Australasian Dirt Bike Magazine Issue 500

CONTRIBUTORS WHO’D GONE MISSING MANY MOONS AGO FOUND THEIR WAY BACK MILESTONES ARE HARD to come by in an ordinary life. Sure, there’s birthdays, weddings, new kids and new bikes, but they are achievements most people in our privileged country can attain. But five hundred issues and 46 years of service for a type of product many believe to be “on the outta” is an achievement my team, and all those who came before us, can be proud of. Five hundred issues is monumental when you think aboutit. ADB hasseenthe arrival of the computer age (yes, ADB wasbashedouton a typewriter), the social media revolution (remember Myspace, what happened to that Mr Murdoch?), YouTube and even digital magazines. It has seen countless race series come and go, from Mr Motocross and Thumper Nats…

A long, long time ago, in a suburban backyard far, far away, Geoff Eldridge and Ray Ryan thought of producing a magazine. Australian Dirt Bike was the original name they chose but it was changed to Australasian Dirt Bike as, even back then with issue #1 yet to hit the newsstands, they were aiming for overseas sales by appealing to New Zealand readers. GE and Ray were both tired of the type of coverage the local magazines were giving dirtbikes in the mid-’70s, even though they were the ones providing most of the dirtbike-related material for Revs and, in Ray’s case, Two Wheels as well. Over a flagon of riesling in Ray’s father’s Revesby backyard, a plan was hatched to create something special and ADB wasborn,withthehelpof Wayne Cantell who was a mate…

ADB was as well known for its humour as anything else. It was, and is, both informative and entertaining. Caterisms, quoting pithy comments originally from Chris Cater and Laurie Alderton, quickly hit a spot with readers who often included their own efforts when writing in to ADB. The best appeared in the Caterisms column, but examples could be found all through the magazine. To give some examples, “My Maico tracks straighter than a greyhound on heat”, “The back end of that Can-Am goes up and down like a bride’s nightie”, “The rear-end jumped around like a pair of sheila’s legs on a hot sportscars seat”, “This bike measures 35hp at the brochure”, “Tighten ’er up until she strips then back ’er off one flat.” Murray Watt (page 118) wasnot ADB’s…

ADB’s spiritual home has always been on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. It’s where Geoff Eldridge and Ray Ryan started it and it’s where it is based today. In fact, as I write this on the kitchen table, I’m less than a 10-minute drive from where GE first pounded on a typewriter to produce the first issue. Talk about a small world. ADB’s nerve centre bounced around the Northern Beaches’ suburbs for nearlythreedecades.Once ADB wasa success and had a reliable crew, GE and long-time partner Vicki Huston moved to Cairns in 1986, running the magazine from there in semi-retirement and leaving the day-to-day stuff to new Editor Andrew Clubb in the Brookvale office-by-the-sea. Geoff returned to Brookvale three years later when Clubby went off to manage the Marlboro Yamaha MX team. After GE passed…

MY MEETING WITH GE For ADB’s 500thissue,I felt compelled to share my story with the over-60s dirt tragics still reading Mr Eldridge’s creation. I was lucky enough to meet Geoff and Phil (Porky) at Toowoomba in the late 1970s as a guest of charismatic Suzuki dealer Mr Geoff Udy in Ruthven St, Toowoomba. I had to do a lap of the infamous Institute Enduro course but, alas, the slopes of Tabletop were more than a match for a geared-down standard Suzuki TS250K. I remember Udy’s mechanic went on to win on an old favourite, the TS185 with Bassani pipe to make it really sing. I upgraded to a Yamaha XT500C and raced at Nindigully for a couple of years before graduating to a Kawasaki KDX175B1 (main image) that went around a few times…

FEELING BETTER Thankyou ADB for running my story ‘It Only Took a Tick’ in the last issue. You made some very sick people very happy. We have a group Zoom call every Tuesday and this week there was excitement and smiles all round. You have made us very happy. Nigel Say FREE MAGS I am sure you get heaps of enquiries about old ADBs but I have a few in my garage, including the black-covered 25th anniversary mag (#253, above). Are you interested in them? If not, do you know anyone I could donate them to? I am not looking for money, just want to find a home for them. Andrew Noble Thanks for the offer, Andrew, but we have a full complement of 499 issues, 500 by the time you read this! If anyone is…