It started when I was three years old and my Grandfather gave me my first mini-bike.
Later in life, my old mum, rest her soul, would spot me walking in with a crash helmet under one arm and a leather jacket over the other. Shaking her head, she’d announce to anyone within earshot, “It’s all his Grandfather’s fault!”
Apparently, from that day as a toddler, when he introduced me to the throttle, my ‘go’ was honking a 125cc two-stroke in a rigid frame around our Southern Sydney back yard - until it was out of fuel.
My course ran along the side of the house and back up the driveway, “until there was no grass left around the clothesline.”
These are mostly the recollections - or lamentations - of my mother, rather than definite memories of my own. I can clearly remember the bike, but my most vivid recollection is of burning myself on the exhaust pipe, and that the frame was a bit rusty.
Anyway, that’s the where and how I got the riding bug and fire. One that has never been quenched. Here's a timeline of how it unfolded.
Most of the images are renders of my existing archive photos. Click to enlarge.
BIKELINE
Custom Victa Minibike
My grandfather was the Senior Engineer at the Port Kembla Steelworks. A great man. He had the apprentices build a chassis from scratch as an assignment. They fitted a Victa 2-stroke lawn mower engine, and another die was cast. No images exist - but it might have been something like this.
The Grand Prix Minibike
I have much clearer memories of how excited I was when he later bought me a 4-stroke production minibike. I was about eight years old. It was a 'Grand Prix' rigid, fitted with an Australian-made Kirby Tecumseh 4-stroke engine, centrifugal clutch, rear drum brake and a shielded exhaust.
I rode the wheels off it — if I could scrounge enough petrol to fill the tank. I rode it anywhere I could get away with riding it — and quite a few places where I probably shouldn't have.
Honda CL90
Early teenage years and I traded the Minibike for cash, a Honda CL90 and an air rifle.
I used to bomb around the sailing club car park or go off road on 'the new roads' - every chance I could, all through junior high.
It wasn’t a step-through mind you!
It was a proper motorcycle! A very important point back then.
Honda CB450
Halfway through high school. I got a part-time job as a Copy Boy.
(That story is here )
By licence age I had saved enough money for a cool car and a very tired Honda CB450.
The Honda blew more blue smoke than Ward Alderman’s RD350 two-stroke, but it got me to and from the last part of high school in (relative) cool.
Yamaha SR500
Once I started working full time, I bought a brand-new Yamaha SR500 single and spent some formative years learning the ropes of touring and riding with mates - and the two-wheeled lifestyle was fully embraced.
I learned a lot on, and from, this bike.
At the time I desperately wanted a Harley XLCR café racer (still do) but it was beyond my 17-year-old storeman’s means, so I café’d the Yammy with drop bars and a bikini fairing. And the customising die was cast.
Yamaha XS1100G
I was working in an office directly across the road from Cycle City in Hurstville and saw this XS1100 parked for sale out front. It had been well-hotted-up by the previous owner and it scared the daylights out of me the first time I whapped the throttle.
My first 'Superbike' - and I was hooked at that moment.
I took Janet on our first date on it more than 40 years ago - and we're still riding together.
Triumph Bonneville
When I followed the girl to Perth WA, I sold the blue Yam and caught the bus.
72 hours on a Greyhound and a few days after moving in with my future spouse, I headed downtown and came home with a classic Triumph Bonne — which, at the time I knew absolutely nothing about — other than it sang to my heart at first sight.
The Officer and a Gentleman machine.
We had some great adventures in the Perth nightlife aboard it. But alas: Lucas electrics and a long story. But so cool! I've been a Triumph tragic since.
Yamaha XS1100RH
It was the Triumph’s gremlins that made us trade it on a brand new XS1100RH once we had decided to leave Western Australia.
We packed it up and rode two-up from Perth across the continent and Bass Strait to Hobart - and beyond. I bought a fuel tank from a G model and had it painted in Midnight Special for decent touring range before we left the west.
We rode it around Tassie for a few years and when we decided to move north I sold it to my brother-in-law.
Suzuki GS850G
We had a few years without a bike while we started a family and had toddlers. One day on a job, I was walking past the bike shop in Main Street, Cessnock, NSW. In the window I spotted the well-used Suzuki shafty going for not much more than the cash I had in my pocket at the time. (Read that more as an indication of the purchase price, rather than any great sums carried about my person.) The kids were old enough and I needed a bike. We had some proper touring adventures on it too.
Triumph Thunderbird
One day while I was complaining about riding the old Suzuki the girl said, “OK — if you can find a Triumph Thunderbird for a good price I’ll buy it for you.” We both liked Thunderbirds.
It took me about fifteen minutes to find a low-km 1995 model. Over the ensuing years we fitted premium suspension and a number of bolt-on performance mods. We rode it all over the Hunter Valley and then the North Island of NZ.
This bike played a part in my media career too.
That story is here
Triumph Trophy
After we had been living in New Zealand for a while, we needed a better touring bike, so we bought the Trophy second-hand from an owner known to us, and set about building ‘The Battlestar’.
We grafted in a hot Daytona 1200 130hp motor and fixed the suspension. It was a big, fast bike and we rode it all over the Shaky Isles.
Buell XB12X Ulysses
While living iving in Auckland, I was occasionally helping out at Auckland Motorcycles when they asked me to run-in their new demo Buell Adventure bike. As we were wheelieing up our street, Janet poked me in the ribs and said, ‘We have GOT to get one of these!’ I ordered one when I returned the demo.
It was the perfect bike for the time and place. I fell in with the Buell crowd and even have photos of this bike with a chapter in the official Buell history hardback.
Best-fun bike ever.
Kawasaki KLR650
We sold-up in NZ and arrived back home in Australia without a bike. So, I bought a new KLR650. I’d tested one for Kiwi Rider Magazine and really liked it. You are on the gas everywhere. I was doing well in magazine world and had a heap of test bikes in the garage, so I set about building the 'Bike for the Zombie Apocalypse.''
On or off road, no road furniture could hold it. Loved it.
Triumph Tiger 1050
The KLR wasn't great for 2-up work though, so it was traded on a 2009 Triumph Tiger 1050 with low kays and even lower price. I tested the very same bike for Kiwi Rider a few years earlier and said in the article that “I would own one day”. It is a greatly underestimated, way-ahead-of-its-time motorcycle. It serves to this day. It's currently set up as a motard for the taller gentleman.