In 1941 the threat of a Japanese invasion of Hong Kong was imminent, the small British colony has a garrison made up of just 11,000 British and Indian troops set to fight the 6,095,000 men of the Imperial Japanese Army. Many local Chinese men volunteered to fight and those with their own motorcycles joined as dispatch riders, a perilous but vital job.
If you’d like to read more about the Battle of Hong Kong, click the link here.
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.
Isle of Man TT is a feature film by Studio Kippenberger, the world renowned team of filmmakers headed up by Christopher Kippenberger. It’s notoriously difficult to capture the essence of the world’s most famous motorcycle race held annually on the Isle of Man – a self-governing British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea that’s roughly…
This MV Agusta Mini Bike Racing was an official model offered by the Italian motorcycle manufacturer in the mid-1970s. As the story goes, a one-off special was made for Phil Read’s son in 1973 to celebrate his 500cc World Championship victory riding for MV Agusta. The mini bike was intended as a miniature replica of…
This Ducati Sport 1000 is the work of AJ Pushkarna, a Systems Engineer by day and custom motorcycle builder by night. AJ has previously built a number of bikes including one of our favourite BMW scrambler customs of all time – a retro R100 dual sport that’s about as close to aesthetically perfect as it’s…
The Yamaha XJR1300 is probably the motorcycle Godzilla would ride, if he had longer arms and a slightly better center of gravity. The first thing that strikes you when you see an XJR1300 in the flesh is the physical size and implied menace of it – particularly the hefty dimensions of that mighty inline-4. The…
The Bultaco Pursang was one of the most successful two-stroke motocross bikes of its era, taking on some of the biggest motorcycle marques and regularly trouncing them while hardly breaking a sweat. A Brief History of Bultaco Before he died Paco Bultó requested that he be laid to rest in a Bultaco shirt with his moustache…
The Norton Model 30 International is deservedly remembered as one of the most iconic and important motorcycles ever built by the British marque. Norton works team rider Jimmie Guthrie set a slew of new world speed records on a Model 30 International in Montlhery, France at the “concrete bowl” circuit. Jimmie initially set a new one-hour world…
