Bike shops in your youth...still around???

[MX125B]

JIM EADE at ashfield on parra rd still there...

It's heritage listed!

[trailietrash]

That photo of the Northcott shop is making me feel real old Firko.

Last time I was there as a kid there wasn't a two story building next door that I remember, and that newer building looks like it is so old it is about to fall down  
and there is kerb and guttering..... and there is grass out the front too  

My Mum worked for Maude Wilsons in the Griffiths Teas building in Wentworth Avenue Sydney so my school holidays were spent hanging around all the bike shops in that area from the late sixties into the seventies.
Mum still can't understand why I have a love of motorcycles as nobody else in the family shows any passion for them  

After the Victa powered Deltek I bought a new TS125 from Hazel and Moore in 1976.

I do remember the Top Ryder shop at Ryde that MX125b mentioned but what about West Ryde Motorcycles on Victoria Rd. Yamaha dealer with a showroom as big as a luxury suite at the Peoples Palace. So tiny, you had to almost climb over the bikes to get to the counter, but good helpful service, even for a Suzuki rider like me. I had the forks on the TS tweaked back to straight on the lathe in the back of the shop after a trip under the back of a HR Holden station wagon on the Pacific hwy at Carlingford. We'd spent the day having a hoot around the scrub of Hornsby and a torrential downpour on the way home lead to an embarrassing display of the mighty brakes on the TS... just hopeless  
 
Yeah, I can laugh now  

[jimson]

Dave Byrnes Motor Cycles in Nowra had been around for 30 or so years was a great shop with real good service but was recently sold in the last couple of years and has been raped pillaged & plundered now is under a different name and I don't go there any more  :'( jimson

[oldskool]

his name is graham bergan he used to race minis and an lc torana v8 at amaroo and oran park, also had a v8 morris minor drag car sponsored by scotties tissues,the morris was painted like the old tissue boxes with all the coloured shapes on them.ive always liked bikes but not into them as much as you blokes when i was young a lot of the shop names on here from western sydney especially the penrith blacktown area i do know of but dont remember them like you fellas do.i was moore into the cars and drag racing(goodals gasser era) and later did crash rescue at amaroo and bathurst.but still a great thread and great reading.cheers gary...............one shop in parramatta that i dont think has been mentioned cant remember the name of it but it was opposite brian collins a little white that used to sell triumphs and then later became an aussie distributer for royal enfield and i think it is still there.cheers have a great night gary

[oldskool]

i also remember that northcott at blacktown thats near the old pizza hut opposite the old blacktown showground.and trailie when you mentioned curb and guttering i thought you were going to mention the old pub at blacktown no longer there affectionally known as the curb and gutter (comb and cutter).gary

[firko]

The pub's still there...they hosed the junkies and vermin out and renamed it the Blacktown Inn. I was going to have lunch there yesterday but thought better of it. I saw Rose Tattoo there (in Comb and Cutter days) and the place literally shook. It was a shit hole but it was a fun shithole.

[jimg1au]

mark
i saw rose tattoo at the sylvania hotel,they sure did rock the pub seen back then.we could start another thread about pubs we used to go to.seabreese gone millers gone cecil gone ect ect
jim

[vmxken]

I remember Ellie, she raced a Maico, one day at Dargle , she crashed and the flaggies got a shock when the took her jersey off ( to access a  broken collarbone)  not many women racing motocross in those days

Ele is still alive and well and came to CD5.  She gets around on a big GS Beemer these days.  I'll try to get her to CD7.

A bit more 'old shops' trivia......Ele started and ran the shop in Artarmon with some dill named Ken Smith (after they'd both worked together at Chatsworth Motorcycle Accessories) and they both sold it to Carl Blecher, who morphed the place into Northside Motorcycles.  Small world.

Regards

Ken

[oldskool]

mark im pretty shaw i seen cold chisel there my mates sister knew bouncers there and snuck us in when we were about 14.the memories of my drunken youth

[mx250]

I remember Ellie, she raced a Maico, one day at Dargle , she crashed and the flaggies got a shock when the took her jersey off ( to access a  broken collarbone)  not many women racing motocross in those days

Come on, that can't be the story. If they had to whip off her jersey to find out she was a girl we're not talking about the same Ellie .

My bet is that they couldn't wait to go hands on with their first aids skills .

[MX125B]

Ellie  is now selling antique clocks, i found her website one day, It was posted here,  Firko may have the address.

[MX125B]

John Dunn Motorcycles, Balgowlah and Crows Nest, a friend bought his Bultaco there, and another (friend) a black Ducati Dharma

[mx250]

JIM EADE at ashfield on parra rd still there...

aka Greedy Eadey

[firko]

I remember Ellie, she raced a Maico, one day at Dargle

In the pre vintage days Ele used to host a riders reunion picnic at Lane Cove National Park every year. I went a couple of times but it eventually faded away. I spoke to Elle at CD5 and even though she's been in Australia since the early 70s you'd swear she just got off the plane. The Massachusetts accent is still as strong as ever. Shes's doing well in the Lucky Country, running Jonathon Knowles Clocks on the Northside of Sydney.http://www.jknowles.com.au/shop/home.php

[VMX247]

So is Ellie still hangin out with this Ken Smith fella ? ,or just likes check'n out bike events on the east coast.?
cheers