Old Bike Australasia

Old Bike magazine is a must for those who ride as well as the dedicated enthusiast and rebuilder, covering everything from Vintage to early 1980s bikes - marvel at the restoration of machines that could still sit proudly on the showroom floor. Each issue brings you the latest news and results from recent events, race reports and Rally Roundup, along with new and old bike news and reviews, readers letters, Club Directory, What’s On and much, much more.

Tiddlers are tops

Old Bike Australasia

BLOW YOUR OWN • LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

RARITEE Best Letter

CLASSIC COB • OUT IN THE SHED

Wakefield appeal

End of the road for Avon? • One of the most famous names in motorcycling is about to disappear, according to reports from Britain.

New RE Super Meteor 650

2023 Suzuki VJMC National Rally

Pukekohe set for last hurrah

More Munro machinery at Invercargill

Roger Klobe • After a long battle with cancer ROGER KLOBE from Hamilton, Victoria passed away 29th September 1922, aged 71.

Ken Phelps • When the 2022 Cannonball Classic was announced, KEN PHELPS was one of the first to sign up.

Norman (Ken) Wilson • KEN WILSON passed away 26th October, aged 79, after a long illness. Ken was one of the real personalities of the Victorian motorcycle industry and long time member of the Sandringham Motorcycle Club.

Stan ‘Spraza’ Smith • Yet another of our early Speedway Sidecar Legends from Rowley Park days has met his Final Chequered Flag that of THOMAS STANLEY (SPRAZA) SMITH.

Longford Expo looms

Moreparts Ducati at Bathurst

MARATHON MAN • From a very young age Joe Eastmure embraced the adage that when you’re on a good thing, stick to it.

A CLASS OF ITS OWN • A spirited, practical and very pretty little twin from the days when two-strokes were all the rage.

Boasting rights • By all accounts and road tests, the Kawasaki GPzRX1000 of 1986 was the fastest production motorcycle of the day, but despite Kawasaki itself stating that this was the limit, and it would never build a faster bike, it had second thoughts.

COMING AND GOING • It’s not usual practice for a manufacturer to drift in and out of the motorcycle business, but Raleigh did – three times. Perhaps the stylised bird’s head symbol used throughout by Raleigh was really a Phoenix?

King of Thump (for a while)

Back to the Beach • The vast, shimmering, and usually smooth expanses of a sandy beach have long enticed motorcyclists to feats of speed. Iconic locations like Britain’s Pendine Sands and Weston-super-Mare, Daytona in USA are world famous, as is Oreti Beach and Te Horo in New Zealand, but Australia also has a rich history of speed on the sand.

Lost Legend • One hundred years ago at the dawn of the Roaring ‘20s, there were three main players in American motorcycling, out of the more than 200 different manufacturers of varying degrees of financial solvency and technical prowess which had attempted to carve out a place for themselves in the exciting and potentially profitable new arena of mechanised personal transportation. The so-called ‘Big Three’ consisted of Indian, Harley-Davidson – and Excelsior.

Guzzi’s inspiration? • For a company steeped in the production of utilitarian transport, Innocenti (Lambretta) was certainly not shy in venturing into other highly competitive fields.

Surprise packet • It’s been a few years since we had a Benelli in the OBA test fleet – the TRK 502 in issue 73 to be precise. We said in that report that it would be very probable that this excellent platform would spread wings in time to come, and so it has in the form of the Leoncino (Lion Cub) 800. Clyde Ikin tested the 502 back in 2018, but this time around, it was my turn.

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