Random Photos

[The Bigfella]

Just a thread to spread the joy of motorcycling. Feel free to add any shots you've got that express the spirit of motorcycling

 

[The Bigfella]

I love this shot of Bruce Anstey on the McIntosh Manx replica at the IoM

 

[The Bigfella]

I miss Siem Reap. I seem to recall that the crew of this boat couldn't keep up at lunchtime and I had to drive the boat home

 

[The Bigfella]

Agostini, on the downshift into the braking area for turn 1 at Eastern Creek

Same day - Graeme Crosby with Steve Parrish on the Heron Suzukis

 

[The Bigfella]

This one fits in the bikes you wish you'd never sold category. This wasn't mine, but I had two basket case ones of these that I made one good bike out of, but really... it was a bit small for my 198cm frame. It was a sweet bike though... built in my bedroom at uni. Being a poor uni student, I couldn't afford to buy lots of rolls of electrical wiring... so, I bought one big roll of red wire. I'm willing to bet it's been re-wired since then.

If I look over my right shoulder, I can see a leftover tank badge from that build on the pub wall....

 

[The Bigfella]

One from the Ulysses Club Thailand, Christmas Day ride

 

[The Bigfella]

Both shots are Steve Jobs with his 1966 BMW R60/2. Second shot was taken in '82

 

[The Bigfella]

Death Highway

Cambodia

 

[The Bigfella]

 

[Snakeboy]

No its not where you think it is....

The Bigfella probably knows....LOL

 

[The Bigfella]

Yes, I know a bit of Western Australia.... and it's Denmark. However.... this is ???

 

[The Bigfella]

A couple of days in the hills this week.

 

[The Bigfella]

 

[The Bigfella]

Warren Willing on the TZ750 at Bathurst in the rain. I scanned a few sheets of my racing shots yesterday - but they are scans of contact sheets, so from 35mm sized images. Need to get proper scanning of the negs done

 

[galoubet]

Interesting photo of that Ducati. When I was doing my engineering apprenticeship in the early 1960s one of my work mates used to race Ducatis at Snetterton. He was a diminutive fella with a high pitched voice but by all accounts was a pretty good racer. I only remember his first name, Clive. This was in an era when all my friends were riding Triumphs, Nortons and Beezers. So a Ducati was rather exotic.

 

[The Bigfella]

Interesting photo of that Ducati. When I was doing my engineering apprenticeship in the early 1960s one of my work mates used to race Ducatis at Snetterton. He was a diminutive fella with a high pitched voice but by all accounts was a pretty good racer. I only remember his first name, Clive. This was in an era when all my friends were riding Triumphs, Nortons and Beezers. So a Ducati was rather exotic.

A mate of mine, back in uni days, used to race a 250 desmo single.

Meanwhile.... a photo taken in Vietnam. A new road from Da Lat to Nha Trang (Route QL27C). We were about to plunge down into the valley on our China-Hondas (Wave clones). It was a 5,000' drop in 20 km if I recall correctly. At one stage a local overtook us, then climbed around and sat on his handlebars, facing backwards and rode away from us. Hmmm

This was earlier in the trip - first day on the road from Saigon. Typical short sharp rain dump

 

[The Bigfella]

This might explain why we were so easy to pass. Kylie, my travelling companion, was new to motorcycling. Brand spanking new. We'd bought two scooters in Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City (if we must) and she'd paid a local to ride hers to the outskirts of the city, at which stage we set off for Vung Tau and then points north. She did pretty well, but there were some moments. She's looking a bit cautious here, on that descent.

At least her bike had a front brake that worked

 

[The Bigfella]

An old favourite. Had a great chat with these guys

 

[The Bigfella]

And now for something different. Nice Dream conversion for a handicapped rider. Hand gear change. Chain drive to the left rear wheel. Can't now recall if both rear brakes worked or not.

 

[The Bigfella]

 

[The Bigfella]

The joys of dirt riding. Friday's ride

 

[The Bigfella]

Not what you expect to find when exploring the centre of a city - B52 Lake in Hanoi

 

[The Bigfella]

More from Vietnam - and not a bungy strap to be seen. That's a lot of bottles and cans......

 

[The Bigfella]

I've been mucking around in my old hard disks again... Here's some shots of 15 time world champion, Giacomo Agostini, in Sydney in 2017 on his old MV Augusta 500cc triple. 85 hp at 12,000 rpm. Shitty tyres and drum brakes.

 

[The Bigfella]

One from late '77. Marcus de Caux and Peter Walker working on their TZs at the motel in Auckland, ahead of the first race of the last ever Marlboro Series

and the AVIS van we used as a grandstand... and to transport 2 TZ350s, 8 people and 80 litres of racing fuel, along with luggage, tyres, etc.

Hard to believe... but that van made it from Auckland to Wellington with only 14km more than the direct distance on the speedo... ahh, the days of paying mileage on rentals.

 

[The Bigfella]

 

[The Bigfella]

Bike camping... unintended. I'd picked Pete (my elder son) up from Dubbo airport after a late afternoon flight. He'd been unable to get away earlier, as he had a tutorial to deliver at uni, so I trailered the bikes to Dubbo and he flew in IIRC at about 5pm. We set off, into the setting sun for Cobar, 300 km to the west on our Scrapheap Challenge bikes. We were to meet some Cobar residents at a club for dinner. We got in late, after dodging far too many kangaroos - and they'd gone home. We cruised the local streets, couldn't find them, so kipped in the bus shelter.... opposite a very, very noisy pub. Found our mates the next morning and set off for Cameron Corner - the meeting point of NSW, Queensland and South Australia, another 740km away. My 250R expired along the way, trying to keep up with Pete on his (my) MZ250. Another XR250 also let the magic smoke out within a couple of km of mine. We covered mine with some bushes - beside the main highway and picked it up again on a trailer on the way back, a couple of days later. I was given a spare bike... a KLR600 that a mate bought on ebay for $242.50... and away I went again.

I've still got the MZ... back in Oz... complete with 21" Ducati front wheel, Suzuki alloy tank, postie bike rack, Harley seat etc. We had to modify the front forks on it in Cobar. A couple of borrowed sockets to compress the springs a bit - that stopped the 21" wheel hitting the exhaust. This was only Pete's fourth ride on the road - with some paddock bashing experience on top of it. The next day, he was blasting past guys on GS 1200s - showing again, small bikes are best

I've got a video somewhere of us going through a flock of emus on that ride.

 

[The Bigfella]

I will add to that thought, while I'm at it. I've been cogitating on the issue of rider training for most of this year, and we've run several sessions at Rider's Corner for the Ulysses Club Thailand. One of the themes I'm developing is "ride twice as fast, fall off half as often".... and I've got some good video to go with that theme. It's a dirt theme, I should add. Take this shot...

Same event... morning of the return journey (1440 km to go). Old Mate on the ground here has just busted his collarbone. Riding too slow in sand. In typical dickhead government fashion, this "dangerous" section of road, out in bumfucknowhere had a 60 kph speed limit on it because of the deep sand. Pete and I were first on scene, along with the lady in the purple shirt (a nurse). He was flown out by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. But back to the issue. He fell off because he was going too slow (and probably overloaded to buggery). Pete and I were doing over 80 kph... the speed at which the sand hardened up under the tyres and made safe riding possible. We were all over the place trying to slow down to help him. Sand is easy... go up a gear and keep the throttle open and the speed up. Slow down, it ain't easy and you fall off......

 

[The Bigfella]

As mentioned.... a flock of emus in far northwestern NSW

 

[The Bigfella]

2012

Thursday evening

 

[Snakeboy]

February 2020 just before Covid hit the world I was lucky to do a 24 days/5000 kms trip in Laos. Here at the Long Tieng airstrip…..

 

[The Bigfella]

That's a nice shot on the strip.

Here's one from the saddle on the same strip - end of the wet season, 2015

I had a stack of photos deleted by the cops... but when I was detained, I only gave them two of the five cameras I was carrying. Still, I lost a lot of good shots.

How about a couple from the former King's house

This one is a dodgy panorama... but it shows the whole strip, with the new market area and the construction workers' camp

and this was as close as I could fly the drone.... they were really, really touchy about the drone

A couple from the temple... since renovated, I believe

 

[The Bigfella]

Going back to the source files to find those shots, I found the drone footage from one of the jar sites. Someone took a potshot at the drone just after I took this - and not with a peashooter... When a centrefire rifle goes off near you, you pay attention. Looking at the blast protection around the buildings in the background, I guess they're a bit sensitive

 

[The Bigfella]

One from a couple of weeks ago. 17 bikes on a Ulysses Club Thailand ride

One of me, giving my big brother a lift on my first (and hopefully last) trike

I refuse to post a pic of my first bike - if any exist. I was growing so fast, my parents, in their wisdom, decided that they could put me on a larger girl's style bike, so that they didn't have to buy multiple smaller boys bikes as I grew taller. Hmm. Helped me learn how to fight.

If I'm doing selfies... how about this one. In the Marble Foyer - between the two Chambers (House of Representatives and the Senate) in the Australian Parliament. It ain't easy to get a shot in there without scores of other people. There's shots I would have loved to have gotten in that building - with my hand on the back of the Prime Minister's chair in the Cabinet room... but there's a strict "no photos, no electronic devices" policy in the Cabinet room... and I wasn't even allowed to photograph the Prime Minister's office. First time I was there, Keating was at the desk - which, incidentally has now been moved so you don't see the desk through the door - for security reasons. Last time I was there, it was Turnbull's. The original setup was brilliant on the part of the architect - the doors from the PM's desk opened and the view was through the Cabinet room - and if all the doors were open, the view was of the Australian War Memorial - so that the PM and the Cabinet could see the consequences of their decisions.... but, I digress

A bantam

I'm told my grandfather had a Douglas - not that I ever saw it (or him)

 

[The Bigfella]

 

[The Bigfella]

 

[The Bigfella]

A genuine Black Lightning we took a look at yesterday at Surfside Motorcycles. The last one of these (there's 19 known to still exist... about half the number produced)... cost its new owner $1.35 million (about US$850,000 at current exchange rates).

It was great to catch up with Zak the other day... still acting like a puppy at 12 years of age.