Mark Tucker c l a s s i c B i k e s a M p l e s

FEATURE: SUMMAT IN HERE

Classic Bike NOVEMBER 2008 PB august 2008 Classic Bike 72

R o B ’ S B E S T B U Y SHaynes manual “another autojumble find – £2. It’s come in pretty handy.”

RD250 fork “It’s taken a while to get hold of one of these – that’s why my bike’s not finished. £12 and the worst of the pitting has polished out.” Leather jacket (left)“Frank got it for me at an autojumble – he goes to them all the time with his job. I paid £50 I think. It fits pretty well and I haven’t actually crashed in this one yet. ‘two-stroke disco’ just seemed to sum up what we’re into and painting on the back of your jacket’s a pretty seventies thing to do anyway.”

age are into interests me really,” confesses Rob. “I guess it’s quite unusual to have a practical interest these days – even our jobs are fairly traditional I suppose, working in an engineering place and as a bike mechanic. We re-built my RD250 listening to my dad’s vinyl – the Ramones, The Clash – and Frank’s into his Eighties metal; Iron Maiden and Motörhead. It’s really just two or three of us who are into the old bikes – I’ve heard our group referred to as the lost boys.”

“I’d just much rather be working on bikes than getting drunk at a party,” says Frank. Suddenly it’s hard to see any appeal in drinking White Lightning until your kidneys ache when there are RD frames to be painted.

With that we saddle up and roll out – after a big Saturday night and an early start this morning, Rob and Frank have got an appointment with a long-overdue Sunday afternoon fry-up. We hack back at an obscene rate, flitting through the seaside streets of Bexhill just as fast as we can, arcing past swathes of identical new houses, building a wall of noise that stops suburban dad in his tracks – the sponge he’s half-heartedly pushing over the family Vauxhall Meriva dripping on his sandals as he stares open-mouthed at the source of the cacophony.

We say our goodbyes back at Frank’s. I feel like I’ve spent the day in a different world, a parallel universe of no fixed plans, girlfriend pillions, proper music, bacon sandwiches, lost nights, long summers, wild wheelies, skinny jeans, treasure-trove autojumbles, long lie-ins, blaring spannies, few commitments and an overwhelming sense of freedom – have cackling two-stroke, will travel. This is the world according to Frank Hobbs and Rob Chave, and it’s a damn cool place to be.

T W o S T R o k E D i S C o j U S T S E E M E D T o S U M U p W H A T W E ’ R E i n T o . . .

FEATURE: KENNY ROBERTS

Classic Bike MARCH 2008 49 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 48 Classic Bike MARCH 2008 49 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 48

Dirt tracker, road racer, riders’ rights activist, team owner, motorcycle manufacturer, legend. Three decades ago King Kenny Roberts became America’s first 500 world champion and changed the face of the sport forever. Mat Oxley charts the unique career of the most important motorcycle racer in history

it is 30 years since Kenny Roberts won his first world title, thrashing Barry Sheene to the 1978 500 world championship. The man who brought knee-scraping and rear-wheel steering to road racing has been part of the global race scene ever since, achieving more in motorcycle sport than anyone else.

King Kenny won two US Grand National dirt track/road race championships and then three 500 world titles, transforming the GP scene by fighting for riders’ rights in the late 1970s and early 1980s. After retiring from racing he created a GP racing super team with riders Wayne Rainey, Eddie Lawson and John Kocinski, then built his own GP bikes, both two-stroke and four-stroke. In 2006 one of his motorcycles, the KR211V, came within two-tenths of a second of scoring his team’s first MotoGP victory. This year is his first season out of racing since the 1960s – his British-based Team Roberts outfit couldn’t get backing to continue in MotoGP – but he’s still planning to return in 2009, with Ducati power.

All in all, not a bad life’s work for a cowboy from Modesto, California, who’s only got one ball (the result of a motocross accident in the early 1970s) and has a bullet lodged in his left leg (the result of a hunting accident).

Dirt TrackerKenny Roberts was 12 years old when he got into bikes. “I go to feed the horses one day and this guy says I should have a go on this minibike with a lawnmower engine.” Little Kenny didn’t want to ride the contraption. “So he says I’m a baby, a chicken, so I ride the bike and it scares the shit out of me. It was a nightmare, I was lucky I didn’t crash. Okay, so I had to have one.”

A year later in 1969 a family friend suggested he start racing. “But I didn’t want to – I thought it’d be big guys with beards. We ended up going, it was at an old fairground just down the street and they were just normal kids. I knew I could beat them guys.”

Roberts still believes dirt track is the real deal: “Dirt track racing teaches you a lot in a very short period of time. The natural stuff comes out much quicker because it’s not so fast, it’s more physical and the motorcycle’s much more controllable than in road racing.”

iKRiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

T h e m a n y l i v e s o f K e n n y R o b e R T s

Road Racer“I never really considered myself a road racer, I just did road racing to get Grand National points.” So says one of the greatest road racers of all time of his hat-trick of 500 crowns, 24 GP victories and three Daytona 200 wins.

Roberts competed in his first road race in 1969. Within four years he had invented the modern sport – Roberts was the first rider to scrape his knees and regularly get his machine sideways.

“I started hanging off at Ontario Motor Speedway at the end of 1972. It had this right-hand horseshoe where I felt so uncomfortable, like I was going to crash. Jarno Saarinen came over to race that year and I watched him – he leaned off the side of the bike with his knee out, so I leaned off in that horseshoe and all of a sudden I didn’t have that bad feeling. I won the 250 race – smoked them – so there was a big buzz about this idiot dragging his knee.

“The craziest road racer we had at the time was Art Baumann. By the end of ’73 I’d started sliding the 350 around, I’d be in a foot-and-a-half drift, my knee became like my steel shoe. Baumann came into the pits and said ‘you’re going to kill yourself, you’re the craziest son-of-a-bitch I ever seen in my life and you’re goin’ to die’. I thought I was in big trouble because if that guy says I’m crazy, I’m dead. That’s how it all started.”

Freedom FighterBack in the 1970s GP riders were treated like circus animals – in the hands of greedy promoters they were made to race on lethal circuits and accommodated in paddocks with disgusting facilities. But racers lacked the unity to do anything about it. Roberts was appalled at what he found and when he returned for his second season he resolved to do something about it, which led to the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to create a breakaway championship called World Series.

“The old promoters and the FIM treated us like shit, they had everybody by the balls, so I told Sheene and the guys we should organise our own international races and forget about the world championship because I didn’t really give a shit about it anyway.

“The first guy I hit was Barry Coleman (who now helps run the Riders for Health charity) and we got close enough to making World Series happen to scare them. After that it was like heaven, we turned it around from not being able to talk to the promoters about safety to being able to talk to them. And they increased prize money by 300 per cent and everyone knew what they were paying. Now it’s easy, the riders go talk to Carmelo (Ezpeleta, Dorna MotoGP boss) and it’s fixed. Back then, it was a nightmare. A lot of people didn’t know how big an achievement that was. I didn’t do it for money, I had more to lose than anyone else, I did it because I thought it was right.”

FEATURE: SUMMat in Here

My first.......BooTS “The first leather boots I owned were fireman’s boots from a huge place in Clapham, London called Pride and Clarke. I got them for 30 bob. I shortened them down a bit and cut off the straps. When I wore through the toes my dad used to patch them with fibreglass which he painted black. The only problem was it got hot if you touched the ground, and my toes got burnt. So I learnt to keep my feet off the ground. When I first started racing Mike Hailwood asked me ‘Deegs how do you manage to keep your feet off the ground?’ I told him: ‘Being poor!’. Fact is those boots had conditioned me.” DaVe Degans, Triton builder & ex-racer

{ YOUTH IN PICTURES

BelowRG250 becomes a donut

machine in one smokey move

rightOutrunning the old bill could be a problem on

a YSR50Below right

Pepsi painted Suzuki GSX-R750. Rider is either looking

for trouble or has just got out of some

FIRST...Triumph “I bought a pig and at just 16 learned a lesson. Going to view a bike with a van plus cash equals jellybrains. Worse still, my dad had driven the 100 miles so it was pressure on for a result. If today I peered into the gloom of a dilapidated hen house to see a rusting Triumph Tiger Cub daubed in Dulux black, white and dribbles, I’d laugh and walk away. Back then, the mutton-chopped owner laughed and walked away with 100 quid of Saturday job money in his pocket. Home, stripped into boxes, sold that way 20 years later.”MiCK PHilliPs, freelance writer

FIRST...at Chelsea Bridge: “the first time me and my mates went up chelsea bridge was in the early nineties. You’d hear the tell-tale short shot of revs and a dip of a clutch before some guy would come flying by past the cheering crowds on the back wheel. then it would kick off, with more wheelies and the odd donut. i came equipped, with a hopped-up fZ750. about midnight a few minibuses would arrive and empty out some nervous looking coppers who would start checking tax discs. We would all de-camp to Heston Services with parting-shot wheelies and the odd rolling burnout. the run through town was a right laugh. every set of lights turned into a mass-start run-what-you-brung and towering great wheelies through the traffic. Happy days.” JUStin KinGWell, plant hire contractor

{FIRST...Ton“It was in 1967, on my BSA Super Rocket 650. I was 18. I’d just bought the bike for £118 and 10 bob – I had it flat-out the first day I had it. It’d to 105-108mph on the speedo.“I couldn’t wait to ride it. As soon as I got it home, I raised the clip-ons on, because the guy I got it off had set them really low. I rode it around for an hour to get used it, then went home and lowered the bars again. Then I went for a blast and got it flat-out.“I remember feeling the adrenaline rush of getting flat out, and the sense of freedom. The coppers’ bikes were geared for acceleration, so you could blast straight past them and they’d never catch you. I was a rocker back then. We liked riding about, looking good and picking up birds.”DaVe HiTCHings, roofer

Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 45 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 44 Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 45 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 44

I’m riding in Cinemascope with a soundtrack by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Dolby Surround sound. Ahead of me is a stretch of perfect black top. A curving two-way road framed by a bubble screen, twin black-faced clocks and a siren console. The letters MFP stickered onto the big Seventies screen are casting a long shadow back over the top of the siren unit. In a blink the setting transforms itself from deepest Lancashire to Australian prairie and I am ‘The

Goose’ from cult Seventies road movie Mad Max.This fuel-injected, supercharged B movie hooked a generation of

petrol heads with its dark, twisted tale of loyalty, revenge and white knuckle chase scenes set in a bleak Australian future. Think Dirty Harry with menacingly modified inline fours and blown V8s. The film pits Ford Interceptor driving lawman Max, played by Mel Gibson, against the fantastically disturbed Toecutter, bike gang leader and friend of anti-hero Nightrider – killed by Max in the epic 10 minute opening chase sequence.

The film made Mel Gibson a star but Max’s ill-fated and accident prone sidekick, Jim Gosling (The Goose) and his silver and blue Kawasaki Z1000A were always the real heroes of this classic film.

Together, Goose and his Kwaka came wheel spinning, sliding and crashing into the hearts and minds of a generation, with a cheeky grin, a cutting one liner and the throttle to the stop.

Dave Marsden from Kawasaki specialists Z-Power is one of that generation and the Goose replica Z1000 beneath me is his homage to the film. ‘I’ve always been a Mad Max fan,” he explains. “I’d wanted to build a replica for about 10 years, but I couldn’t get a fairing. Then I found out about a Japanese company that was making Mad Max replica kits so I bought one straightaway.”

The build was different to those Dave normally carries out. He’s restored over 130 Z1s in his 21 years at Z-Power. That’s a lot, especially considering only 73 Z1s were officially imported into the UK in the first place, according to Dave.

The back of the crowded Z-Power shop is set up to build bikes. Shelves hold boxes of bodywork, painted by the same company who sprayed the originals in 1973. “It’s almost a production line,” Dave says. But this bike was his own project, a semi-custom build, so Dave could use up some of the parts he could never fit on a full restoration. Stuff like Z1-R wheels he’s had since he stripped a bike for parts 10 years ago, and a pair of heavily drilled front discs.

Z1000

As a change from building original specification Z1s, Kawasaki restorer Dave Marsden has made this bike as a tribute

to his favourite film

Z1000

It’s a shame – the bike doesn’t throw up a

cloud of dust on the dual carriageway

A Japanese company made the replica fairing kit. Exhaust is also a Japanese importMain Force Patrol – ready to ride

Cinematography Rory Game Screenplay Gary InmanArt Director Mark Tucker

Classic Bike june 2008 61 june 2008 Classic Bike 60 Classic Bike june 2008 61 june 2008 Classic Bike 60

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NeXTMad MaX

kawasaki Z1

I’m riding in Cinemascope with a soundtrack by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Dolby Surround sound. Ahead of me is a stretch of perfect black top. A curving two-way road framed by a bubble screen, twin black-faced clocks and a siren console. The letters MFP stickered onto the big Seventies screen are casting a long shadow back over the top of the siren unit. In a blink the setting transforms itself from deepest Lancashire to Australian prairie and I am ‘The

Goose’ from cult Seventies road movie Mad Max.This fuel-injected, supercharged B movie hooked a generation of

petrol heads with its dark, twisted tale of loyalty, revenge and white knuckle chase scenes set in a bleak Australian future. Think Dirty Harry with menacingly modified inline fours and blown V8s. The film pits Ford Interceptor driving lawman Max, played by Mel Gibson, against the fantastically disturbed Toecutter, bike gang leader and friend of anti-hero Nightrider – killed by Max in the epic 10 minute opening chase sequence.

The film made Mel Gibson a star but Max’s ill-fated and accident prone sidekick, Jim Gosling (The Goose) and his silver and blue Kawasaki Z1000A were always the real heroes of this classic film.

Together, Goose and his Kwaka came wheel spinning, sliding and crashing into the hearts and minds of a generation, with a cheeky grin, a cutting one liner and the throttle to the stop.

Dave Marsden from Kawasaki specialists Z-Power is one of that generation and the Goose replica Z1000 beneath me is his homage to the film. ‘I’ve always been a Mad Max fan,” he explains. “I’d wanted to build a replica for about 10 years, but I couldn’t get a fairing. Then I found out about a Japanese company that was making Mad Max replica kits so I bought one straightaway.”

The build was different to those Dave normally carries out. He’s restored over 130 Z1s in his 21 years at Z-Power. That’s a lot, especially considering only 73 Z1s were officially imported into the UK in the first place, according to Dave.

The back of the crowded Z-Power shop is set up to build bikes. Shelves hold boxes of bodywork, painted by the same company who sprayed the originals in 1973. “It’s almost a production line,” Dave says. But this bike was his own project, a semi-custom build, so Dave could use up some of the parts he could never fit on a full restoration. Stuff like Z1-R wheels he’s had since he stripped a bike for parts 10 years ago, and a pair of heavily drilled front discs.

Z1000

As a change from building original specification Z1s, Kawasaki restorer Dave Marsden has made this bike as a tribute

to his favourite film

Z1000

It’s a shame – the bike doesn’t throw up a

cloud of dust on the dual carriageway

A Japanese company made the replica fairing kit. Exhaust is also a Japanese importMain Force Patrol – ready to ride

Cinematography Rory Game Screenplay Gary InmanArt Director Mark Tucker

Classic Bike june 2008 61 june 2008 Classic Bike 60 Classic Bike june 2008 61 june 2008 Classic Bike 60

I’m riding in Cinemascope with a soundtrack by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Dolby Surround sound. Ahead of me is a stretch of perfect black top. A curving two-way road framed by a bubble screen, twin black-faced clocks and a siren console. The letters MFP stickered onto the big Seventies screen are casting a long shadow back over the top of the siren unit. In a blink the setting transforms itself from deepest Lancashire to Australian prairie and I am ‘The

Goose’ from cult Seventies road movie Mad Max.This fuel-injected, supercharged B movie hooked a generation of

petrol heads with its dark, twisted tale of loyalty, revenge and white knuckle chase scenes set in a bleak Australian future. Think Dirty Harry with menacingly modified inline fours and blown V8s. The film pits Ford Interceptor driving lawman Max, played by Mel Gibson, against the fantastically disturbed Toecutter, bike gang leader and friend of anti-hero Nightrider – killed by Max in the epic 10 minute opening chase sequence.

The film made Mel Gibson a star but Max’s ill-fated and accident prone sidekick, Jim Gosling (The Goose) and his silver and blue Kawasaki Z1000A were always the real heroes of this classic film.

Together, Goose and his Kwaka came wheel spinning, sliding and crashing into the hearts and minds of a generation, with a cheeky grin, a cutting one liner and the throttle to the stop.

Dave Marsden from Kawasaki specialists Z-Power is one of that generation and the Goose replica Z1000 beneath me is his homage to the film. ‘I’ve always been a Mad Max fan,” he explains. “I’d wanted to build a replica for about 10 years, but I couldn’t get a fairing. Then I found out about a Japanese company that was making Mad Max replica kits so I bought one straightaway.”

The build was different to those Dave normally carries out. He’s restored over 130 Z1s in his 21 years at Z-Power. That’s a lot, especially considering only 73 Z1s were officially imported into the UK in the first place, according to Dave.

The back of the crowded Z-Power shop is set up to build bikes. Shelves hold boxes of bodywork, painted by the same company who sprayed the originals in 1973. “It’s almost a production line,” Dave says. But this bike was his own project, a semi-custom build, so Dave could use up some of the parts he could never fit on a full restoration. Stuff like Z1-R wheels he’s had since he stripped a bike for parts 10 years ago, and a pair of heavily drilled front discs.

Z1000

As a change from building original specification Z1s, Kawasaki restorer Dave Marsden has made this bike as a tribute

to his favourite film

Z1000

It’s a shame – the bike doesn’t throw up a

cloud of dust on the dual carriageway

A Japanese company made the replica fairing kit. Exhaust is also a Japanese importMain Force Patrol – ready to ride

Cinematography Rory Game Screenplay Gary InmanArt Director Mark Tucker

Classic Bike june 2008 61 june 2008 Classic Bike 60 Classic Bike june 2008 61 june 2008 Classic Bike 60

The build isn’t 100 per cent faithful to the bike in the film, but it’s close enough. Dave fitted black anodised aluminium rearsets he imports from Japan rather than replicating the lashed-up steel and Meccano ones of the original. He also fitted bars with a couple of inches of raise rather than straight ones which cause the throttle cable to foul the tank. He may be a Mad Max fanatic, but he wasn’t going to compromise the bike just to keep movie nitpickers happy.

Dave only finished the build last night. Barely 12 hours later he is handing me the keys. I look down at the clocks – they’re all at zero. He hasn’t even ridden it himself.

There’s next to no padding in the seat so even my shortish legs can touch the ground on both sides. “It fits you better than me,” says the owner. But there’s no doubt this bike is big. The £12 Yamaha 350LC headlight is nearly twice as far away from me as the clocks. The light, instruments and fairing are all bolted to a very tidy mounting bracket that came as part of the Japanese bodykit.

The completely rebuilt inline four comes to life. After a few seconds contemplation I’m off, judging clutch and throttle for the first time. Pulling away gingerly, I can feel Dave’s eyes on me. But within half a mile the 1978 Z1000A and I are like old friends. A few miles later I’m on a dual-carriageway, watching the speedo climb towards 80. The Z1000 is hoovering up white lines. I’m not exactly a fuel injected suicide machine, but I’m making all the right noises. I forgot to ask Dave if the bike needed running in.

I shift gears slowly and purposefully. There’s only one throttle cable, not a push and pull, and the revs take time to die when I close it. The Japanese PMC crossover 4-into-2 pipes even sound like the Goose’s bike. My eyes drop from the road towards the speedo, but only get as far as the siren. I can’t resist. The dog walker on the pavement doesn’t have a clue what is going on. A bike has just gone past sounding like a Police Honda Pan-European. But it doesn’t look like one. ‘Is this what my council tax is being spent on?’

I discover that the switch for the siren is hardwired to my facial muscles. Turn it on and a smile creases my face. Fearing a ticket for impersonating a police officer I switch it off again. For now.

With a roundabout approaching, I pull the brakes and find myself wishing for a little bit more. Quite a bit more. “They’ve been a nightmare to bleed,” Dave had warned me. The AP Lockheed brake callipers that he re-imports from Japan for Z1Bs wouldn’t have gone amiss here too.

Heat rises from the fairing as I sit at traffic lights. Builders lean out of white vans and gawp. I flick the flashing blue lights on and laugh.

The fairing itself is solid. The paint is good, too. It is an expensive kit, but the quality is hard to criticise. The tank and sidepanels were painted in the UK, by Dream Machine, before the fairing arrived. But they’re a good match for Kawasaki’s standard Galaxy Silver.

This is a feelgood bike, but it’s not a road racer, and it wouldn’t outrun one of the supercharged Ford Falcon Interceptors the cops drove in the film.

Not long after the Goose and his Kwaka first appear on screen he lays the bike down under a car. “Oh my god, what happened here?” wonders the driver. “I dunno man, I just got here myself,” the Goose replies from underneath the car. It’s a killer line, but I don’t want to deliver it today, thanks.

I think back to the stunts performed by both the Toecutter’s gang and the Goose. In one scene, a member of the Toecutter’s gang, Johnny the Boy, has tampered with the bike, and after a stirring ride something locks and the Goose is catapulted off the road into a field. But Dave wouldn’t go that far for authenticity. Would he?

n For Dave, this was about the build and the Goose replica is now for sale. Call 01942 262864, if you have £8000 and a siren fetish.

“‘Oh my god, what happened?’ wonders the car driver. ‘I dunno man, I just got here myself,’ says the Goose from underneath the car. It’s a killer line...”

Z1000

More menacing than a UK Police spec Honda Pan European A line of zeroes on the clocks greeted CB’s rider Goose failed to keep his bike as clean as this one

The roads around Leigh, Lancashire substitute for Victoria, Australia

Gary Inman waits for a chance to switch the siren back on

Max scrabbles for his gun as gang members line up to run over his arm

Classic Bike june 2008 63 june 2008 Classic Bike 62 Classic Bike june 2008 63 june 2008 Classic Bike 62

The build isn’t 100 per cent faithful to the bike in the film, but it’s close enough. Dave fitted black anodised aluminium rearsets he imports from Japan rather than replicating the lashed-up steel and Meccano ones of the original. He also fitted bars with a couple of inches of raise rather than straight ones which cause the throttle cable to foul the tank. He may be a Mad Max fanatic, but he wasn’t going to compromise the bike just to keep movie nitpickers happy.

Dave only finished the build last night. Barely 12 hours later he is handing me the keys. I look down at the clocks – they’re all at zero. He hasn’t even ridden it himself.

There’s next to no padding in the seat so even my shortish legs can touch the ground on both sides. “It fits you better than me,” says the owner. But there’s no doubt this bike is big. The £12 Yamaha 350LC headlight is nearly twice as far away from me as the clocks. The light, instruments and fairing are all bolted to a very tidy mounting bracket that came as part of the Japanese bodykit.

The completely rebuilt inline four comes to life. After a few seconds contemplation I’m off, judging clutch and throttle for the first time. Pulling away gingerly, I can feel Dave’s eyes on me. But within half a mile the 1978 Z1000A and I are like old friends. A few miles later I’m on a dual-carriageway, watching the speedo climb towards 80. The Z1000 is hoovering up white lines. I’m not exactly a fuel injected suicide machine, but I’m making all the right noises. I forgot to ask Dave if the bike needed running in.

I shift gears slowly and purposefully. There’s only one throttle cable, not a push and pull, and the revs take time to die when I close it. The Japanese PMC crossover 4-into-2 pipes even sound like the Goose’s bike. My eyes drop from the road towards the speedo, but only get as far as the siren. I can’t resist. The dog walker on the pavement doesn’t have a clue what is going on. A bike has just gone past sounding like a Police Honda Pan-European. But it doesn’t look like one. ‘Is this what my council tax is being spent on?’

I discover that the switch for the siren is hardwired to my facial muscles. Turn it on and a smile creases my face. Fearing a ticket for impersonating a police officer I switch it off again. For now.

With a roundabout approaching, I pull the brakes and find myself wishing for a little bit more. Quite a bit more. “They’ve been a nightmare to bleed,” Dave had warned me. The AP Lockheed brake callipers that he re-imports from Japan for Z1Bs wouldn’t have gone amiss here too.

Heat rises from the fairing as I sit at traffic lights. Builders lean out of white vans and gawp. I flick the flashing blue lights on and laugh.

The fairing itself is solid. The paint is good, too. It is an expensive kit, but the quality is hard to criticise. The tank and sidepanels were painted in the UK, by Dream Machine, before the fairing arrived. But they’re a good match for Kawasaki’s standard Galaxy Silver.

This is a feelgood bike, but it’s not a road racer, and it wouldn’t outrun one of the supercharged Ford Falcon Interceptors the cops drove in the film.

Not long after the Goose and his Kwaka first appear on screen he lays the bike down under a car. “Oh my god, what happened here?” wonders the driver. “I dunno man, I just got here myself,” the Goose replies from underneath the car. It’s a killer line, but I don’t want to deliver it today, thanks.

I think back to the stunts performed by both the Toecutter’s gang and the Goose. In one scene, a member of the Toecutter’s gang, Johnny the Boy, has tampered with the bike, and after a stirring ride something locks and the Goose is catapulted off the road into a field. But Dave wouldn’t go that far for authenticity. Would he?

n For Dave, this was about the build and the Goose replica is now for sale. Call 01942 262864, if you have £8000 and a siren fetish.

“‘Oh my god, what happened?’ wonders the car driver. ‘I dunno man, I just got here myself,’ says the Goose from underneath the car. It’s a killer line...”

Z1000

More menacing than a UK Police spec Honda Pan European A line of zeroes on the clocks greeted CB’s rider Goose failed to keep his bike as clean as this one

The roads around Leigh, Lancashire substitute for Victoria, Australia

Gary Inman waits for a chance to switch the siren back on

Max scrabbles for his gun as gang members line up to run over his arm

Classic Bike june 2008 63 june 2008 Classic Bike 62 Classic Bike june 2008 63 june 2008 Classic Bike 62

The Jim Goose replica Kawasaki jigsaw has two main components: a Kawasaki Z1000A and the distinctive bodykit. The original bodywork was made specially for the film by a small Australian bodywork manufacturer,

La Parisienne of Melbourne. “There was a story about a fella in Australia who had the mould and

he was going to make replicas,” says Dave. “But then he went missing; no one could get hold of him. It turned into an urban legend.”

A distributor in Australia put Dave in touch with someone from a Mad Max fan club and through that connection he found out about Whitehouse, a Japanese company making Goose replica bodykits for Kawasaki Zephyrs. “It cost about £3000 in all. It’s fibreglass and came already painted. It was a risk ordering it painted, but it worked out.”

The kit comprises fairing, seat unit, radio, siren and flashing lights. You can buy rearsets as well, but Dave has suppliers he’s happy with. Dave was fitting the kit to a 1978 Zed, not the more modern Zephyr so the frame needed plenty of modification. And he decided to do a full dry build, “The back end was the biggest pain. I normally complete a project in six weeks. This has been more like six months.

“Some of the Z1s I build sell for £13,000. If someone is spending that much on a bike they’re often on their hands and knees asking why you used a particular fastener. So this was different.”

The frame was checked and strengthened by Pitstop Motorcycles. It went back to Dave for him to tack on brackets for the bodywork, then Pitstop carried out the final welding and fabrication. The engine is Z1B. The head needed welding and Steve Smethurst, another of Z- Power’s regular collaborators, polished the casings and fork lowers.

There were three Goose bikes in the film and Dave chose to replicate the one in the two minute sequence that has Goose walking back to his bike after a night with a nightclub singer and ends with the bike cartwheeling into a field.

Dave assembled the whole bike, a lot of it in while he was waiting for the frame to come back. The top yoke, clocks, bars and new switchgear were all in one piece waiting to bolt straight on. The engine was treated to new valves, guides and springs… Electrics are all uprated and the exhaust is a 2-into-1 crossover Z-Power had made by PMC in Japan.

Dream Machine painted a tank and sidepanels to match the bodykit.“I’ve spent a long time hiding the wiring that goes to all the police

equipment. I know the original builders wouldn’t have done that, but this is a showpiece – so it has to look neat,” explains Dave.

“There have been times I wondered if I would get it finished. Right up to the end when I was waiting for the carbs to come back. It’s always difficult when you have to rely on other people. It’s important to me, but it’s just a job to some of the people you end up waiting for.”

Building an MFP KwaKa

Pics1. Z1B motor, now fitted with a Z1000 crank and gearbox. It went to Steve Smethurst, in Salford, to be cleaned and polished.2. Tony at Pitsop Motorcycles, Warrington, welded the new fairing bracket to the headstock. Powder coating was by Vanden. 3. engine-teknics fitted new valve guides and seats to the cleaned cylinder head.4. Fairing colour match was spot on.5. Tyres are new ‘period’ Metzelers. 6/7. Fairing kit includes blues and twos.8. Wiring loom, coils and battery are all new. 9/10. engine bottom end got a new cam chain and tensioners, cylinder studs, 66mm pistons, standard rings and 900cc cylinders.11. Kickstart removed and blanked off in favour of new rearsets.12. 28mm Mikunis were stripped. Re-zinced linkages fitted plus new jets and valves.

Z1000

DALE BEnsCH was brought in at the last minute as a stunt rider for the film. He rode the real ‘Goose scoot’Kawasaki Z900 owner and drag racer Dale Bensch was hired as part of Mad Max’s nine man stunt team after responding to an ad in a Melbourne bike shop. “Myself and three or four mates applied and got in. just before filming the stunt co-ordinator broke his leg in a motorcycle accident, so I was recruited.”

Part of Dale’s responsibility was riding the Goose Scoot Zed, as it was called, to and from the set. “It was cool riding to and from location. The bike had no registration, so I was given a note of proof of the bike’s use in production of a movie if I got pulled over by the Police.

“The bike was a stock Z1000 except for the straight four-into-two exhaust. I believe it had less power than if it were fitted with the standard system. In the Fat nancy take-off scene the script called for a mono (wheelie), but the bike was too gutless, so a ‘snakey’ take off was agreed as a replacement.

“The Kirk’s bridge crash – two over the edge and two laid down on the bridge – and the Goose Scoot crash were one shot shoots, as there weren’t any spare bikes. (Dale was the rider who famously got clouted around the head by his spinning bike. He also performed the donut and rolling burn-out in the country town scene, on his own tuned Z1000). They were done at the end of filming, early 1978. The smashed Goose Scoot on the back on the ute after the big crash was actually a Honda CB750.”

“I was in MaD MaX”

Weedy brakes may hold the key to the Goose’s accident prone police career Aerial seems only to pick up Australian police frequencies

Max and his Blue Heeler cattle dog. It’s name? “Dog.”

Classic Bike june 2008 65 june 2008 Classic Bike 64 Classic Bike june 2008 65 june 2008 Classic Bike 64

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

The Jim Goose replica Kawasaki jigsaw has two main components: a Kawasaki Z1000A and the distinctive bodykit. The original bodywork was made specially for the film by a small Australian bodywork manufacturer,

La Parisienne of Melbourne. “There was a story about a fella in Australia who had the mould and

he was going to make replicas,” says Dave. “But then he went missing; no one could get hold of him. It turned into an urban legend.”

A distributor in Australia put Dave in touch with someone from a Mad Max fan club and through that connection he found out about Whitehouse, a Japanese company making Goose replica bodykits for Kawasaki Zephyrs. “It cost about £3000 in all. It’s fibreglass and came already painted. It was a risk ordering it painted, but it worked out.”

The kit comprises fairing, seat unit, radio, siren and flashing lights. You can buy rearsets as well, but Dave has suppliers he’s happy with. Dave was fitting the kit to a 1978 Zed, not the more modern Zephyr so the frame needed plenty of modification. And he decided to do a full dry build, “The back end was the biggest pain. I normally complete a project in six weeks. This has been more like six months.

“Some of the Z1s I build sell for £13,000. If someone is spending that much on a bike they’re often on their hands and knees asking why you used a particular fastener. So this was different.”

The frame was checked and strengthened by Pitstop Motorcycles. It went back to Dave for him to tack on brackets for the bodywork, then Pitstop carried out the final welding and fabrication. The engine is Z1B. The head needed welding and Steve Smethurst, another of Z- Power’s regular collaborators, polished the casings and fork lowers.

There were three Goose bikes in the film and Dave chose to replicate the one in the two minute sequence that has Goose walking back to his bike after a night with a nightclub singer and ends with the bike cartwheeling into a field.

Dave assembled the whole bike, a lot of it in while he was waiting for the frame to come back. The top yoke, clocks, bars and new switchgear were all in one piece waiting to bolt straight on. The engine was treated to new valves, guides and springs… Electrics are all uprated and the exhaust is a 2-into-1 crossover Z-Power had made by PMC in Japan.

Dream Machine painted a tank and sidepanels to match the bodykit.“I’ve spent a long time hiding the wiring that goes to all the police

equipment. I know the original builders wouldn’t have done that, but this is a showpiece – so it has to look neat,” explains Dave.

“There have been times I wondered if I would get it finished. Right up to the end when I was waiting for the carbs to come back. It’s always difficult when you have to rely on other people. It’s important to me, but it’s just a job to some of the people you end up waiting for.”

Building an MFP KwaKa

Pics1. Z1B motor, now fitted with a Z1000 crank and gearbox. It went to Steve Smethurst, in Salford, to be cleaned and polished.2. Tony at Pitsop Motorcycles, Warrington, welded the new fairing bracket to the headstock. Powder coating was by Vanden. 3. engine-teknics fitted new valve guides and seats to the cleaned cylinder head.4. Fairing colour match was spot on.5. Tyres are new ‘period’ Metzelers. 6/7. Fairing kit includes blues and twos.8. Wiring loom, coils and battery are all new. 9/10. engine bottom end got a new cam chain and tensioners, cylinder studs, 66mm pistons, standard rings and 900cc cylinders.11. Kickstart removed and blanked off in favour of new rearsets.12. 28mm Mikunis were stripped. Re-zinced linkages fitted plus new jets and valves.

Z1000

DALE BEnsCH was brought in at the last minute as a stunt rider for the film. He rode the real ‘Goose scoot’Kawasaki Z900 owner and drag racer Dale Bensch was hired as part of Mad Max’s nine man stunt team after responding to an ad in a Melbourne bike shop. “Myself and three or four mates applied and got in. just before filming the stunt co-ordinator broke his leg in a motorcycle accident, so I was recruited.”

Part of Dale’s responsibility was riding the Goose Scoot Zed, as it was called, to and from the set. “It was cool riding to and from location. The bike had no registration, so I was given a note of proof of the bike’s use in production of a movie if I got pulled over by the Police.

“The bike was a stock Z1000 except for the straight four-into-two exhaust. I believe it had less power than if it were fitted with the standard system. In the Fat nancy take-off scene the script called for a mono (wheelie), but the bike was too gutless, so a ‘snakey’ take off was agreed as a replacement.

“The Kirk’s bridge crash – two over the edge and two laid down on the bridge – and the Goose Scoot crash were one shot shoots, as there weren’t any spare bikes. (Dale was the rider who famously got clouted around the head by his spinning bike. He also performed the donut and rolling burn-out in the country town scene, on his own tuned Z1000). They were done at the end of filming, early 1978. The smashed Goose Scoot on the back on the ute after the big crash was actually a Honda CB750.”

“I was in MaD MaX”

Weedy brakes may hold the key to the Goose’s accident prone police career Aerial seems only to pick up Australian police frequencies

Max and his Blue Heeler cattle dog. It’s name? “Dog.”

Classic Bike june 2008 65 june 2008 Classic Bike 64 Classic Bike june 2008 65 june 2008 Classic Bike 64

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

n Up until the camcorder shot horror film, The Blair Witch Project, Mad Max was the most profitable film in terms of cost versus takings (it was made for Aus$400,000 and made Aus$100 million). It’s reported that the then unknown actor, Mel Gibson, was paid Aus$15,000. He wouldn’t do a talk show for that now. n Mad Max was filmed in and around Melbourne and released in 1979. The production required all hands on deck to create a classic for that budget. Producer Byron Kennedy drove stunt cars. His own Mazda was demolished in the night Rider chase. It was only supposed to get clipped. n George Miller directed all the Mad Max films, before directing, producing and/or writing hits like The Witches of Eastwick, Lorenzo’s Oil and er, Babe. n jim Goose was played by Steve Bisley, who continues to work as a TV actor in Australia. Mel Gibson has done alright following his first starring role, but the best bit of Mad Max trivia is the that the Toecutter’s bleach haired, camp but menacing sidekick, Bubba Zanetti, went on to act in Prisoner Cell Block H.n For more facts and a full list of locations go to the wonderfully obsessed www.madmaxmovies.comn Make your own paper Goose bike by going to: http://www.whouse.jp/topics_photo/paper-craft/mfp_paper_craft2.jpg

Essential MaX facts

Z1000

Australian Z1 Club members

line up for a concours display

Classic Bike june 2008 PB june 2008 Classic Bike 66

The Other MaD MaX BikesThe main two-wheeled stars of the film are Kawasakis. The Goose rides his Z1000A and the Toecutter’s gang ride a mixture of Z1, Z1000s and CB750s. All the gang bikes are mildly modified with pipes and Seventies microflake and pinstripe paintjobs, bikini fairings and even the same fairings as the Gooses’ MFP bike. Many of the bikes belonged to real patch club members who acted as extras and stunt riders. Z-Power’s Dave says Candolini, one of the featured gang members, rides a Laverda Jota, but I can never spot it.

After the Goose’s first accident he’s seen riding around the police compound yard, his leg in plaster, on a Kawasaki KH250. “Weird one that,” says Dave. “That model was never officially imported into Australia.”

The other noteworthy bike is a wild Arlen Ness-style CB750 chopper combination with a fantastic Ed Roth-esque bubble over the sidecar. Can you picture it? Madmaxmovies.com say it was built by Lance Seadon of Cycle Gear in Collingwood, Melbourne. It is covered in 24ct gold leaf, as was the fashion, and had a tube running from the bubble to the rider ‘so he could enjoy a smoke’. The crazy combo is still on the scene in Australia.

Toecutter: fantastically disturbed

NeXTMispeNT

YouTh

Youtha c e l e b r a t i o n o f a Misspent

our teenage years were a time for furious riding and feckless bodging. first bikes, first crashes, first blow-ups and first wheelies

leave lasting impressions. How do you remember it?

Photography Tony Sleep,Don Price and CB archive

Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 41 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike PB

FEATURE: SUMMat in Here

My first....

{MY FIRST... Pillion: “i was with a girl called carole o’riley – her dad owned a fish and chip shop on the outskirts of chester. She was on the pillion when we went over a humpback bridge. i didn’t realize but she was combing her hair in the mirror. i left her in the middle of the road. that more or less ended the relationship.”bill SMitH, tt winner & bike dealer

FIRST...Race “My first road race meeting was in the spring of 1981. i’d bought a new Yamaha rD250lc and run it in on the road. the bike was standard and on road tyres, yet i was able to lead an open 1300cc race which included at least one tZ700 Yamaha to halfway down the revetts straight at Snetterton! being keen, and in a high state of nerves i’d kicked the bike into life and was in gear when the flag fell; everyone else did a push start with a dead engine. i was on the back of the grid and my bike was so quiet that no-one seemed to notice. So i was off while everyone else was still pushing. i got the shock of my life when a ballistic missile came past down the straight. it was Kenny irons on the tZ700. i almost took to the grass in fright but regained my composure and finished 13th.” brian cricHton, cb associate editor

My first.......CRASH A week after taking to the road on my Honda SS50 ‘sports’ moped I felt confident that my riding skills were on a par with Barry Sheene’s. As the maximum I saw on the speedo was 50mph, there was clearly no need to slow down for corners.

I tested this theory on a right hander outside my village. With the right pedal on the ground, and the wheels climbing the opposite verge it dawned on me that I was wrong. We came to rest in the hedge. My humiliation was complete when, as I sat beside the road nursing my grazed knees and elbows, a car pulled up. It was our next door neighbour; “Shall I get your mum?” she kindly enquired.Hugo Wilson, CB editor

YOUTH IN PICTURES

BelowIt’ll be blue and white on

the night: an evening with the Suzuki RG mob

rightBrands Hatch Grass Track

Meeting, 1949: Steve Cooper astride Ariel Red Hunter 350cc (owned &

raced by Ted Calvert, second from right);

Lionel Place and Jacko Glover (pillion) coming out

of the ‘Bombhole’ on a Triumph Speed Twin

...BANTAM “I bought one for 30 bob. It was just two wheels, a frame and an engine. There was no seat so I put a bit of sponge between the frame and the back mudguard. I liked getting it really crisp with an expansion chamber – I upset a few people, riding it on waste ground at the back of our house. I was always having it apart – god knows what I did to it – it didn’t go any faster. It gave me hours of enjoyment – I must have owned 20 Bantams during my youth. I never paid more than a fiver for one. I once swopped one for two guns: a .22 and a twelvebore. I put an old Castrol tin out on the waste ground and tried to fire the twelve-bore off the hip out of my bedroom window. I was only six stone and it blew me back across the room, all the cartridge smoke went drifting down the stairs and my mum asked what was going on. I told her it was a car backfiring out on the road.”VinCe frenCH, former factory Yamaha gP mechanic

Phot

o by

Don

Pri

ce P

hoto

grap

h co

urte

sy o

f lio

nel P

lace

Phot

o by

Don

Pri

ce P

hoto

grap

h co

urte

sy o

f lio

nel P

lace

Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 43 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 42 Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 43 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 42

FEATURE: SUMMat in Here

My first....

{MY FIRST... Pillion: “i was with a girl called carole o’riley – her dad owned a fish and chip shop on the outskirts of chester. She was on the pillion when we went over a humpback bridge. i didn’t realize but she was combing her hair in the mirror. i left her in the middle of the road. that more or less ended the relationship.”bill SMitH, tt winner & bike dealer

FIRST...Race “My first road race meeting was in the spring of 1981. i’d bought a new Yamaha rD250lc and run it in on the road. the bike was standard and on road tyres, yet i was able to lead an open 1300cc race which included at least one tZ700 Yamaha to halfway down the revetts straight at Snetterton! being keen, and in a high state of nerves i’d kicked the bike into life and was in gear when the flag fell; everyone else did a push start with a dead engine. i was on the back of the grid and my bike was so quiet that no-one seemed to notice. So i was off while everyone else was still pushing. i got the shock of my life when a ballistic missile came past down the straight. it was Kenny irons on the tZ700. i almost took to the grass in fright but regained my composure and finished 13th.” brian cricHton, cb associate editor

My first.......CRASH A week after taking to the road on my Honda SS50 ‘sports’ moped I felt confident that my riding skills were on a par with Barry Sheene’s. As the maximum I saw on the speedo was 50mph, there was clearly no need to slow down for corners.

I tested this theory on a right hander outside my village. With the right pedal on the ground, and the wheels climbing the opposite verge it dawned on me that I was wrong. We came to rest in the hedge. My humiliation was complete when, as I sat beside the road nursing my grazed knees and elbows, a car pulled up. It was our next door neighbour; “Shall I get your mum?” she kindly enquired.Hugo Wilson, CB editor

YOUTH IN PICTURES

BelowIt’ll be blue and white on

the night: an evening with the Suzuki RG mob

rightBrands Hatch Grass Track

Meeting, 1949: Steve Cooper astride Ariel Red Hunter 350cc (owned &

raced by Ted Calvert, second from right);

Lionel Place and Jacko Glover (pillion) coming out

of the ‘Bombhole’ on a Triumph Speed Twin

...BANTAM “I bought one for 30 bob. It was just two wheels, a frame and an engine. There was no seat so I put a bit of sponge between the frame and the back mudguard. I liked getting it really crisp with an expansion chamber – I upset a few people, riding it on waste ground at the back of our house. I was always having it apart – god knows what I did to it – it didn’t go any faster. It gave me hours of enjoyment – I must have owned 20 Bantams during my youth. I never paid more than a fiver for one. I once swopped one for two guns: a .22 and a twelvebore. I put an old Castrol tin out on the waste ground and tried to fire the twelve-bore off the hip out of my bedroom window. I was only six stone and it blew me back across the room, all the cartridge smoke went drifting down the stairs and my mum asked what was going on. I told her it was a car backfiring out on the road.”VinCe frenCH, former factory Yamaha gP mechanic

Phot

o by

Don

Pri

ce P

hoto

grap

h co

urte

sy o

f lio

nel P

lace

Phot

o by

Don

Pri

ce P

hoto

grap

h co

urte

sy o

f lio

nel P

lace

Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 43 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 42 Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 43 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 42

FEATURE: SUMMat in Here

My first.......BooTS “The first leather boots I owned were fireman’s boots from a huge place in Clapham, London called Pride and Clarke. I got them for 30 bob. I shortened them down a bit and cut off the straps. When I wore through the toes my dad used to patch them with fibreglass which he painted black. The only problem was it got hot if you touched the ground, and my toes got burnt. So I learnt to keep my feet off the ground. When I first started racing Mike Hailwood asked me ‘Deegs how do you manage to keep your feet off the ground?’ I told him: ‘Being poor!’. Fact is those boots had conditioned me.” DaVe Degans, Triton builder & ex-racer

{ YOUTH IN PICTURES

BelowRG250 becomes a donut

machine in one smokey move

rightOutrunning the old bill could be a problem on

a YSR50Below right

Pepsi painted Suzuki GSX-R750. Rider is either looking

for trouble or has just got out of some

FIRST...Triumph “I bought a pig and at just 16 learned a lesson. Going to view a bike with a van plus cash equals jellybrains. Worse still, my dad had driven the 100 miles so it was pressure on for a result. If today I peered into the gloom of a dilapidated hen house to see a rusting Triumph Tiger Cub daubed in Dulux black, white and dribbles, I’d laugh and walk away. Back then, the mutton-chopped owner laughed and walked away with 100 quid of Saturday job money in his pocket. Home, stripped into boxes, sold that way 20 years later.”MiCK PHilliPs, freelance writer

FIRST...at Chelsea Bridge: “the first time me and my mates went up chelsea bridge was in the early nineties. You’d hear the tell-tale short shot of revs and a dip of a clutch before some guy would come flying by past the cheering crowds on the back wheel. then it would kick off, with more wheelies and the odd donut. i came equipped, with a hopped-up fZ750. about midnight a few minibuses would arrive and empty out some nervous looking coppers who would start checking tax discs. We would all de-camp to Heston Services with parting-shot wheelies and the odd rolling burnout. the run through town was a right laugh. every set of lights turned into a mass-start run-what-you-brung and towering great wheelies through the traffic. Happy days.” JUStin KinGWell, plant hire contractor

{FIRST...Ton“It was in 1967, on my BSA Super Rocket 650. I was 18. I’d just bought the bike for £118 and 10 bob – I had it flat-out the first day I had it. It’d to 105-108mph on the speedo.“I couldn’t wait to ride it. As soon as I got it home, I raised the clip-ons on, because the guy I got it off had set them really low. I rode it around for an hour to get used it, then went home and lowered the bars again. Then I went for a blast and got it flat-out.“I remember feeling the adrenaline rush of getting flat out, and the sense of freedom. The coppers’ bikes were geared for acceleration, so you could blast straight past them and they’d never catch you. I was a rocker back then. We liked riding about, looking good and picking up birds.”DaVe HiTCHings, roofer

Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 45 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 44 Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 45 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 44

FEATURE: SUMMat in Here

My first.......BooTS “The first leather boots I owned were fireman’s boots from a huge place in Clapham, London called Pride and Clarke. I got them for 30 bob. I shortened them down a bit and cut off the straps. When I wore through the toes my dad used to patch them with fibreglass which he painted black. The only problem was it got hot if you touched the ground, and my toes got burnt. So I learnt to keep my feet off the ground. When I first started racing Mike Hailwood asked me ‘Deegs how do you manage to keep your feet off the ground?’ I told him: ‘Being poor!’. Fact is those boots had conditioned me.” DaVe Degans, Triton builder & ex-racer

{ YOUTH IN PICTURES

BelowRG250 becomes a donut

machine in one smokey move

rightOutrunning the old bill could be a problem on

a YSR50Below right

Pepsi painted Suzuki GSX-R750. Rider is either looking

for trouble or has just got out of some

FIRST...Triumph “I bought a pig and at just 16 learned a lesson. Going to view a bike with a van plus cash equals jellybrains. Worse still, my dad had driven the 100 miles so it was pressure on for a result. If today I peered into the gloom of a dilapidated hen house to see a rusting Triumph Tiger Cub daubed in Dulux black, white and dribbles, I’d laugh and walk away. Back then, the mutton-chopped owner laughed and walked away with 100 quid of Saturday job money in his pocket. Home, stripped into boxes, sold that way 20 years later.”MiCK PHilliPs, freelance writer

FIRST...at Chelsea Bridge: “the first time me and my mates went up chelsea bridge was in the early nineties. You’d hear the tell-tale short shot of revs and a dip of a clutch before some guy would come flying by past the cheering crowds on the back wheel. then it would kick off, with more wheelies and the odd donut. i came equipped, with a hopped-up fZ750. about midnight a few minibuses would arrive and empty out some nervous looking coppers who would start checking tax discs. We would all de-camp to Heston Services with parting-shot wheelies and the odd rolling burnout. the run through town was a right laugh. every set of lights turned into a mass-start run-what-you-brung and towering great wheelies through the traffic. Happy days.” JUStin KinGWell, plant hire contractor

{FIRST...Ton“It was in 1967, on my BSA Super Rocket 650. I was 18. I’d just bought the bike for £118 and 10 bob – I had it flat-out the first day I had it. It’d to 105-108mph on the speedo.“I couldn’t wait to ride it. As soon as I got it home, I raised the clip-ons on, because the guy I got it off had set them really low. I rode it around for an hour to get used it, then went home and lowered the bars again. Then I went for a blast and got it flat-out.“I remember feeling the adrenaline rush of getting flat out, and the sense of freedom. The coppers’ bikes were geared for acceleration, so you could blast straight past them and they’d never catch you. I was a rocker back then. We liked riding about, looking good and picking up birds.”DaVe HiTCHings, roofer

Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 45 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 44 Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 45 AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 44

FEATURE: SUMMat in Here

YOUTH IN PICTURES

aBoveThe Green Cross man (out

of shot) contemplates early retirement

leftLocal newspaper report of William Nunn’s inadvertent

flight from justice

My first.......CollAR “That newspaper cutting brings it all back to me. They didn’t catch me that night so when the police turned up at the door asking if I had a bike my first thought was that it had been stolen. So I dropped myself in it. My parents weren’t too bad about it. As long as you don’t get hurt that’s the main thing. I was 16 or 17, working on a farm. The bike was a Francis Barnett 250 single with an AMC engine. LEB216. It cost me £85. I took the L plates and the baffles off. A mate of mine had a Viva, he used to drive fast and we’d race. When I saw the car I just thought it was him so I took off – I was just having a bit of fun. It turned out it was a copper giving advance driving lessons or something. I lost them in Downham Market. The PC wasn’t exaggerating when he said I was laying the motorcycle almost on its side, in Wareham there’s a very sharp corner by the pub with a pond on the other side. I put a suit on for the magistrates court. I could have gone to a higher court but I just wanted to get it over with. The prosecutor was a little bloke, young and he really tried to give me some stick. He was really bloody into me.”WilliaM nunn, steelfixer (sarah’s dad)

FIRST...Wheelie: “My first wheelie was in a wood on a mate’s knackered tS125. i didn’t mean to do it, got it all wrong and fell off the back. My mates tried to show me how to do it and they all fell off as well. the first time it all came together for me, was on a borrowed Pe175 Suzuki. i clutched it up in second gear and wheelied it right through the ’box into fifth. it felt amazing because i’d been practising and falling off a lot up until then. My life was complete after that.” GarY HUrD, bike mechanic

{

Classic Bike AUGUST 2008 PB AUGUST 2008 Classic Bike 46

NeXTkeNNY roBerTs

eXclusive iNTerview

FEATURE: KENNY ROBERTS

ThE mANY livES OF KR .....P48From the dirt tracks of California to building GP bikes, he’s done it all. These are some of the highlights

1978: ThE cROwNiNg OF KiNg KENNY................... P52It was his first year in Grand Prix, racing on unfamiliar tracks but he came out of it as a world champion

iNSidE KENNY’S ShEd ......... P58It’s just like your shed, but Kenny’s is stuffed with his old Grand Prix bikes and flat track racers

1969 ...........................................................Starts dirt track aged 131970 ............................................................................1st US NJChamp1971 .............................................................................1st US NJChamp1972 ....................................................4th US NEChamp (Yamaha)1973 ......................................1st US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1974 .......................................1st US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1975 ......................................2nd US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1976 ......................................3rd US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1977 .....................................4th US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1978 ..............1st 500 WChamp (Yamaha) see page 521979 ....................................................1st 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1980 ...................................................1st 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1981 ..................................................3rd 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1982 ..................................................4th 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1983 .................................................2nd 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1984 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 8th; Carter, 9th 250 WChamp1985 ..............................................................1st Laguna Seca Classic Pole position, Suzuka Eight-Hour1986 ...........Final race outing, Suzuka Eight-Hour, retired lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Mamola, 3rd; Baldwin, 4th 500 WChamp1987 ..............lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Mamola, 2nd 500 WChamp John Kocinski, 1st 250 US champion1988 ..............lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 3rd; Magee, 5th 500 WChamp1989 ...............lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 2nd; Magee, 5th 500 WChamp1990 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey 1st; Lawson, 7th 500 WChamp Kocinski, 1st 250 WChamp1991 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey 1st; Kocinski, 4th 500 WChamp1992 ......................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey 1st; Kocinski, 3rd 500 WChamp1993 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 2nd; Cadalora, 5th WChamp1994 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Cadalora, 2nd; Beattie, 13th 500 WChamp1995 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Cadalora, 2nd; Abe, 5th 500 WChamp1996 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Abe, 5th; Bayle, 9th; Roberts Jnr, 13th 500 WChamp1997 ...................marlboro Team Roberts modenas Roberts Jnr, 16th; Bayle, 18th 500 WChamp1998 ...............................................Team Roberts modenas Roberts Jnr, 13th; Waldmann, 14th 500 WChamp1999 ................................................Team Roberts modenas De Gea, 23rd 500 WChamp2000 ...............................................Team Roberts modenas De Gea, 17th 500 WChamp2001 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Van der Goorbergh, 13th 500 WChamp2002 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Aoki, 12th; McWilliams, 14th MotoGP2003 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton McWilliams, 18th; Aoki, 21st MotoGP2004 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Aoki, 21st; Haydon, 25th MotoGP2005 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Byrne, 24th MotoGP2006 .................................................................Team Roberts KR Roberts Jnr, 6th MotoGP2007 .................................................................Team Roberts KR Kurtis Roberts, 19th MotoGP

NJChamp: National Junior ChampionshipNEChamp: National Expert ChampionshipNChamp: National ChampionshipWChamp: World Championship

iKR YEARSiiiiIn his maiden GP year he beat Barry Sheene and won the world

crown. Thirty years on KR tells Classic Bike about the greatest moments in an amazing career

Classic Bike MARCH 2008 47 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 46 Classic Bike MARCH 2008 47 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 46

KennyKing

E X c l U S i v E i N T E R v i E wWords Mat Oxley Photography Classic Bike archive

FEATURE: KENNY ROBERTS

ThE mANY livES OF KR .....P48From the dirt tracks of California to building GP bikes, he’s done it all. These are some of the highlights

1978: ThE cROwNiNg OF KiNg KENNY................... P52It was his first year in Grand Prix, racing on unfamiliar tracks but he came out of it as a world champion

iNSidE KENNY’S ShEd ......... P58It’s just like your shed, but Kenny’s is stuffed with his old Grand Prix bikes and flat track racers

1969 ...........................................................Starts dirt track aged 131970 ............................................................................1st US NJChamp1971 .............................................................................1st US NJChamp1972 ....................................................4th US NEChamp (Yamaha)1973 ......................................1st US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1974 .......................................1st US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1975 ......................................2nd US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1976 ......................................3rd US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1977 .....................................4th US Grand NChamp (Yamaha)1978 ..............1st 500 WChamp (Yamaha) see page 521979 ....................................................1st 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1980 ...................................................1st 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1981 ..................................................3rd 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1982 ..................................................4th 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1983 .................................................2nd 500 WChamp (Yamaha)1984 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 8th; Carter, 9th 250 WChamp1985 ..............................................................1st Laguna Seca Classic Pole position, Suzuka Eight-Hour1986 ...........Final race outing, Suzuka Eight-Hour, retired lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Mamola, 3rd; Baldwin, 4th 500 WChamp1987 ..............lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Mamola, 2nd 500 WChamp John Kocinski, 1st 250 US champion1988 ..............lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 3rd; Magee, 5th 500 WChamp1989 ...............lucky Strike Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 2nd; Magee, 5th 500 WChamp1990 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey 1st; Lawson, 7th 500 WChamp Kocinski, 1st 250 WChamp1991 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey 1st; Kocinski, 4th 500 WChamp1992 ......................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey 1st; Kocinski, 3rd 500 WChamp1993 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Rainey, 2nd; Cadalora, 5th WChamp1994 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Cadalora, 2nd; Beattie, 13th 500 WChamp1995 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Cadalora, 2nd; Abe, 5th 500 WChamp1996 .....................marlboro Team Roberts Yamaha Abe, 5th; Bayle, 9th; Roberts Jnr, 13th 500 WChamp1997 ...................marlboro Team Roberts modenas Roberts Jnr, 16th; Bayle, 18th 500 WChamp1998 ...............................................Team Roberts modenas Roberts Jnr, 13th; Waldmann, 14th 500 WChamp1999 ................................................Team Roberts modenas De Gea, 23rd 500 WChamp2000 ...............................................Team Roberts modenas De Gea, 17th 500 WChamp2001 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Van der Goorbergh, 13th 500 WChamp2002 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Aoki, 12th; McWilliams, 14th MotoGP2003 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton McWilliams, 18th; Aoki, 21st MotoGP2004 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Aoki, 21st; Haydon, 25th MotoGP2005 ......................................................Team Roberts Proton Byrne, 24th MotoGP2006 .................................................................Team Roberts KR Roberts Jnr, 6th MotoGP2007 .................................................................Team Roberts KR Kurtis Roberts, 19th MotoGP

NJChamp: National Junior ChampionshipNEChamp: National Expert ChampionshipNChamp: National ChampionshipWChamp: World Championship

iKR YEARSiiiiIn his maiden GP year he beat Barry Sheene and won the world

crown. Thirty years on KR tells Classic Bike about the greatest moments in an amazing career

Classic Bike MARCH 2008 47 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 46 Classic Bike MARCH 2008 47 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 46

KennyKing

E X c l U S i v E i N T E R v i E wWords Mat Oxley Photography Classic Bike archive

FEATURE: KENNY ROBERTS

Classic Bike MARCH 2008 49 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 48 Classic Bike MARCH 2008 49 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 48

Dirt tracker, road racer, riders’ rights activist, team owner, motorcycle manufacturer, legend. Three decades ago King Kenny Roberts became America’s first 500 world champion and changed the face of the sport forever. Mat Oxley charts the unique career of the most important motorcycle racer in history

it is 30 years since Kenny Roberts won his first world title, thrashing Barry Sheene to the 1978 500 world championship. The man who brought knee-scraping and rear-wheel steering to road racing has been part of the global race scene ever since, achieving more in motorcycle sport than anyone else.

King Kenny won two US Grand National dirt track/road race championships and then three 500 world titles, transforming the GP scene by fighting for riders’ rights in the late 1970s and early 1980s. After retiring from racing he created a GP racing super team with riders Wayne Rainey, Eddie Lawson and John Kocinski, then built his own GP bikes, both two-stroke and four-stroke. In 2006 one of his motorcycles, the KR211V, came within two-tenths of a second of scoring his team’s first MotoGP victory. This year is his first season out of racing since the 1960s – his British-based Team Roberts outfit couldn’t get backing to continue in MotoGP – but he’s still planning to return in 2009, with Ducati power.

All in all, not a bad life’s work for a cowboy from Modesto, California, who’s only got one ball (the result of a motocross accident in the early 1970s) and has a bullet lodged in his left leg (the result of a hunting accident).

Dirt TrackerKenny Roberts was 12 years old when he got into bikes. “I go to feed the horses one day and this guy says I should have a go on this minibike with a lawnmower engine.” Little Kenny didn’t want to ride the contraption. “So he says I’m a baby, a chicken, so I ride the bike and it scares the shit out of me. It was a nightmare, I was lucky I didn’t crash. Okay, so I had to have one.”

A year later in 1969 a family friend suggested he start racing. “But I didn’t want to – I thought it’d be big guys with beards. We ended up going, it was at an old fairground just down the street and they were just normal kids. I knew I could beat them guys.”

Roberts still believes dirt track is the real deal: “Dirt track racing teaches you a lot in a very short period of time. The natural stuff comes out much quicker because it’s not so fast, it’s more physical and the motorcycle’s much more controllable than in road racing.”

iKRiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

T h e m a n y l i v e s o f K e n n y R o b e R T s

Road Racer“I never really considered myself a road racer, I just did road racing to get Grand National points.” So says one of the greatest road racers of all time of his hat-trick of 500 crowns, 24 GP victories and three Daytona 200 wins.

Roberts competed in his first road race in 1969. Within four years he had invented the modern sport – Roberts was the first rider to scrape his knees and regularly get his machine sideways.

“I started hanging off at Ontario Motor Speedway at the end of 1972. It had this right-hand horseshoe where I felt so uncomfortable, like I was going to crash. Jarno Saarinen came over to race that year and I watched him – he leaned off the side of the bike with his knee out, so I leaned off in that horseshoe and all of a sudden I didn’t have that bad feeling. I won the 250 race – smoked them – so there was a big buzz about this idiot dragging his knee.

“The craziest road racer we had at the time was Art Baumann. By the end of ’73 I’d started sliding the 350 around, I’d be in a foot-and-a-half drift, my knee became like my steel shoe. Baumann came into the pits and said ‘you’re going to kill yourself, you’re the craziest son-of-a-bitch I ever seen in my life and you’re goin’ to die’. I thought I was in big trouble because if that guy says I’m crazy, I’m dead. That’s how it all started.”

Freedom FighterBack in the 1970s GP riders were treated like circus animals – in the hands of greedy promoters they were made to race on lethal circuits and accommodated in paddocks with disgusting facilities. But racers lacked the unity to do anything about it. Roberts was appalled at what he found and when he returned for his second season he resolved to do something about it, which led to the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to create a breakaway championship called World Series.

“The old promoters and the FIM treated us like shit, they had everybody by the balls, so I told Sheene and the guys we should organise our own international races and forget about the world championship because I didn’t really give a shit about it anyway.

“The first guy I hit was Barry Coleman (who now helps run the Riders for Health charity) and we got close enough to making World Series happen to scare them. After that it was like heaven, we turned it around from not being able to talk to the promoters about safety to being able to talk to them. And they increased prize money by 300 per cent and everyone knew what they were paying. Now it’s easy, the riders go talk to Carmelo (Ezpeleta, Dorna MotoGP boss) and it’s fixed. Back then, it was a nightmare. A lot of people didn’t know how big an achievement that was. I didn’t do it for money, I had more to lose than anyone else, I did it because I thought it was right.”

FEATURE: KENNY ROBERTS

Classic Bike MARCH 2008 49 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 48 Classic Bike MARCH 2008 49 MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 48

Dirt tracker, road racer, riders’ rights activist, team owner, motorcycle manufacturer, legend. Three decades ago King Kenny Roberts became America’s first 500 world champion and changed the face of the sport forever. Mat Oxley charts the unique career of the most important motorcycle racer in history

it is 30 years since Kenny Roberts won his first world title, thrashing Barry Sheene to the 1978 500 world championship. The man who brought knee-scraping and rear-wheel steering to road racing has been part of the global race scene ever since, achieving more in motorcycle sport than anyone else.

King Kenny won two US Grand National dirt track/road race championships and then three 500 world titles, transforming the GP scene by fighting for riders’ rights in the late 1970s and early 1980s. After retiring from racing he created a GP racing super team with riders Wayne Rainey, Eddie Lawson and John Kocinski, then built his own GP bikes, both two-stroke and four-stroke. In 2006 one of his motorcycles, the KR211V, came within two-tenths of a second of scoring his team’s first MotoGP victory. This year is his first season out of racing since the 1960s – his British-based Team Roberts outfit couldn’t get backing to continue in MotoGP – but he’s still planning to return in 2009, with Ducati power.

All in all, not a bad life’s work for a cowboy from Modesto, California, who’s only got one ball (the result of a motocross accident in the early 1970s) and has a bullet lodged in his left leg (the result of a hunting accident).

Dirt TrackerKenny Roberts was 12 years old when he got into bikes. “I go to feed the horses one day and this guy says I should have a go on this minibike with a lawnmower engine.” Little Kenny didn’t want to ride the contraption. “So he says I’m a baby, a chicken, so I ride the bike and it scares the shit out of me. It was a nightmare, I was lucky I didn’t crash. Okay, so I had to have one.”

A year later in 1969 a family friend suggested he start racing. “But I didn’t want to – I thought it’d be big guys with beards. We ended up going, it was at an old fairground just down the street and they were just normal kids. I knew I could beat them guys.”

Roberts still believes dirt track is the real deal: “Dirt track racing teaches you a lot in a very short period of time. The natural stuff comes out much quicker because it’s not so fast, it’s more physical and the motorcycle’s much more controllable than in road racing.”

iKRiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

T h e m a n y l i v e s o f K e n n y R o b e R T s

Road Racer“I never really considered myself a road racer, I just did road racing to get Grand National points.” So says one of the greatest road racers of all time of his hat-trick of 500 crowns, 24 GP victories and three Daytona 200 wins.

Roberts competed in his first road race in 1969. Within four years he had invented the modern sport – Roberts was the first rider to scrape his knees and regularly get his machine sideways.

“I started hanging off at Ontario Motor Speedway at the end of 1972. It had this right-hand horseshoe where I felt so uncomfortable, like I was going to crash. Jarno Saarinen came over to race that year and I watched him – he leaned off the side of the bike with his knee out, so I leaned off in that horseshoe and all of a sudden I didn’t have that bad feeling. I won the 250 race – smoked them – so there was a big buzz about this idiot dragging his knee.

“The craziest road racer we had at the time was Art Baumann. By the end of ’73 I’d started sliding the 350 around, I’d be in a foot-and-a-half drift, my knee became like my steel shoe. Baumann came into the pits and said ‘you’re going to kill yourself, you’re the craziest son-of-a-bitch I ever seen in my life and you’re goin’ to die’. I thought I was in big trouble because if that guy says I’m crazy, I’m dead. That’s how it all started.”

Freedom FighterBack in the 1970s GP riders were treated like circus animals – in the hands of greedy promoters they were made to race on lethal circuits and accommodated in paddocks with disgusting facilities. But racers lacked the unity to do anything about it. Roberts was appalled at what he found and when he returned for his second season he resolved to do something about it, which led to the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to create a breakaway championship called World Series.

“The old promoters and the FIM treated us like shit, they had everybody by the balls, so I told Sheene and the guys we should organise our own international races and forget about the world championship because I didn’t really give a shit about it anyway.

“The first guy I hit was Barry Coleman (who now helps run the Riders for Health charity) and we got close enough to making World Series happen to scare them. After that it was like heaven, we turned it around from not being able to talk to the promoters about safety to being able to talk to them. And they increased prize money by 300 per cent and everyone knew what they were paying. Now it’s easy, the riders go talk to Carmelo (Ezpeleta, Dorna MotoGP boss) and it’s fixed. Back then, it was a nightmare. A lot of people didn’t know how big an achievement that was. I didn’t do it for money, I had more to lose than anyone else, I did it because I thought it was right.”

FEATURE: KENNY ROBERTS

Classic Bike MARCH 2008 PB MARCH 2008 Classic Bike 50

iKRiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

T h e m a n y l i v e s o f K e n n y R o b e R T s

Team OwnerRoberts quit riding in Grand Prix at the end of 1983 and, before he knew it, found himself boss of a 250 GP team. Two years later his outfit became the Lucky Strike 500 GP team and four years after that it morphed into Marlboro Team Roberts, the so-called ‘Evil Empire’, a Yamaha-backed GP racing super team featuring Wayne Rainey, Eddie Lawson and John Kocinski. Roberts won 47 GPs and four world titles as a team owner.

“I started getting arm pump in ’82 and ’83 and if that hadn’t happened I probably would’ve carried on racing for another year or two. I felt I wasn’t doing enough training, and, of course, the more training I did, the worse it got, but I was too stupid to go to a doctor. It just got to the point where I was worn out, I just didn’t want to race anymore. Then Paul Butler (from Yamaha) called up and asked me if I wanted to start a team. I told him I wanted to help this young kid Wayne Rainey (pictured above, right), so we did the 250 thing.

“I didn’t enjoy it like racing, but I always enjoyed the technical part – what made the motorcycle better, what made it worse. And I enjoyed working with the younger guys, watching them progress. Wayne was like a brother to me, we gelled, it was fun.”

Rainey was paralysed while battling for a fourth consecutive 500 crown in 1993 but Roberts still didn’t quit. “I had a big business going, 40 people working for me, so I couldn’t just say ‘I’m done’. And I didn’t want to stop, the team was part of my life by then.”

Motorcycle ManufacturerRoberts’ Yamaha career lasted a quarter of a century, from 1972 to 1996. During the last few years he became increasingly frustrated by the factory’s unwillingness to invest in trying to wrench the 500 title from Honda. So in 1997 he built his own motorcycle – the two-stroke KR3 triple – with big backing from Marlboro, and when GPs went four-stroke he built the V5 KR5. Neither bike won races but they were both impressive pieces of engineering of which the King is justifiably proud. The KR3 (pictured above) holds the honour of scoring the last two-stroke premier-class pole position.

In the 2006 season Roberts’ Honda-powered KR211V scored two MotoGP podiums, ridden by eldest son Kenny Junior, missing out on victory in the Portuguese GP by 0.178 seconds.

“With Yamaha it got to the point where I wanted to quit because I couldn’t do it the way it needed to be done. We were already making our own cylinders, heads, reed valves and pistons for the 500, so I said ‘I’m going to build my own bike’. Dumbest damn thing I ever did, but I’m not interested in racing a branded Yamaha, that way you’re never going to set yourself apart and that’s what I’ve done all my life. For whatever reason, I’ve always wanted to do something different.

“The KR3 never really panned out for a lot of reasons, Marlboro put in 17 million dollars the first year, then dropped it. If they’d stayed, we would’ve had the right motor within three years.

“The bike I’m most proud of technically was the last V5 we made in 2004 with John [Barnard, former Formula One guru]. It was so nice, every piece was made just for that motorcycle. It was expensive, but it was the nicest motorcycle we made. We brought in some F1 car technology and MotoGP is going more and more in that direction. What John brought in could revolutionise racing, given the time and the money.”

NeXTThe losT BoYs

FEATURE: SUMMAT IN HEREWords Ben Miller Photography Simon Hipperson

> T H E L o S T B o Y S

Classic Bike august 2008 67 august 2008 Classic Bike 66

Very early on a sunny Sunday morning and I’m glad I’m up. On the south coast near Bexhill-on-sea, ‘Birthplace of British Motorsport’ – says the sign on the way into town, the morning air smells of summer and sea breezes. At the bottom of a wild back garden, in a shed of old timbers and corrugated

plastic sheet, Frank, a tall, calm and immediately affable nineteen-year-old in skinny jeans and a Brownies T-shirt is telling me how one of the world’s great pairings – himself and classic motorcycles – came together.

“My dad’s a plumber and one day I went with him to the scrapyard where he takes all his old copper. I found this knackered Suzuki GP100 and gave the bloke a tenner for it. I got to work on it with molegrips and pliers – I mean, I could take stuff apart but I had no idea what I was doing or how the thing worked – and managed to coax it back into life; the thing only bloody ran.”

Frank pauses to swig from a bottle of coke. Where the sugar goes I’m not sure – his skinny six-foot frame can’t weigh more than 10 stone wet through. “We started hacking around the fields on it despite the fact it had a snapped autolube cable,” continues Frank. “The thing was running on neat petrol – I don’t know how it never seized. I got a CD175 Honda after that, bodged that about, got a bit better with the spanners and it’s gone from there.”

Frank’s college happened to be close to Cosmo Classic Motorcycles in nearby St Leonards-on-sea. “You never

F R A n k ’ S B i k E S : 1975 Suzuki GT250 “I got this at Kempton a couple of years ago for £150. I did it up, ragged it around and blew it up. It’s awesome to ride. the gt was the first bike I really clicked with. You know how it takes a couple of months to get used to most bikes? With this it just felt right straight away – I’d never sell it.”

1975 Yamaha RD350 “I’m doing this one up as daily hack. I had the engine back in the frame but the re-bore didn’t do the job – one of the pistons is so out of round it needs doing again.”

1972 Kawasaki H2 these boys are into their two-strokes and, when talk turns to the best two-stroke, the list is short – Frank knows that with his glorious blue H2 he’s arrived. “It’s the ultimate. It’s the bike I’ve always wanted to get my hands on. It’s mental – like the 350LC but a lot less refined. I haven’t done a lot to it and it’s in such nice, original condition it’d be criminal to. the shop (Cosmo Classic Motorcycles) imported it from California. It’s done 8243 miles.”

1981 Yamaha RD350LC “I only got it in February – paid £275 for it. It owes me about £1000 now I suppose. I had the frame powder-coated, put in all new bushes and bearings and gave the engine a re-bore and a crank rebuild – it started when I got it but it sounded like death. It’ll do 90mph all day, I mean 70mph. It’s enough to head up to Croydon on it once a week, no problem.”

Frank Hobbs and Rob Chave are barely out of their teens but their taste in clothes, music and motorbikes is rooted in the ’70s and ’80s. When they’re not rebuilding Suzuki GT250s and 750 Kawasakis in their sheds and living rooms, they’re thrashing around St Leonards-on-Sea on an LC Yamaha – living the dream. CB went to meet ‘The Lost Boys’...

FEATURE: SUMMAT IN HEREWords Ben Miller Photography Simon Hipperson

> T H E L o S T B o Y S

Classic Bike august 2008 67 august 2008 Classic Bike 66

Very early on a sunny Sunday morning and I’m glad I’m up. On the south coast near Bexhill-on-sea, ‘Birthplace of British Motorsport’ – says the sign on the way into town, the morning air smells of summer and sea breezes. At the bottom of a wild back garden, in a shed of old timbers and corrugated

plastic sheet, Frank, a tall, calm and immediately affable nineteen-year-old in skinny jeans and a Brownies T-shirt is telling me how one of the world’s great pairings – himself and classic motorcycles – came together.

“My dad’s a plumber and one day I went with him to the scrapyard where he takes all his old copper. I found this knackered Suzuki GP100 and gave the bloke a tenner for it. I got to work on it with molegrips and pliers – I mean, I could take stuff apart but I had no idea what I was doing or how the thing worked – and managed to coax it back into life; the thing only bloody ran.”

Frank pauses to swig from a bottle of coke. Where the sugar goes I’m not sure – his skinny six-foot frame can’t weigh more than 10 stone wet through. “We started hacking around the fields on it despite the fact it had a snapped autolube cable,” continues Frank. “The thing was running on neat petrol – I don’t know how it never seized. I got a CD175 Honda after that, bodged that about, got a bit better with the spanners and it’s gone from there.”

Frank’s college happened to be close to Cosmo Classic Motorcycles in nearby St Leonards-on-sea. “You never

F R A n k ’ S B i k E S : 1975 Suzuki GT250 “I got this at Kempton a couple of years ago for £150. I did it up, ragged it around and blew it up. It’s awesome to ride. the gt was the first bike I really clicked with. You know how it takes a couple of months to get used to most bikes? With this it just felt right straight away – I’d never sell it.”

1975 Yamaha RD350 “I’m doing this one up as daily hack. I had the engine back in the frame but the re-bore didn’t do the job – one of the pistons is so out of round it needs doing again.”

1972 Kawasaki H2 these boys are into their two-strokes and, when talk turns to the best two-stroke, the list is short – Frank knows that with his glorious blue H2 he’s arrived. “It’s the ultimate. It’s the bike I’ve always wanted to get my hands on. It’s mental – like the 350LC but a lot less refined. I haven’t done a lot to it and it’s in such nice, original condition it’d be criminal to. the shop (Cosmo Classic Motorcycles) imported it from California. It’s done 8243 miles.”

1981 Yamaha RD350LC “I only got it in February – paid £275 for it. It owes me about £1000 now I suppose. I had the frame powder-coated, put in all new bushes and bearings and gave the engine a re-bore and a crank rebuild – it started when I got it but it sounded like death. It’ll do 90mph all day, I mean 70mph. It’s enough to head up to Croydon on it once a week, no problem.”

Frank Hobbs and Rob Chave are barely out of their teens but their taste in clothes, music and motorbikes is rooted in the ’70s and ’80s. When they’re not rebuilding Suzuki GT250s and 750 Kawasakis in their sheds and living rooms, they’re thrashing around St Leonards-on-Sea on an LC Yamaha – living the dream. CB went to meet ‘The Lost Boys’...

FEATURE: SUMMAT IN HERE

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R o B ’ S B i k E : 1974 Yamaha RD250 Rob’s pride and joy, his red and white RD250, is nearing completion after a year of work in his top floor flat. “I didn’t bother getting the frame powder-coated or anything,” he says. “I scraped the rust off by hand and sprayed it myself – the kitchen floor’s a mess. We got the bike back together then had to carry it down the stairs – there’s no lift where I live. It’s all pretty low-budget stuff but it’s nearly there. We’ve got a replacement fork leg which was the missing piece of the puzzle – the old one was bent like a banana.”

W E R E B U i L T M Y R D 2 5 0 L i S T E n i n g T o M Y D A D ’ S o L D V i n Y L – T H E R A M o n E S , T H E C L A S H

used to be able to get him out of bed in the morning,” recalls Frank’s dad Derek, a proficient amateur mechanic himself. “He was stuck in there like shit to a blanket. I started to get calls from the college asking where he was. I’d talk to Frank and he’d say ‘Oh, I just dropped into Cosmos’. They gave him a Saturday job and suddenly he was up bright and early. If they were off to a show he’d be up and about at 5am, no problem – that’s when you know they’ve found something they really want to do.”

Back in the shed and Frank’s happiness around old bikes is clear to see. This is his natural environment and the workshop is a perfect bubble of escapism, its ceiling hung with old fuel tanks, the work surfaces littered with assorted parts, Autosol and jubilee clips, “At one point the SP100 was held together with ’em,” he says. Lou Reed’s Transformer sits in the stereo and the jacket on the back of the door could be thirty years old. If it wasn’t for the new-ish parts washer, this could be 1975.

Above the whine of modern four-stroke sportsbikes already packing the coast road, the beautiful din of a two-stroke snapping through the gears draws closer. Unseen pipes cackle on the overrun and finally pull into Frank’s driveway. In flared jeans and a brown polo shirt his dad could have given him, Rob introduces himself. The jacket’s as distressed as Frank’s, the helmet a battered and crazed Eighties effort with a scarred visor. The other half of ‘Two-stroke disco’, the name they’ve given to the life and the bikes they love, Rob’s clearly a victim of Frank’s infectious enthusiasm. He may be into everything from playing in a band (“Mainly Sixties and Seventies covers – how predictable,” he laughs), to re-enacting, the glorious pastime that is dressing up as a medieval foot soldier and going into battle once a month, but he has still found the money for an RD250 the two have nearly finished rebuilding. Today he’ll ride Frank’s 350LC. Frank’s mighty H2 Kawasaki is hors de combat, so he’ll be riding a Z1 the boss has lent him. We hit the road.

Out into the weekend mayhem of a summer morning by the sea we’re soon dodging across estates, down side-roads and pedestrian cut-throughs like we own the place. And these two do. Eventually the houses and shops thin out and we’re onto a nadgery, bumpy, B-road along behind Cooden beach. Today it’s heaving with caravans, day-trippers and lost-looking Fireblades cursing the bumps. Our pace is red hot nonetheless – make no mistake, these two can ride.

Out of every slow corner and junction, the noise is magic – the guttural roar of the mighty Zed overlaid with the LC’s manic wail and frenzied gearshifts. Corner speeds are unfathomably high for two chassis well into their third decade but the lads have the confidence born of youth and a thousand lost hours pushing field bikes well past their limits. They take off down the meandering straights, oblivious to the fierce humps and compressions tying their bikes in knots. T H E g U T T U R A L R o A R o F T H E z E D

o V E R L A i D W i T H T H E L C ’ S M A n i C W A i L

FEATURE: SUMMAT IN HERE

Classic Bike august 2008 69 august 2008 Classic Bike 68

R o B ’ S B i k E : 1974 Yamaha RD250 Rob’s pride and joy, his red and white RD250, is nearing completion after a year of work in his top floor flat. “I didn’t bother getting the frame powder-coated or anything,” he says. “I scraped the rust off by hand and sprayed it myself – the kitchen floor’s a mess. We got the bike back together then had to carry it down the stairs – there’s no lift where I live. It’s all pretty low-budget stuff but it’s nearly there. We’ve got a replacement fork leg which was the missing piece of the puzzle – the old one was bent like a banana.”

W E R E B U i L T M Y R D 2 5 0 L i S T E n i n g T o M Y D A D ’ S o L D V i n Y L – T H E R A M o n E S , T H E C L A S H

used to be able to get him out of bed in the morning,” recalls Frank’s dad Derek, a proficient amateur mechanic himself. “He was stuck in there like shit to a blanket. I started to get calls from the college asking where he was. I’d talk to Frank and he’d say ‘Oh, I just dropped into Cosmos’. They gave him a Saturday job and suddenly he was up bright and early. If they were off to a show he’d be up and about at 5am, no problem – that’s when you know they’ve found something they really want to do.”

Back in the shed and Frank’s happiness around old bikes is clear to see. This is his natural environment and the workshop is a perfect bubble of escapism, its ceiling hung with old fuel tanks, the work surfaces littered with assorted parts, Autosol and jubilee clips, “At one point the SP100 was held together with ’em,” he says. Lou Reed’s Transformer sits in the stereo and the jacket on the back of the door could be thirty years old. If it wasn’t for the new-ish parts washer, this could be 1975.

Above the whine of modern four-stroke sportsbikes already packing the coast road, the beautiful din of a two-stroke snapping through the gears draws closer. Unseen pipes cackle on the overrun and finally pull into Frank’s driveway. In flared jeans and a brown polo shirt his dad could have given him, Rob introduces himself. The jacket’s as distressed as Frank’s, the helmet a battered and crazed Eighties effort with a scarred visor. The other half of ‘Two-stroke disco’, the name they’ve given to the life and the bikes they love, Rob’s clearly a victim of Frank’s infectious enthusiasm. He may be into everything from playing in a band (“Mainly Sixties and Seventies covers – how predictable,” he laughs), to re-enacting, the glorious pastime that is dressing up as a medieval foot soldier and going into battle once a month, but he has still found the money for an RD250 the two have nearly finished rebuilding. Today he’ll ride Frank’s 350LC. Frank’s mighty H2 Kawasaki is hors de combat, so he’ll be riding a Z1 the boss has lent him. We hit the road.

Out into the weekend mayhem of a summer morning by the sea we’re soon dodging across estates, down side-roads and pedestrian cut-throughs like we own the place. And these two do. Eventually the houses and shops thin out and we’re onto a nadgery, bumpy, B-road along behind Cooden beach. Today it’s heaving with caravans, day-trippers and lost-looking Fireblades cursing the bumps. Our pace is red hot nonetheless – make no mistake, these two can ride.

Out of every slow corner and junction, the noise is magic – the guttural roar of the mighty Zed overlaid with the LC’s manic wail and frenzied gearshifts. Corner speeds are unfathomably high for two chassis well into their third decade but the lads have the confidence born of youth and a thousand lost hours pushing field bikes well past their limits. They take off down the meandering straights, oblivious to the fierce humps and compressions tying their bikes in knots. T H E g U T T U R A L R o A R o F T H E z E D

o V E R L A i D W i T H T H E L C ’ S M A n i C W A i L

A n o L D T W o - S T R o k E o n S p A n n i E S S o U n D S S o g L o R i o U S L Y A n T i S o C i A L

Classic Bike august 2008 71 NOVEMBER 2008 Classic Bike PB

T H i S i S H i S n A T U R A L E n V i R o n M E n T – T H E W o R k S H o p i S A p E R F E C T B U B B L E o F E S C A p i S M

We pull up behind the sea wall for a drink and a breather. The sun is higher now, the sky a perfect blue. The bikes smell of hot oil and effort.

“That overtake was close – it looked clear from where I was; turned out there was a car right in the dip where I couldn’t see him,” Frank grins.

“I think I had you pretty much everywhere,” laughs Rob. “You feel like you can get away with anything on the LC, it’s mental – you’ve got to keep the engine in a really narrow powerband but it’s just mental, lifting the front everywhere.”

“Yeah, it’s not hard to see why they were the bikes to have,” agrees Frank. “I mean, I was reeling you in on the straights but you were getting away in the corners.”

It turns out this is their unofficial shakedown strip and test track. Like the rest of their seaside kingdom, they know it like the backs of their hands. I suggest it’s a tricky road to ride fast. “It is now everybody’s out, but early on a Sunday morning it’s great – from that corner there it’s normally flat-out all the way down here to the pub,” Frank says.

Engines tick cool and the sea breeze tugs at the long, bright green grass of the dunes. I’m curious to know if modern bikes have any appeal to Rob and Frank. What if they won £10,000 tomorrow on the premium bonds? “It’d still be Z1s and H2s,” says Rob. “Part of it’s the noise – an old two-stroke on spannies just sounds so anti-social. Kids on modern bikes don’t get anything like that noise.”

“I think we can admire the modern stuff but older bikes have got more soul,” agrees Frank.

“Not much of the music or the other stuff people our

F R A n k ’ S B E S T B U Y SLeather jacket “I bought it on eBay a couple of years ago for £80. It’s been down the road a couple of times but it’s held up well.” Prefect pin-badge is a nice touch.

Suzuki GT250 “still the bike that means the most to me and my next project once the RD’s finished.”

RD350 tank and side panels “My biggest bargain so far. I paid £35 – a couple of years ago they were going for £150. I’m not sure if I was just the only person watching them on eBay.”

FEATURE: SUMMAT IN HERE

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R o B ’ S B E S T B U Y SHaynes manual “another autojumble find – £2. It’s come in pretty handy.”

RD250 fork “It’s taken a while to get hold of one of these – that’s why my bike’s not finished. £12 and the worst of the pitting has polished out.” Leather jacket (left)“Frank got it for me at an autojumble – he goes to them all the time with his job. I paid £50 I think. It fits pretty well and I haven’t actually crashed in this one yet. ‘two-stroke disco’ just seemed to sum up what we’re into and painting on the back of your jacket’s a pretty seventies thing to do anyway.”

age are into interests me really,” confesses Rob. “I guess it’s quite unusual to have a practical interest these days – even our jobs are fairly traditional I suppose, working in an engineering place and as a bike mechanic. We re-built my RD250 listening to my dad’s vinyl – the Ramones, The Clash – and Frank’s into his Eighties metal; Iron Maiden and Motörhead. It’s really just two or three of us who are into the old bikes – I’ve heard our group referred to as the lost boys.”

“I’d just much rather be working on bikes than getting drunk at a party,” says Frank. Suddenly it’s hard to see any appeal in drinking White Lightning until your kidneys ache when there are RD frames to be painted.

With that we saddle up and roll out – after a big Saturday night and an early start this morning, Rob and Frank have got an appointment with a long-overdue Sunday afternoon fry-up. We hack back at an obscene rate, flitting through the seaside streets of Bexhill just as fast as we can, arcing past swathes of identical new houses, building a wall of noise that stops suburban dad in his tracks – the sponge he’s half-heartedly pushing over the family Vauxhall Meriva dripping on his sandals as he stares open-mouthed at the source of the cacophony.

We say our goodbyes back at Frank’s. I feel like I’ve spent the day in a different world, a parallel universe of no fixed plans, girlfriend pillions, proper music, bacon sandwiches, lost nights, long summers, wild wheelies, skinny jeans, treasure-trove autojumbles, long lie-ins, blaring spannies, few commitments and an overwhelming sense of freedom – have cackling two-stroke, will travel. This is the world according to Frank Hobbs and Rob Chave, and it’s a damn cool place to be.

T W o S T R o k E D i S C o j U S T S E E M E D T o S U M U p W H A T W E ’ R E i n T o . . .

coNTacTMark Tucker

tuc2012@gmail.com