The good old days
Having avidly read Old Bike Australasia intermittently over the years, I’m finding it’s the magazine I gravitate towards on the library stands over the glossier, slicker and far duller new bike magazines (yes, it must be frustrating having occasional readers like myself who don’t buy the rag, but in defense, library copies do get OBA known and read). The new bikes are all so similar goes the common cry. It’s true, but just now retro bikes are finding their way; great to see the latest retro Guzzis, the Scrambler Ducati, Yamaha Bolt, even various Harleys and Indians. Now I have no real interest in the 50’s and older stuff, Italian design from later eras floats my boat. But now I’m starting to regard some of the late ‘80s Japanese bikes with, well, if not affection, then some slight nostalgia, along with lots of other people I suspect, ones who just saw RC30s as slightly exotic and even maybe just affordable at the time. But that is the nature of collecting, when we saw adverts for the exotica of the time, and on the road occasionally, we took them for granted. Even as a casual rider/reader, I remember the 1970s as just getting out and doing it, maybe because we were young then, least I was, and I suspect so were most of your readers too. David Fairburn Earlwood, NSW