A couple of months before this article, we visited Ficus Constructions in Collingwood, Melbourne where we shot Ric Cornaldi’s BMW R80 for Tank Moto issue 04. When Luke and I arrived Ric lead us into the workshop and introduced us to Leon McKay, a workshop apprentice who was helping him with his latest custom build.
The artwork of UK based illustrator Ryan Quickfall summons up nostalgic memories of my childhood when comic books were printed using only four colours and motorcycle racing was celebrated as a sport of legends. His work echoes the visual style of retro comics and vintage bill posters and mimics the print production techniques from that same era.
One of the best things about being an invited guest at Kustomfest in Indonesia earlier this year was the opportunity to award someone’s bike as my pick of the show. It wasn’t so much the fact that I was being seen as someone important enough to give the award (which was a pretty humbling experience), but more about the fact that I had the chance to make someone feel pretty special at an event with attendance numbers of well over 20,000.
We’d just finished setting up our makeshift photo studio outside the Kustomfest hall. Scrutineering was about to get underway so before all the bikes started lining up we needed to find a test subject to give it a trial run. About an hour earlier a bike had been unloaded nearby in the carpark that caught our attention...
Words: Geoff Baldwin Photography: Luke Ray.
In the early eighties the build of the Francis family TriBSA sidecar started thanks to Allen’s good friend Don Cooper. Don and Allen were racing a BMW R69S and were enjoying some success before a couple of “catastrophic” blow ups. Allen decided it was probably wise to have a back-up incase they experienced another blow up and were left sitting on the sideline. As it turned out, Don had a frame, a set of BMW forks with a front wheel and other various bits and pieces which he donated to the cause. With that Allen decided to put together a Triumph/BSA racing outfit like he had owned in the ‘60s and the project began.
Words: Geoff Baldwin Photography: Luke Ray.
What is it that defines something as being either trash or treasure? Perhaps it’s differences in perceived value, need vs want or maybe it just comes down to personal taste. In a world where throwaway technology and mass production is prolific it’s easy to see why there is so much being discarded that still holds some sort of value. In Australia local councils manage the accumulation of unwanted goods by conducting annual ‘hard rubbish’ collections. When I was a student this was the time to deck out your pad with furniture, electrical goods and whatever else you’d stumble across without costing you a cent. For some people though, hard rubbish presents an opportunity to find unique curios that can be used in ways they were never intended. One such person is ‘Diamond’, a tattoo artist from Thailand living in Australia and taking full advantage of our hard rubbish habits to build his ‘Dirty Rat’.
Words Geoff Baldwin Photography Luke Ray.
My buddy Kev has a knack for importing vehicles. Over the years he’s accumulated a killer collection of custom bikes and cars that are enough to turn any moto enthusiast green. But of all his trick rides it’s his 1951 Harley Davidson Panhead that really takes my fancy. I’ll be honest here and say that Harleys have never really been my thing, but the first time I saw Kev’s Pan all that changed. There’s no denying that the era this bike’s from was one of the most visually spectacular automotive design periods in history, but Kev’s Pan is the perfect balance of classic '50s cool and tidy custom work. Everything from the chunky tyres to the wheel covers and cocktail shaker mufflers balances perfectly with its fifties styling. Like all of Kev’s bikes there’s a cool story behind how it ended up in his hands, but this one brings a whole new meaning to “sight unseen”.
If I wasn’t spending all my time writing about Café Racers I’d probably be spending it writing about Triumph Bobbers instead. I don’t know what it is about a classic Triumph motor sitting in a hardtailed frame but it certainly looks good to me. As it turns out I’m not the only one with this cross culture obsession in custom motorcycles but unlike me, Marty Towers has turned his obsession into a business that all started with this bike, the Red Star Bobber.