Neville Doyle – Gentleman Tuner
From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 87 – first published in 2020. Story: Peter Smith • Photos: Charles Rice, OBA archives In the annals of motorcycle sport, there are some famous names behind the […]
Ken Rumble
Jack Walters – Sponsor extraordinaire
From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 86. Story: Peter Laverty • Photos: Keith Ward, Barry Smith, Rob Lewis, Dick Darby. The face of Australian motorcycle racing would look considerably different if not for Jack Walters, who […]
Geoff Taylor: Across the Great Divide
From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 76 – first published in 2018. Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photos: Rob Lewis, Michael Andrews, Geoff Neild, Merv Whitelaw, Taylor archives. It’s not uncommon to graduate from motocross to road racing, but […]
Tracks in Time: Little River
Story: Jim Scaysbrook • With assistance from: Jenny Martinez • Photographs: Ray Kelly, Wes Brown, Noel Cheney, Ross Martin and other private collections. Like its more famous counterpart in the Irish Sea, the Australian TT was […]
Tom Phillis: A bridge too far
Story: Jim Scaysbrook • Photos: Charles Rice, Keith Ward, Tom Perry The feeling of disbelief that followed the death of Tom Phillis on the Isle of Man in 1962 was palpable. How could Tom, fast […]
Christmas Hills – When the hills were alive
What was possibly Australia’s most spectacular scrambles circuit now lies beneath the waters of Sugarloaf Reservoir. Story: Jim Scaysbrook with assistance from Wes Brown and Paul Keam • Photos: Merv Whitelaw The shop run by John […]
Tracks in Time: Flinders Naval Depot
As post-war public road closures for racing became more and more difficult, the search was on for suitable stretches of tarmac where motorcycles could be raced in anger. East of Melbourne, the bike brigade found […]
The Guzzi invasion
The publicity generated by reigning world champion Geoff Duke’s ‘Down Under’ tour in 1954/55 did not go unnoticed overseas. Duke made noises about a repeat performance for the summer season of 1955/56 but when this […]
Roy East – A great all-rounder
Few Australians tried to make a living racing motocross in Europe in the 1960s – and even fewer succeeded. Among those who plied the tracks of England, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland and the Iron Curtain countries was Sydney’s Roy East. As Paul […]
Little River – A little bit of history
Like its more famous counterpart in the Irish Sea, the Australian TT was the biggest thing in motorcycling Down Under, and so there would be no squabbling over where the annual event that carried the […]
