One Track! A Motorcycling Trilogy Volume 2 (ePub)

The second volume in the 'One Track' series takes the form of a comprehensive, in-depth history of the bikes and motorcycling trends and events in the 1970s. 'Funky Motorcycling' tells the story of the arrival of the Superbike, the continuing and inexorable rise of the Japanese motorcycle industry and, partly from an insider's point of view, the wasteful, lingering death of its British equivalent. It tells of the thrilling and extraordinary sporting machines from Italy and of the bulletproof BMW twins designed in Bavaria. It tells of motorcycling culture and of two-wheeled life and lives. In the 1970s, motorcycling became a leisure activity in a new and exciting way, there were more motorcyclists than ever before, or since, and dozens of new and ever more fabulous and technologically advanced motorcycles crammed the showrooms every year. It was the time of Jarno Saarinen and Giacomo Agostini and of Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene. The time of Motorcycle Sport and Bike magazine in Britain and Cycle in the USA, of Mark Williams, Dave Minton and LJK Setright in his pomp. The book sets out the argument that although the protagonists were largely unaware of it at the time, the 1970s as a whole can now be seen to have been a golden era in the history of the movement, a pivotal decade which represents a high point in the history of motorcycling that is never likely to be matched.