Project Yamaha TY80 part 1: Tall tales!

Just like buses you find that two Mackenzies turn up in one issue! Here’s Junior on why he just had to choose a TY80 as his first restoration.

- TAYLOR MACKENZIE

Welcome to my very first CMM article! You may or may not have heard of me. I am Niall Mackenzie’s son, but I’m also now commonly referred to as Tarran Mackenzie’s brother…

Occasionally, I’m referred to as Taylor Mackenzie and I race in the British Superbike Championship for Synetiq BMW. I was also the 2016 British Superstock 1000 Champion. Sneakily, Dad has involved me in a few of his restoration projects, so unofficially I have actually appeared in CMM a few times. It goes without saying that our household is motorcycle mad, so whenever a new bike appears we all want to get stuck in to help. I helped Dad strip his RD350LC, RD400, Fizzy and C70. My love of bikes has also been frequently taken advantage o. When a bike needs collecting and Dad can’t use his free bus pass to get there, I am frequently sent in the van to fetch it. I travelled all the way to Devon for the C70 and more recently Wales for the R1.

I’ve wanted to do a restoration from an early age, but as a full-time bike racer, finding the time to do one properly hasn’t been easy. As lockdown began I tried to find creative new ways to amuse myself. I started to film a few videos for my YouTube channel. The first few were just video calls with other racers, but it morphed into all things bike related and so it wasn’t longbefore I enlisted the help of Dad. I filmed his RD350 and talked through the process of restoring a bike. This really inspired me to start one myself. Initially I was just going to record the process, but when I suggested it to Dad he thought I could write about it, too.