Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 72 i Old Bike Australasia

The motorcycle that was created to win the World Superbike Championship – and succeeded in 1988 and 1989 – the Honda RC30, was, after six years, getting a bit long in the tooth. By 1994, something was needed to stay with the likes of the Ducati 916, the Kawasaki ZX7-R and soon, the Suzuki GSXR-750. That something was the RC45, or the evolution of the RVF750 if you prefer. “With the only works squad in the event, Honda UK and the Castrol RC45s would dominate the TT for the next five years. Honda built just enough of these – 200 – in the 1994 (only) production year, to qualify for the championship, and over the next five years a handful more trickled out to keep the various teams around the…

Between 1994 and 2004, Aprilia dominated the World 250cc Championship. Seven times they would be crowned world champions with five different riders in this time, but it all started back in 1994. The factory in Noale, north west of Venice, Italy, had recruited Max Biaggi for the 1994 championship after he spent a fruitless year riding for Erv Kanemoto on the Rothmans Honda NSR250, and the young Roman made good use of his black Chesterfield sponsored weapon, laying waste to the world’s best for the next three seasons. Commercially, Biaggi’s success was a godsend for Aprilia in 1994. The factory was young and streetbike production was still taking a back seat to the business of racing, but with their sweet little 250 racer they already had the basis for a…

The Fitzpatrick family have a strong motorcycling presence in the Newcastle region. Father Cliff, who passed away in February 2018, raced on the local speedways and was a prolific collector of motorcycles from an area that has always been a treasure trove of classic machines. Tony Fitzpatrick, whose BSA/Nourish special is the subject of our story, was a formidable competitor in the ferociously competitive and often ruthless sidecar ranks of the local dirt track scene, which at one stage boasted around half a dozen circuits in the Hunter region alone. Since his racing days ended, Tony has restored several of the incomplete machines rescued from early graves by his father. His brothers Peter and Terry are similarly entrenched in motorcycles, the former with a shop in Maitland and Terry with…

Suffice to say since they’d been in business since time began, they had collections of motorcycles, tools, accessories etc, stashed in warehouses all over the area, as well as an outside motorcycle junk yard guarded by an ill tempered pig. When Walter passed away, his wife, Anna, sold the business and these pictures are the “last hurrah”. This building (the main warehouse) was an ancient, long neglected, multi-story huge canning factory in utter disrepair. The buyer of Kohl’s was unable to afford the required building repairs, the Council wanted the property as it was prize real estate, hence they condemned the building and prohibited anyone entering it. Via court, the owner was finally able to gain entry, he was given scant time to clear out/sell what he could, much of…

Shannon’s Insurance Broadford Bike Bonanza • 30 March-1 April, 2018 – State Motorcycling Complex, Broadford, Victoria The 10th running of the Shannon’s Insurance Broadford Bike Bonanza was hailed as the best yet, with record crowds cramming camping areas and huge fields of motorcycles across all disciplines. This year’s theme celebrated 90 years of the Vincent-HRD marque, and no fewer than 85 of Stevenage’s best turned out, including seven speedway outfits. Saturday’s Speedway Spectacular took place in front of a capacity crowd, with the father and son team of Phil and Jason Crump headlining the big line up of solo and sidecars. Featured in the speedway section was a tribute to the late Neil Street, and numerous examples of his 4-valve engines were present, including the very first one created, owned…

Vintage Japanese MC Rally • 3-4 March, 2018 – Tamworth, NSW The VJMC completed its two-year stint in the NSW city of Tamworth on the first weekend of Autumn, where predicted showers were replaced by hot humid weather. Nevertheless a bumper entry in excess of 200 turned out, up on last year, for an excellent weekend which began with a meet&greet barbeque at the rally HQ, Paradise Caravan Park, on Friday evening. The following morning it was an early start in the cool of the day for a short run up to the lookout where an excellent breakfast was served while rally-goers took in the expansive view of Tamworth city. Most then saddled up to depart at 9am. It was a well-attended and well-marshalled ride, heading north out of town…

Taking as the donor machine the excellent naked 948cc Z900, Kawasaki has skilfully blended the styling traits of the original Z1 – not least the distinctive orange and brown ‘Jaffa’ décor that extends from the fuel tank to the side covers and the ducktail behind the dual seat – with thoroughly modern mechanicals. Other styling cues include the polished rims and spoke edges that replicate the wire look of yore, the twin analogue-styled instruments (which enclose the digital panel with all the various programming), and the big round (LED) headlight. LED is used throughout, even down to the number plate light. But even inside the engine and gearbox, there are changes that Kawasaki deemed necessary to further refine the retro package – a different camshaft, bespoke engine mapping, altered gear…

Edna Shoemark Only three months after losing Ron, her husband of 68 years (see OBA 70), EDNA SHOEMARK passed away on February 7the aged 91. Edna was a tireless worker for the Wollongong Motorcycle Club, and did an enormous amount of work to establish the Mt Kembla motocross circuit which opened in 1966 and is still going. She rode sidecars always, first a DKW Hobby with a little box on the sidecar to carry the dog, and then a Maico scooter with an aircraft belly tank sidecar that she and daughter Vicki used in reliability trials. Andrew Duncan Robin Yates A stalwart of Tasmanian motorcycling, ROBIN FRANCIS YATES died 8th February 2018, aged 80. Robin started making a name for himself in motorcycle racing in the early 1960s along with…

I had a poster of the RC45 all through my high school years. It’s a bike I’ve lusted over, and dreamed about, never thinking I would get the chance to even sit on one, let alone ride one. For me, the RC45 is a mythical machine, steered by legends like Slight and Edwards, and I’ll admit I was scared it would disappoint in a “don’t meet your heroes” kind of way. I’m glad, this time, I was wrong. There are several highlights when riding an RC45, but none, absolutely none, tops hearing that gear-driven cam V4 at full song. It’s a flat, droning roar, so far removed from any V4 since this bike came to market in 1995 for a lucky 200 riders. But there’s a problem with the 45…

Glenn Kelleher was one of the leading protagonists in the final years of the dogeat-dog world of Australian 250cc Production Championship racing. Here he takes a trip down memory lane. “It was the best class in Australia,” remembers Glenn. “You couldn’t do much to the bikes; I remember mine having 52hp pretty much all the time, but the only way you could make them faster was to re-ring them constantly and they really weren’t good with a new set of rings. I put a lot of piston rings in my bike… There wasn’t much else you could do. The RSs ran 1.4mm squish standard but some guys were running 0.9mm, and they eventually got caught by the officials. People used to say you could blueprint the motors but there wasn’t…

When questioned as to why he had chosen to design a 500cc vertical twin instead of an equivalent displacement single, Triumph Managing Director and Designer Edward Turner replied, “A twin gives better torque – twice as good in fact, if, as in this case, the firing intervals are equal. It has a capacity for running at higher revolutions without unduly stressing major components, and on account of its even torque it pulls better at low speeds. It starts easier and requires no exhaust (valve) lifter. It is easier to silence, has better acceleration, better fuel consumption for the same power, increased reliability and durability, and is better cooled. In fact it is a much more agreeable engine to handle.” So there you have it – any further questions? Triumph was…

The Depression was biting ever harder, and Royal Enfield recorded a trading loss (of £2,000) for the first time in their history for the financial year 1930/31. At least the company managed to pay its shareholders a dividend (of 5%), which is something many other companies were unable to achieve. The company even continued to enter a factory team in the Isle of Man TT right up until 1935. Despite the gloom, Royal Enfield also pressed on with model improvements, and even completely new models, one being the 499cc Model J which had revised engine dimensions with a longer stroke to achieve a capacity of 499cc. There was even a four-valve single, the Model JF, of 488cc, reputedly capable of 110mph, which in 1932 became the first Royal Enfield to…

The Secretary and Captain of the Queensland Motor Cycle Club met with little difficulty in convincing Constable Will Peverill that planning to ride his motorcycle from Brisbane to the Gulf of Carpentaria was an utterly unsound notion. It was nearing the end of summer 1912, temperatures north of Capricorn would be above 100°F. The humidity was impossible, the creeks were flooded, the tracks impassable. And after ‘the wet’ homesteads will have no spare petrol. Then came the clincher; ‘remember what happened to Burke and Wills’. Peverill contemplated his position. He’d intended to be the first motorcyclist to make a transcontinental crossing of Australia electing to ride from Melbourne to Normanton. The alternate, a ride between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, was inconceivable in 1912. Peverill’s choice of motorcycle, a push-start,…

HCMCWA Club Championship Rd 1 & Collie TT • 1 April, 2018 – Collie Motorplex, WA On a perfect autumn day 90+ solo riders and 11 sidecar teams gathered for Round 1 of the 2018 HCMCWA Club Championships, which incorporated the Collie TT. With 28 races scheduled on the day Race Control ran a tight ship and got through the day in a comfortable and well-organised manner. It was also the day that Scott Topping returned to racing in WA following the fire that devastated their Bullsbrook home while Scott and his father Paul were in NZ. The family lost everything in the fire and Scott’s return was due to the generosity of Chris & Lorene Kirby and Bob Hull who loaned him bikes to enable him to compete. Brian…

Indian Harley Club 44th Annual Two-Day Rally • 10-11 March, 2018 – Bunbury, WA The rally has long been one of WA’s premier historic motorcycle events and is always keenly anticipated within the old bike community. Once again, this year’s rally was very successful, attracting riders from as far afield as Albany, Geraldton and beyond, and took on greater significance for many after cancellation of last year’s Albany Hill Climb, which is also a big event on the WA calendar. The entry list, capped at 180 bikes, was once again full. There was great variety in the machines entered, with a number of rare models in the mix including Andrew Repton’s beautifully restored 1914 Yale and Kevin Badby’s 1925 4 cylinder Henderson. While the weather was fine and warm, strong…

All British Day • 11 February, 2018 – Echunga SA The weather gods smiled favourably on the All British Day at Echunga. Unlike the previous week leading up to the event where several days of temperatures in the high 30s made for an unpleasant time that wasn’t conducive to an enjoyable ABD, Sunday started off with much cooler weather in the low 20s. It had been advised that, should the day be classed as Extreme Fire Danger, the event would have been cancelled, and although the weather warmed up later in the day, it didn’t dent the enthusiasm of those attending this well organised event that just keeps getting bigger. Nostalgia reigned supreme and the high attendance, estimated at about 5,000 – 6,000 for the day, shows how much people…

“I read with interest ‘Fuel for Thought’ in issue 71 and I agree the solid folk who made up the ranks of the Spagforth workers were indeed a loyal and enterprising lot. In addition to the vile but hardworking Spagforth Squitter which ferried countless number of chaps (ladies were prohibited from using this machine for reasons of personal comfort and hygiene) and the unloved Ghurkmobile Omnibus, there were several other examples of the workers’ efforts to create vehicles to reach their place of employment. One was nicknamed the Lobster Pot, and was constructed by Cecil Cumquat, who was employed in the section that installed smoke into the Spagforth wiring harnesses. Mr Cumquat was apparently possessed of a numbingly boring personality and lived alone on a small mudflat in the River…

Brian was called up for National Service while still in his teens. “I was part of the 8th Intake for the RAF, stationed in Canberra. I can still remember riding a Triumph down there (from Sydney) on a Sunday night in the middle of winter. It was cold as hell”. After completing his service, Brian’s working life commenced behind the counter with Woolworths, but it was a very short space of time before he began a rapid climb up the company ladder to become a store manager at just 22 years of age. “To become a manager, it was necessary to undertake a training scheme, and usually it took two years for juniors to complete the course and six months for seniors. I was 20 but I got onto the…

The late ‘twenties weren’t exactly salubrious times in USA. Down came the stock market, and with it the air of confidence that had been building since the end of WW1. Still, life had to go on, and in American motorcycling terms, that meant basically Harley-Davidson and Indian, and to a much lesser extent, Excelsior/Henderson. In the case of Indian, the company had been enjoying a phenomenal run of success on the track, wiping the floor to clean up national titles in 1928 and 1929. But while the v-twins continued to satisfy the home market, albeit a shrinking one, single cylinder models gained valuable traction for Harley on the export side. The sales success of Indian’s Prince, a side-valve 350 certainly did not go unnoticed by the folks in Milwaukee, and…

In a sea of Hardy-Table-Sons, the little Honda CB160 stood out like a sore thumb. A bright red thumb. With silver fenders and shiny splashes of chrome. But at the motorcycle swap meet in Long Beach, California, the Hardy boys paid the tiny twin no mind. They had little use for its 160cc engine, built in 1965, which probably couldn’t even muster the torque required to kick start their mighty V-Twins. I, on the other hand, saw pure gold. The CB160 was the motorcycle I always wanted. In 1964, the California Department of Motor Vehicles granted learner’s permits to drive a car at age fifteen and a half. The permits also allowed riding a motorcycle. By the time I reached the magic age, I had saved $200 from delivering newspapers…

Geoff Knott For around 20 years Geoff Knott has headed the workshop at Classic Style and has been responsible for some stunning restorations as well as the more routine tasks of maintaining the floor stock for sale. Before this, Geoff ran his own small restoration business, Gatefield Classics, in England, but found it difficult to make the endless small jobs profitable. Deciding on a change of scenery, he wrote to Phil Pilgrim to investigate the possibility of a sponsored passage to work in Australia, and this is where Jon Munn takes up the story. “Phil Pilgrim’s main business is parts, whereas we do complete restoration and all sorts of classic bike work, so Phil suggested that Geoff contact me, which he did. Geoff was conscious of the fact that he…

Pull over driver…. DENNIS QUINLAN uncovered this wonderful photograph, fortunately with an inscription on the rear. “The first NSW Police Motorcyclist, George McLennan. Born 2/10/1865, son of John Ross McLennan and Jessie (nee McIntyre). George died 6/11/1932, aged 67. He resigned from the Police Force in 1925.” Great Goulburn! COLIN JEWELL reports: The 2018 Great Southern Swap Meet on January 21st was well attended; we had 257 stall holders/sellers and 1,050 lookers/buyers through the gate on Sunday. Temperatures over the weekend were 38 degrees both days – a little too hot. The majority of sellers indicated that sales were good, and went away happy. The Swap Meet this year was held on a new area of the Goulburn Showground, while this did create some teething problems to the regular sellers,…

2018 Burt Munro Challenge • 8-12 February, 2018 – Invercargill, NZ The Burt Munro Challenge has evolved over the last 13 years into a four day international motorcycling festival. Now one of New Zealand’s major motorsport events, the laid back event is attracting an increasing number of competitors and spectators from Australia, Europe and America. Racing covers a wide range of classes from Pre 63s with Girder Forks to Formula 1, with half of the classes for vintage, classic and lost era machinery. The Classic and Post Classic classes attract a very diverse entry. After a number of weather affected events in the last few years the decision was made to move the Challenge to the second week in February. The move was a great success with record attendance of…

Illawarra Classic MCC Red Scarf Rally • 10-11 March 2018 – Kiama NSW The 22nd running of the rally attracted 69 riders and 31 partners/guests. Ron Parker led Saturday’s long ride, via the Scenic Cambewarra Mountain, while John Davison led short ride, via the Shoalhaven River, both stopping for lunch at Bomaderry. The return was via Coolangatta & Gerroa. All in all it was a very pleasant day, albeit we were light on for marshalls, which caused a few minor hiccups! The Rally Dinner was held at the Kiama Bowling Club, where we had 56 in attendance. Guest speaker Steve Skinner gave us a very interesting talk on Motorcycling NZ in the seventies, with presentation of trophies and the raffles draw. Sunday’s ride was to the foot of Jamberoo Pass,…

Australia Day Historic Motorcycle Display • 26 January, 2018 – Samford Historical Museum, Qld. The Samford Museum is run by a hardy bunch of volunteers and every Australia Day they hold an event to raise funds to keep the Museum functioning. To compliment the Museum’s collection many historic clubs are invited to display their specific genre. The Historic Motorcycle Club of Qld (HMCCQ) has displayed bikes at this event for many years now. Our designated display area has recently gained picnic seating and a shade structure which was appreciated given the heat on the day. In appreciation, the museum volunteers also provide displaying club members complimentary smoko and lunch. HMCCQ member Brian Harmsworth coordinates with the Museum and supplies an esky full of cold water to keep us hydrated. More…