Geoff Seddon
A gun roadtester for Two Wheels and the magazine’s Assistant Editor in 1988-1989, Geoff Seddon also edited the Two Wheels offshoot Streetbike, and started his own magazine, Performance Cycles. An uncanny ability to connect with his readers saw him go on to a series of successful magazine editorships, including Ralph, Street Machine, and today Retrobike.
After farting about on the fringe for a year or two, I landed my first freelance road-testing gig with TW sometime in 1985 or 1986. It was a comparo between an 883 Sportster and a 750cc Suzuki Intruder. For the photos, then editor Bill McKinnon asked that I dress like a grubby bikie and ride the Harley. His assistant editor, Bob Guntrip, would wear girly-coloured leathers and ride the Suzuki.
I must have gone all right because Bill followed it up with another comparo soon after; an early-model GSX-R750 versus an F1 Ducati. This time however, for the photos, he wanted me to dress in my best scratchin’ gear. I told him I’d wear exactly the same matt-black open-face helmet, tatty Belstaff jacket, faded blue jeans and disposal store army boots that I wore to the Harley shoot.
It wasn’t the right answer. Within 48 hours, I found myself in the possession of a cool two-piece Dainese leather suit and my first ever full-face helmet! Just like that! All I had to do to keep them was wear them for the photos!
I can’t put my finger on a reason, but it was about that time that I decided to make my living as a full-time motorcycle journalist. That opportunity didn’t come until a few years later, in early 1988, when Bill squared off against the management and subsequently shot through for a new career as one of Australia’s best car journos. His replacement as editor was a Softail-riding opal miner from Lightning Ridge whose name rhymed with strewth. I begged John to be his assistant editor, chucked in a perfectly good job in a brewery, sold most of my toys and signed up as a fresh-faced C-grader. Despite taking a 60 percent pay cut, it was the best decision I ever made in my entire life.
It got better. Not long after I started, pretty much half of the Federal Publishing Company, or Feral Publishing as we used to call it, burnt to a crisp. Two Wheels was in the bit that didn’t get fried but the smoke and water damage was substantial; our office was plainly unfit for anyone to work in, which meant the bastard suits were too embarrassed to come within cooee of us. It suited John and me to a tee.
Roothy was an amazing guy to work for. Neither of us was a trained journalist, nor did we have much experience in magazine production, so we kind of made it up as we went along. We shared an irrational love of Norton Commandos and a certain fondness for Coopers Sparkling Ale, Bundaberg rum and whatever recreational drugs we could get our hands on, which explains Live To Ride magazine which we put together as well.
John was and is a man of the bush, and his release valve from the pressure of the job and Sydney was to head north, south or west as often as possible. I’d lived to that point a pretty sheltered life, at least geographically. We aimed to spend three weeks of every month in the office and one week on the road. I’m not sure we ever quite got there, but my fondest memories of my time at TW revolve around high-speed blasts on big Jap bikes either way out west or down the south coast to the Island.
One of my favourite trips was a fourÂday blast to Lightning Ridge, with ad man John ‘Wharfy’ Waugh the third musketeer. It was the first time I’d ever travelled further west than Dubbo, sat a bike on 200km/h for anything other than a short blast or got rolling drunk with rough and tough opal miners.
Towards the end of the first day, we pulled over for an outback sunset photo, you know, silhouetted man and machine, all that. We hung around for an hour till the twilight was just right, and John got a great shot, which we duly published. Only trouble was, it was then very soon dark, and our 200km/h playground turned, for me at least, into a 80km hell ride of sudden sheep chicanes and suicidal kangaroos. Wharfy was also a country boy and possessed the same sixth sense for wildlife that Roothy had, and so I quickly found myself on my own, in the middle of nowhere, going slower and slower. I was as scared and lonely as I’d ever been on a motorbike, and it made me realise how limited was my motorcycling experience. Humility isn’t something one normally associates with journalists and it was a lesson that has stayed with me ever since.
Mind you, it didn’t make me humble enough to eventually think I couldn’t be an editor in my own right, and the TW office seemed to get smaller and smaller, which is why I left just 18 months later to start a magazine called Streetbike for the same company. I still see Roothy from time to time, as well as other characters from those days like Pete Smith, Wendy Spooner, Helmut Mueller and Mick Matheson. I’m still in the journo game too, as editor of car mag Street Machine, where we aim to spend three weeks of every month in the office and one week on the road. I’m not sure we ever quite get there but it sure beats having a real job, I’ll give you the tip.
By Geoff Seddon, 35 Years of Two Wheels, 2003
