This fantastic retro documentary about motorcycle racing is presented by “Fast” Freddie Spencer, it was filmed and released in 1985 so the era of 500cc 2-stoke super bikes was well and truly in full swing.
The documentary is a teaching film of sorts and takes you through everything from engine design, to brake design, to cornering fundamentals and even race strategy.
The full length film is about 30 minutes long and I can’t recommend it highly enough, after watching it all I wanted to do was go motorcycle racing in the mid-80s.
Ben Branch has had his work featured on CNN, Popular Mechanics, the official Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with millions of readers around the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
The Union Garage V7 Jacket is the result of a joint project between Vanson Leathers in Massachusetts and Union Garage in New York City. It’s the second collaboration between the two companies, the first was the beautifully-styled Robinson Jacket, a waxed-canvas motorcycle jacket with a full assortment of armor. Though the name of the V7…
This off-road racing motorcycle is the only one like it in the world – it was built in Sweden by a motocross racer as a parts-bin special that was considerably quicker than most of its competition. The Gold Star The bike started life as a BSA Gold Star, widely regarded as having one of the…
The James Brand Ellis folding knife is one of the most popular pocket knives from the Portland, Oregon based company. Only three materials are used when making the Ellis: steel, aluminum, and bronze. There’s no plastic, and nothing is used that won’t stand up to frequent use by multiple generations of the same family. The…
Go Grandriders is a documentary that follows a group of larger-than-life motorcyclists in their 80s as they ride around the island of Taiwan, covering an impressive 1178 kilometres in 13 days. This film was the highest grossing documentary of all time in both Taiwan and Hong Kong, and it even enjoyed a limited U.S. theatrical release –…
The De Tomaso P70, later known as the Ghia DeTomaso, was a joint project between two independent icons of the motoring world – Alejandro de Tomaso of Argentina and Carroll Shelby of the USA. The project was founded to develop a race car able to compete in and dominate the then-new United States Road Racing…
In the 1960s both Steve McQueen and Evel Knievel owned Triumph TT Specials, McQueen often raced his Triumphs with notable success, and Knievel used his in the life and death world of stunt jumping. The most famous Triumph TT Special was undoubtably the example used by Evel Knievel for the Caesar’s Palace fountain jump on New…
