Retrobike #29 AUTUMN 2017/18

“I love classic bikes but know first-hand they can be difficult to live with” IT WAS great to hang out at the Retrobike stand at the recent Sydney Motorcycle Show. To the many readers who stopped by for a chat and to check out Wayne Fazzalari’s Triton (page 52) in the metal, it was a pleasure to meet you all. Wayne’s immaculate Triton was one of only two classic bikes at the show, the other being a very tidy Honda CR750 replica on the Saint clothing stand. But there were plenty of retro bikes on display, both stock and modified, it’s just that every one of them was brand spanking new. Triumph had a bunch of customs based on the 1200 Bonneville and Thruxton, plus of course the new Bobber,…

A SELF-EMPLOYED carpenter from the Yarra Valley east of Melbourne, Roland Skate has been stuck on sixes since 1982 when he bought his first Honda CBX, a well-used ex-drag racer. “I fell in love with it because it gave so much performance, and especially so much fun, in return for so little attention,” Roland says. “I began doing track days and eventually plucked up the courage to go racing in 1994. I gave it a bit of TLC and have been progressively modifying it ever since. People used to rubbish the CBX, saying it’d never be able to make a race bike. But I knew the bike could be successful if I got a good rider aboard it.” Enter fellow Hartwell Motor Cycle Club member Michael Gibb in 2007, a…

ULFERT Janssen lives the life. Formerly an automotive designer for Renault, he now pens mostly two-wheeled customs for well-healed clients through his business, Garnet Design, in Switzerland. Not all get built and those that do he doesn’t build himself. Instead, he and his clients commission third-party workshops to bring his drawings to life, while Ulfert dreams up the next one. His designs cover all the usual suspects — BMW R nineT, Triumph Bonneville/Thruxton, Ducati Scrambler, Yamaha Bolt — as well as less obvious choices like MV Agusta, the modern H2 Kawasaki and GSX-S1000 Suzuki. But he is best known, at least in these pages, for his Moto Guzzi creations for Dutch clothing brand Vanguard. The first, styled after the legendary Moto Guzzi V8 GP bike of 1955 and featured one…

“VISUAL IMPACT AND CREATIVITY COUNT AS MUCH AS PERFORMANCE, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE CLASS” THE Glemseck 101 is Europe’s biggest custom bike festival. Held over three days each September on a small section of what used to be the Solitude racetrack — home to the German 500 GP until 1964 — near Leonberg in southern Germany, Glemseck attracts tens of thousands of visitors to a long weekend of bikes, live music and heads-up 1/8th-mile drag racing. The mile-long pit paddock hosts the International Village of custom bike shops and clubs from all over Europe. The range of customs on show is staggering, covering all genres. It’s also the place to get watered and fed, and maybe take in one of the high-energy rockabilly, punk or rock’n’roll bands on stage. There is…

THERE is little doubt that Burt Munro has sold more than a few Indians since the famous marque was relaunched by Polaris Industries in 2013, so good on the factory for returning the shout. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Burt’s world record on his highly-modified 1000cc 1920 Indian Scout — as immortalised in that movie — Indian Motorcycle set out to build their own record-setting salt racer from a brand-new 2017 Scout, then hired Burt’s grandnephew Lee Munro to ride it. From the outset, it was always intended that the new bike, the Spirit of Munro, would race in a different class — MPS-G1350 — so as not to surpass Burt’s record of 184mph set in 1967, which still stands. (Burt also reportedly ran 205mph the same year on…

“FABIO TAGLIONI ACCEPTED THE COMMISSION AS A TECHNICAL CHALLENGE” FEW motorcycles ever built have enjoyed as mythical a reputation as Ducati’s legendary but abortive V4 Apollo, the Italian marque’s failed attempt to produce a Harley-style cruiser aimed at the American market. Just two bikes were built and only this one survived. Back in 1960, Ducati was one of dozens of relatively small Italian manufacturers struggling to overcome the savage attack on its crucial home market levelled after 1957 by the cheap and cheerful Fiat 500, which, in its hundreds of thousands, brought an end to the post-war boom in Italian biking. Ducati’s annual production plunged to 6000 bikes and the factory went broke, kept afloat only by subsidies from the Italian government. Of those 6000 bikes, around 5000 were sold…