When it was introduced in 1977, the Kawasaki KZ200 was one of the largest capacity motorcycles for sale in Indonesia, and it quickly garnered a reputation for being the fastest motorcycle money could buy. This stands in stark contrast to how many in the West view motorcycles in the sub-250cc category, where they’re often seen…
The Deus Electric is a custom motorcycle by Melbourne-based team Ryan Mischkulnig and Joe Fischer, they began with a humble Honda C90 Cub and over a period of 5 weeks they created a minimalist electric motorcycle that would go on to win the 2015 Deus Bike Build Off in Sydney. Electric motorcycles are nothing new…
The Kawasaki KZ200 is a motorcycle that was developed largely for the South East Asian market, with a particular focus on Indonesia. For a while back in the 1970s, the Indonesians had a law limiting motorcycle engine sizes to a maximum of 200cc and much of the region still tends to favour engine capacities in…
The Yamaha XS650 is quite a remarkable motorcycle, the parallel twin engine started life as a 500cc unit in the Hosk SOHC twin that first entered production in 1955. It was a relatively advanced engine design for the time, overhead cams weren’t common on motorcycles and unit construction was still a somewhat rare thing to…
The Rising Sun Workshop is a communal motorcycle garage and cafe based in Sydney that launched in 2014 and quickly established itself as a home for the local two-wheeled community. The team behind RSW has now found themselves a much larger location to handle the increased demand, and has launched a new tee design to raise…
Kevlar technology is progressing at a rapid rate, mostly fuelled by development for military and law enforcement applications, but motorcyclists have been reaping the benefits as a bit of a side benefit. The pants you see here are made from 100% black Kevlar and are designed specifically for use by riders, they’ve been subjected to…
The Honda FT500 was released in the early 1980s with a strong focus on American flat track racing (the “FT” in the name was a reference to this), it was fitted with the same 499cc single cylinder engine as the almost bullet-proof Honda XR500 enduro bike – with the addition of cast aluminium wheels, an…
The BMW R65 was introduced in 1978 to provide a mid-sized touring motorcycle for the BMW faithful, it utilised the bullet-proof airhead engine with a capacity of 649.6cc and it sent 45hp to the rear wheel via a maintenance free shaft-drive. As the middle bike in BMW’s R model line the R65 appealed to a…
Stories of Bike is a series of short films that you’ve probably heard of if you read Silodrome or other websites in our gasoline scented corner of the internet. Each episode is typically under 10 minutes and features a person and their motorcycle, the cinematography is spellbinding and the stories are well worth a few…
The Honda GB250 is a motorcycle that came about as a derivative of a derivative – but despite this it’s one of the most genuinely fun little motorcycles I’ve ever ridden. The single cylinder 250cc engine in the GB250 started life as a 349cc unit in the early-80s Honda XR350R enduro racer, it was sleeved…
Stories of Bike – Two Cities: Part 3 is the final part of the Two Cities series by director Cam Elkins. The two cities are Melbourne and Sydney, and as anyone who’s been to Australia can attest – the rivalry between the two is intense. This 3 part series of short films covers parallel projects by…
The Yamaha SRV250 was a hat tip to the classic cafe racer long before the modern resurgence of the genre, they essentially took the V-twin out of a 250 Virago and retuned it from 21hp to 27hp and then bolted it into a frame that bears more than a passing resemblance to the iconic Norton Featherbed. The…
