Old Hat
Editorial
This issue, number 60, marks ten years since the first issue of Old Bike Australasia hit the newsstands. That seminal publication was very much a toe-in-the-water effort to test reaction to a true locally-focused magazine, and thankfully the response was 100% positive. Since the first two, bi-annual issues, we’ve gone quarterly, bi-monthly and since 2012, seven issues per year. Thank you to everyone who has helped us reach this milestone; contributors, photographers, advertisers (some who have been with us since the start) and well wishers. Here’s to the next ten years. To mark this rather special point in our history, the publishers have released a DVD set containing each of the first 50 issues of Old
Bike Australasia. I know many readers missed out on some of the early issues, and it is simply not cost-efficient to reprint these, but having them in digital format is the next best thing. You’ll find full details on page 51.
Just when you think you’ve seen everything, along comes something new. When my son Rennie, who now lives in California, told me he was intending to compete in the 100th running of the annual Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado I thought, “Oh well, that’ll be fun,” but as the months of planning unfolded and the emails from him detailed the intensity of the preparation, I began to take a deeper interest in the event, its history and the mystique that surrounds it. Now, having just returned from witnessing that spectacle, I have to say I am gobsmacked. I’ve seen hill climbs before – just last year I took a run up the fabled Freiburg Climb in Germany, and that was pretty impressive, but it’s a stroll in the park compared to Pikes Peak. Spear off the road here, and plenty of people have done so in the past century, and you’re in deep trouble. Bordered by stout trees in the lower section, the ribbon of quite rough road disappears into the clouds as the vegetation vanishes, with sheer drops on either side and not so much as a gutter to impede the progress of a wayward vehicle. Then add elements such as blizzards, snow, sleet and ice, plus wandering elk, bears and other critters (this is a National Park remember) and you have a script out of Satyricon, set on wheels. I admit I feared for my son’s safety during the week-long build up to the “Race to the Clouds”, with some justification, as it transpired. You can read the full story in this issue and you too may decide to put a visit to Pikes Peak on your bucket list. There’s simply nothing like it on this planet.
JIM SCAYSBROOK Editor