The New Age Of Retro-design Bikes

Gen X buyers, with large disposable incomes and a yearning for bikes they fancied in their youth, are driving a new trend in retro-design motorcycles

- Sameer Kumar

This is pretty much the golden age of motorcycling. With the relentless advance of manufacturing technologies, the bits that make a motorcycle work have become quite good over the years. Engines are more powerful and reliable than ever before, and oil leaks are a thing of the past. Tyres really stick to the tarmac, with the kind of grip riders could only dream of in the way-back-then. Suspension actually works without wallowing all over the place, and is usually adjustable, so no problem if the pillion is occupied by a large passenger. And brakes make mincemeat of triple-digit speeds, without the bike trying to dump you in the nearest available ditch.

But just when you thought things couldn’t get any better, the Percy Shelley law kicks in. ‘We look before and after, and pine for what is not,’ said Shelley, 200 years ago. The English poet was no biker-boy but, as it turns out, what he said also goes for motorcycles.

Give bikers a bunch of modern, fast, and efficient motorcycles, and you’d think they’d be happy. But, no. Turns out what they really want is motorcycles that resemble the machines they lusted after when they were young, when the hormones were raging, and bank balances were meagre.

Horsepower costs money, and most young motorcyclists simply don’t have large wads of cash to blow on big, busty bikes. Decades later, for some, it’s time for payback.

Time, then, to get the one that got away? Maybe. Only, the 1970s and ’80s are long gone. The bikes from back then are now categorised as ‘classics.’ And new bikes these days have scary things like TFT instrument panels, multi-level traction control, and riding modes; you almost need a degree in computer science to navigate the onboard electronics on some of the high-end motorcycles now.