Riding the SHEENE MACHINE

What does it feel like to ride a £1 million piece of motorcycle racing history? To ride the very bike that Barry Sheene used to win the 1976 500cc world championship? Stuart Barker had no idea, until he turned up at Cadwell Park and got the surprise of his life.

- Stuart Barker

You’re looking at a very special motorcycle. This factory Suzuki XR14 is the very bike that Barry Sheene won the 1976 500cc Grand Prix world championship on. It was not only Sheene’s first world title, it was also Suzuki’s first in the premier class. Sheene kept the bike in pride of place at his home in Australia until his untimely death in 2003. The bike remained in the Sheene family home until 2016 when it was shipped over to Suzuki GB to be fully restored and brought back to running order. It was restored by Nigel Everett, and Sheene’s former mechanic and right-hand man, Martyn Ogborne, and has since been shown at many events around the UK. It’s insured for £1 million, but would likely sell for much more, should it ever come on the market (it won’t).

It gets better and better I had posters of this bike on my bedroom wall as a kid. I remember trading for them in the school playground. So, when I was invited down to Suzuki GB to write a feature on the restoration of the bike, I felt very honoured just to see it, and was even more blown away when I was allowed to sit on it and have my picture taken. Martyn Ogborne talked me through the restoration and told me some great tales of my racing hero, Barry Sheene. I thought things couldn’t get any better than that.