Chris Horner’s 4th Gypsy Tour 2018 Expression of interest forms are listed below these are held every 2 years and are limited to 20 people, of course Indian Riders will have first preference over other brands. Now the secret is as was the now defunct Rain-in the Face rally (for this year) that was going to be the long weekend next week is get your form in NOW, then when a payment is asked for in September pay immediately into the bank account on website listed under the Town Crier above this seems simple but some have a problem with this till the last week before the rally then if  expect to catered for at the last moment! This Gypsy Tour is extremely popular and fills up quickly as it has done in the past and the Tour will be at least 12 days so organise that time off work now if you’re considering going the Route is up the OLD Hume Highway not the new Hume FREEWAY  it’s all paved now not like the photo above and return home down the Princes Hwy on the Coast road, by the way don’t forget the Association Ride tomorrow all details on the calendar

2018 IIRA Gypsy Tour #1 

I always have a chuckle when the “knuckle draggers” spout that Harley will outlast Indian, hmm that’s not happening at least in this century. As we know Polaris doesn’t rely on selling motorcycles they amount to only 4% of their sales profit with sales in everything from off road vehicles to buying GEM electric vehicles, the remarkable Slingshot and the Sea Cat and Snow Cat divisions being the big money earners, poor old Harley sells bra”s and leather knickers and dress-up chrome bits for a bit on the side, totally reliant on motorcycle sales since airconditioner, golf cart, and caravan division were sold in the sixties. You will notice at the end of this link below that Eicher (Royal Enfield) which is part of Mitsubishi and Ducati originally owned by Vatican City but now owned by VW is now selling Ducati. Royal Enfield is partially “in bed” with Polaris so in the long run Ducati should get a big boost and that will feed back to Enfield. So how big is Royal Enfield, remembering that in 1983 that JS Bloor, Les Harris and Royal Enfield bid for the Triumph manufacturing rights, Bloor won, Harris built Triumphs initially for 6 years under licence, and now that brand that causes a serious threat to the Japanese Royal Enfield has quadrupled since that period, so Ducati will in the end if they (Enfield) aquire it will end up like Jaguar has now owned by the Indian’s and still built in Britain and a better car to boot that the Pom’s ever made in reliability alone, I still see Ducati with some models built in Italy but as for others that are already made in India or Thailand who knows. All this of course feeds back in either monetary or development exchange for Polaris, seems funny that Harley bought MV Augusta a few years back for a few million dollars and sold it for $2 I’m starting to feel sorry for the “Boat Anchor co”

We are at the moment in Autumn and the signs of winter are here with us still with a “bumper” crop of riders (12) at the last ride day we have our fingers crossed for the same next month on 4th June. This time it will be to the Moto-Bean Cafe in Malmsbury as it was planned earlier for this month but they were completely booked out as its a popular venue still not to far for a ride at this time of year. A presence from Phillip White on his “new”Yellow Drifter that has been named General Custard this month got everybody talking as now there are three in the Association, they are popular though the reasons seem to be they are under $10,000 and are dimensionally smaller than the current range of bikes from Indians made since 1999 excepting the new Scout of course and parts are readily available and cheap, so till current Indian’s drop below ten grand I expect people will look at them as a suitable alternative.

A million and a half minutes is about 2.85 years, a million and a half hours is 171.12 years, a million and a half days is around 37 years that’s a fair bit of time, and its the number achieved on this website in 7 years and about 174 different countries have looked in on us at one time or another, our American friends are the most loyal next to the Aussies but then surprisingly the Indian and the UK are also in there as well, so whats next probably 2 million time will tell. Anzac Day is always a sign of reflection “Lest we Forget” 60,000 died in the Great War and over 27,000 in WWII that’s not counting the casualties, in 1914 there were only 5 million people in Australia 7.2 million now live in NSW and 4 .17 million in Victoria and 2.35 million in W.Aust, a staggering that amount that died and although we needed to fight in the Second World War to save being invaded, the First War seems to me a waste of time. Mind you we hav”nt counted the Kiwi’s in these figures and they suffered equally with an even smaller population, war is futile unless you’re defending yourself and it seems with all the “sabre rattling” going on these days people have short memories

Steve Menneto Interview (click on link)