother-in-law is a wonderful woman. She still has all her marbles and won’t say no to a bit more champagne. Like many people of her great vintage she reckons her good old days were much better than today’s constan