Larry Bastedo has demonstrated his commitment to motorcycling for more than a half-century and shows no sign of letting up today. His passion for the sport earned him expert status in scrambles and enduros, senior class in road racing,…

Perhaps the key to Herb Becker’s success is that he’s never stopped learning, never stopped looking for new ways that will add to his knowledge of making machines perform beyond their designers’ expectations. Herb regards an engine as a…

Eric Stephenson Chitty was one of Canada’s most successful motorcycle racers even before he went overseas, and after a move to England in the late 1930s he became our biggest export until the era of Mike Duff.
Eric was born in Toronto in…

Motorcycling has come a long way since John Clare opened his BSA and Triumph dealership in 1954. And yet Clare’s Cycle & Sports remains, as always, a thriving dealership and hotbed of motorcycle enthusiasm in the Niagara region. It’s…

Kathleen Coburn burst to prominence in the Canadian road racing scene in 1985, becoming the first woman to win a RACE series final. Her mount in the amateur 600 cc production race at Gimli, Man., was a two-stroke Yamaha RZ500, not the…

One hundred years ago, a young man from Toronto named Harold Cole gained the break he needed to launch his professional motorcycle racing career. He was only 16 but had already been riding and itching to go racing for more than a year.
At…

Few Canadians have motorcycling more deeply ingrained in the family blood than Jonathan Cornwell, affectionately known to friends and fans as Corndog, a.k.a. the Dogger. Jon has been involved in the sport in a multitude of ways for all of…

Truly a man who’s done everything in Canadian motorcycling, John DeGruchy derived great pleasure as well as his livelihood from the sport but he gave back far more than he took away. There are few honours that evaded him in his competitive…

Lightning Len Dillon showed his verve for handling machinery early on while growing up on the family farm in Enterprise, Ont., north of Kingston. Len boasted that by age 8 he handled the Ford tractor on par with the adults he knew. He…

Maurice Fraser, known to all as Moe, had a taste for going fast and he also enjoyed a bit of fun. Moe was devoted to dirt track racing but when the Shannonville circuit opened he showed up the road racers and took first place. A change of…

A man with a big presence in Canadian motorcycling, Jack Hunt rode to the top in motocross almost as soon as he began. He rose dramatically through the ranks in Canada, then after five short years went back to Europe and took on the world…

In his 16-year racing career Rueben McMurter became a forceful presence on the road race circuits of North America. “The Rueb” amassed more than 50 first-place finishes in professional racing. He raced in the first-ever world superbike…

The name Sharpless has been synonymous with motorcycling seemingly forever and Toni Sharpless is no exception. Oldest of the three children of Hall of Fame legend Bill Sharpless Toni was only six years old when a minibike appeared under…