For me it transcends everything, it’s a dream bike, it was the poster bike I had on my bedroom wall when I was growing up. Ever since I first saw pictures of it in the early 1990s, I’ve been fascinated by this hand-built race bike.
Unbelievably it was produced by a small team in the South Island of New Zealand using just one man’s creative genius. That man was John Britten, and he took on the massively well-funded factory teams - and won. It was an unthinkable achievement in the early ’90s.
If you’ve never heard of the Britten, and you’re a motorcyclist, you should be made to run around the field in your pants, like when you forgot your kit at school. This is one of the greatest bike stories ever, Hollywood couldn’t even script this true tale.
A blank sheet
I’m not going to dwell on the astounding technical innovations of achievements, you could easily write a book about the Britten, nor will I try to get too emotionally involved.
John Britten was a bike racer, but also a gifted engineer, designer, and a bit of a maverick.
He designed and built his own house from mainly recycled material as he couldn’t find what he was looking for.
He raced successfully in NZ, but was always experimenting with chassis design and engines in the late ’80s, you could never describe him as an ‘off-the-shelf’ racer.
ohn’s dilemma was that he knew what he wanted - but nobody produced the bike, or parts, he wanted.
He didn’t want a big four-cylinder bike and he didn’t want a Harley hewn from granite.
So he stuck two fingers up to the establishment, and decided to produce his own bike from scratch.
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