Experiences of a 70's biker

In the Seventies motorcycling was a boom industry thanks to the Japanese imports which were rapidly hitting our shores. The sales world had a field day promoting this new range of exotic machinery. This could be seen in the sales brochures of the era. Many different tactics were in use. Some brochures would quote performance figures and tech specs fronted by detailed pictures of exotic engines and parts, some would reach out to the sensible commuter to prise him or her away from their trusty oil leaking British bike and some would rely purely on large, high quality photos of the new breed of machines. And then there were those who relied on the age old method of using girls on bikes. See if you remember any of this nostalgia:

Suzuki AS50.  

A lovely starter sports bike

This was a typical

advert of the era

suggesting to us

impressionable teenage

boys that ownership of such exotic machinery would bring rewards in the form of leather clad babes only too keen to share our new found interest.

Unfortunately, it never seemed to work for me!

Here were a couple of British ads from not long before. Again this made you want to be part of the new, cool, bike riding set.

​

This typified the technical

advertising side of things,

this example being a British stalwart of the late Sixties

BSA 250 Starfire

This is the

bike that started

it all for me. I'm sure

you can see why!

        Honda CB750.

      The first of the

    across the frame

 'UJM' superbikes

​

These are the two brochures with which I whiled

away my time in the summer of 1972.

You can see how difficult

it was to choose

An MCN article from 1970

There was some stiff and tempting opposition from the car manufacturers, mainly from sports cars like the famous MGB and Midget

The Yamaha DS7

This one was identical to mine

Similar to the Bridgestone bikes of the era

      this was the exciting American styled Suzuki Stinger

The big brother to the DS7 - the YR5 350

I always lusted after this but never got one

My mate's DS7

Experiences of a 70's biker