Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 95 i Old Bike Australasia

Harold was a very big name in Victorian motorcycle sport in the immediate post war years; a man with a win or bust riding style that bought plenty of wins and plenty of broken bones. Born in Glen Huntley, Melbourne in 1921, he began racing in 1937 on a 1927 Big Port AJS, but enlisted and spent the war years as a Dispatch Rider, stationed in northern WA. On discharge, he co-founded the Nunawading Club and was the first president and later life member. After a string of Victorian Scrambles Championships, he turned to speedway and was so successful that he went to England in 1949 to ride for the Hastings team, often riding six nights per week. He was back Australia in late 1949, intending to return to UK…

Eric Davies Former Sydney Sidecar rider ERIC DAVIES passed away on the morning of June 11. He was 82. Davies had been unwell for some time and was a patient in a Nursing Home on the NSW Central Coast where he relocated after years of living in the Sydney suburbs of Stanmore, Petersham and Alexandria. He had a long and colourful career as a Sidecar racer on speedway, Dirt Track and bitumen. His road racing included the annual outing at Bathurst, and he was a regular at Oran Park in the 1960s on Vincents. At one of his Bathurst rides, he had a nasty accident when his passenger Brian Moran suffered a badly injured back and leg. Eric began racing on an Ariel-powered bike that his father bought for him…

In 1965 when Yamaha decided to enter the prestigious USA 250cc road-race scene, especially the Daytona 100, they demoralised the competition finishing 1,2,3,4,7,8,9,10. To prove it was not luck, they backed it up in 1966, finishing 1,2,3,4,6,8,9,10. This race-dominating machine was Yamaha’s 250cc TD1B over-the-counter racer, whose two-stroke engine was based on the street 250cc YDS3. Average race speed in 1965 was 91.4 mph; only a few mph slower than the 750cc Daytona 200 class. From this race on, the TD1B was called the “Daytona” in the US. The Daytona 100 race for 250cc motorcycles was introduced in 1963 on the new dedicated race circuit with the 1963 and 1964 races being won by Harley-Davidson, who then owned Aermacchi in Italy and used their race bike which was based on…

After WW2, there was a big demand for cheap transportation; nowhere more so than in Japan. Honda stepped up to the challenge in 1948, and this meteoric rise is well documented. By the mid 1950s Honda was Japan’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, making its own engines. As a visionary, Honda had names like ‘Dream’, and ‘Benly’ on its machines. The Japanese word was actually Benri, meaning ‘convenient’. Apparently this was changed to Benly for export. The first Benlys were the type JA, JB and JC – initially under 100cc and then a full-blown 125 by 1956. It had a modest output of about 7hp, a 3-speed gearbox with a top speed of about 80km/h. The four-stroke single had its cylinder head turned 45 degrees to the side. This was done for…

The double Triumph in action Last issue’s story about the twin-engined Triumph speedway outfit built by George Harrod in 1974 prompted our Victorian photographer Colin Rosewarne to dig through his files. “That bike appeared at the 2019 Shannons Broadford Bike Bonanza where it was ridden very enthusiastically by Wayne Ware and Geoffrey Bourke. It was good camera fodder and sounded great!”. Creating an icon The construction of the latest Sydney Motorway – the M5 East/Westconnex linking Sydney’s south and west with the airport and inner-city – has changed the face of this area. One positive benefit has been the opening up of the intersection of Princes Highway and Campbell Street, St Peters, which happens to be the home of long-established BMW and KTM dealers Procycles. Procycles’ north facing wall, previously unseen…

It’s not that I dislike Harleys in particular or cruisers in general, in fact the older I get the more my arthritic neck objects to the cafe racer seating position on my Honda GB500TT and the more sense the cruiser layback style makes. It’s just that being into British, Italian and Japanese bikes, the opportunity to ride a Harley never really presented itself. That is, until my wife Annie and I went to Central Australia to attend a conference at Alice Springs and on the weekend we made the trip to Yulara to see Uluru and Kata Tjuta. After walking a lap of Uluru in early morning I discovered that we could hire a Harley in Yulara and ride over to see Kata Tjuta. So we went to Uluru Motorcycle…

• 16 May, 2021 – Canungra Showground After six years, the Ray Owen Classic is well established at its home in the Canungra Showground. The venue provides a great atmosphere handy to most areas in the South East. The success of the event has allowed the HMC Tamborine Branch to raise money for the Gold Coast Hospital Foundation, allowing the club to purchase important equipment for the hospital’s Rehabilitation Ward that is not provided through government funding. The Rehab Ward is, of course, a place close to the heart of many riders. After a reduced ability to contribute in 2020 because of a COVID cancellation, the branch was keen to make 2021 a success. For 2021, COVID Safe requirements had a significant impact on the way the event could be…

Around 1953, Sir Carruthers Spagforth received a formal letter from Mr Fred Slammer, the owner and chief designer of Z Special Motorcycles, regarding any possible interest in purchasing the manufacturing rights to his design, which featured a side inlet valve with an overhead camshaft exhaust valve. Never one to turn down a possibly lucrative business proposal without a thorough investigation, the guvnor had his secretary set up a meeting with Mr. Slammer, who accepted with alacrity and immediately launched into a well-rehearsed spiel. “We wanted to combine the sluggishness and heavy petrol consumption of the side-valve with the complications and shattering expense of the cammy design,” explained Mr Slammer. “We have succeeded admirably, because the Z Special is a vile, lumpy engine and never manages more than 35 m.p.g. You…

Maurie himself was the son of pioneer racer and industry figure Percy, and from the time he threw a leg over a racing motorcycle in the late 1940s he was stamped as star quality. Maurie was also astute enough to realise that racing doesn’t last forever, and at an early age set himself up with a motorcycle business in Melbourne. Along with his meticulous approach to racing, he was also dedicated to establishing the business, to the point that he knocked back the coveted nomination to represent Australia in the 1951 Isle of Man TT. He was just 22 years of age and considered there would be ample opportunity later. He was again nominated in 1952 and 1953, declining each time, but finally in 1954 he reckoned the time was…

However once the last shots were fired in WW1, demand for such things and weapons in general went into rapid decline, and 1919 all shares in the company were acquired by one of the original partners, Fritz Neumeyer, who had many and varied business interests in Germany. The factory’s output was initially switched from detonators to starter motors and alternators, and in 1921, to motorcycles. The new company’s first product – named the Z22 – was shown at the Berlin Automobile and Motorcycle Exhibition of 1921. A basic utility two-stroke design of 211cc called Motorrad fur Jedermann (Motorcycle for Everybody) and closely based on the British Levis, 1,500 were built in the first year of production and by the end of 1924, 10,000 had been sold. In 1925, a new…

Czechoslovakia had ridden out some rough times up to 1948. After the shotgun rocky marriage between the Czechs and the Slovaks in 1918 and the subsequent cultural and religious battles, some progress was made during the thirties, with rapid industrialisation resulting in a period of relative stability and prosperity. Then along came Adolf Hitler. From September 1938 until the Soviet liberation exactly six years later, Czechoslovakia was anything but stable and prosperous. As the ‘thirties dawned, the country added a new name to its list of motorcycle manufacturers. Jawa was formed by Frantisek Janecek, who took over the remains of the German Winklhofer & Jaenicke company, who marketed their products under the Wanderer brand, the new company being a combination of the first two letters of his name and Wanderer.…

From Dave Owen: “I’ll say up front that I’m not a mechanic and certainly not an expert on the subject of internal combustion engines of any persuasion 2 or 4 stroke. As we all know the ignition process is caused by the points opening which initiates the spark which in turn ignites the fuel mixture causing it to expand and the piston to descend thus rotating the crankshaft. In the case of an engine with a kickstarter, the mechanism of the kick-starter is such that when downward pressure is applied to the lever the crankshaft is rotated in the correct direction, the inertia created by the weight of the flywheel spinning keeps the crank rotating in the correct direction. During this kick cycle the sparkplug fires igniting the mix and…

• 7-9 May, 2021 – Kiama, NSW Having been postponed from November 2020 due to Covid restrictions, the 10th Annual Sunbeams in Oz Rally was finally held at the beautiful seaside town of Kiama and some 28 bikes from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland had registered for the event. Host David Downing and his wife Kathryn had worked tirelessly to prepare for the COVID safe event with an action packed weekend planned. Even heavy rain could not dampen the enthusiasm as it had been 19 months since the last Sunbeam rally in Shepparton, Victoria. Most of the participants arrived throughout the day on Thursday while heavy rain persisted throughout the night and continued the next day. The consensus was that the weather was not conducive with riding old bikes…

A Jawa at The Mount Reading the articles in OBA 94 brought back some memories. I bought a Jawa 350 from a mate who had some success on Short Circuit, but my aim was Bathurst. I changed the front wheel from 21-inch to 19 or 18, can’t recall which, fitted tuned expansion chambers, replaced the wide bars for a set of clip-ons, and put a seat with rear hump (home made) on it. Arriving at Bathurst I went out for a practice session and slowly made my way along pit straight and round Hell Corner. At Mountain Straight I opened it up and it went like the “clappers”. Approaching Castrol Bend I slowed and tipped it in to go around but the bike did not want to co-operate with this.…

The Ariel Square Four – a brief background The original Square Four engine was designed by Edward Turner in 1928. The early engine with “two transverse crankshafts” was essentially a pair of ‘across frame’ OHC parallel twins joined by their geared central flywheels, with a square four-cylinder block and a single head. With a chain driven overhead-camshaft 500 cc early Square Fours used a hand-change, four-speed Burman gearbox. In 1932, the cylinder bores were enlarged by 5 mm to give a capacity of 601 cc, specifically to accommodate owners who wanted to attach a sidecar. The “Cammy” engine gained a reputation for overheating the rear cylinder heads, so in 1936 the engine was completely redesigned, emerging as the 1937 OHV 995 cc model 4G. The crankshafts of the new engine…

At this point in history, Bimota was experiencing one of its cash-strapped periods, and a move away from ultra high-tech to more prosaic (and affordable) products was pure common sense. That had its origins in the DB1, the first Ducati-powered model to wear the Bimota badge, powered by the two-valve 750 Pantah engine. And while the engine was nothing to get particularly excited about, the chassis was a marked improvement on the Ducati offering. That frame was the first to come off the drawing board of Bimota’s newly-appointed chief engineer Federico Martini, and once clothed in a fresh new direction in styling, resulted in a stunning looking motorcycle – a point not lost on the Japanese, which were, after all, Bimota’s biggest customer base. Martini’s tubular steel frame incorporated the…

Not any more. The 2021 offering, now renamed the Tracer 9 GT, it an entirely, completely different animal. There is hardly a single component from the previous model carried over. The Tracer is now a sophisticated machine that is far less of an urban runabout and much more a serious tourer. Addressing the engine first, this is still the excellent CP-3 motor, but with an extra 42cc thanks to a 3mm longer stroke. This may not seem much, but it makes a world of difference where it’s needed most – in the low and mid range. Having owned the 2016 Tracer and being the current owner of a 2019 Tracer GT, this was a great opportunity to see what the 2021 model was like. The first thing you notice is…

My father was a rider; his bike was a 1936 side valve 986cc BSA vee twin. It was built to ride with a side car, being an ex-NSW police bike, but he rode it solo. My first remembrance of a sidecar was when dad’s younger brother, Jim, had an old Indian with a sidecar. It had stopped and dad came to the rescue with his 1935 Plymouth and a long length of timber. The timber was placed over the rear attachment and under the front attachment of the sidecar’s frame, where it bolts to the bike frame, tied on with some rope, then lifted onto the tow bar of the Plymouth and attached with a long bolt. That was how the Indian outfit was towed to our home south of…

• 21-23 May, 2021 – Sawtell Beach, NSW The principal aim of the Australian Ariel Register is to keep Ariel motorcycles on the road. With that in mind the Australian Ariel Register holds an Ariel rally every year hosted by members taking turns in various states. Because of concerns with Covid 19, the 2020 Annual Rally was postponed 12 months and was held at the same venue. Lesley and Brian Fleming, the principal organisers at this rally, had the task of notifying all meal providers etc about the change of dates. The week before the rally had heavy rainfall and was not conducive to riding motorcycles, but after many prayers it fined up to beautiful weather throughout. What a lovely area to see. Day 1 was filled with registration with…