Throttle Roll - A great event for custom cafe-racer style motorcycles, live entertainment and a relaxing time. Words & Images: Kris Hodgson
The 2017 Throttle Roll street party at Marrickville, held only 50m from Sydenham station has once again drawn the crowds, held on the Saturday of the Easter weekend and featuring custom bikes, trade displays and live entertainment. Plus some pretty good food stalls!
This year the massive scaffolding display of custom bikes was somewhat more modest, giving the event a more open feel, with the plentiful people in attendance seeming to rotate pretty regularly as punters came, gawked, enjoyed a few bevvies from one of the bars and perhaps even tried some food. The barbecue brisket sandwich was awesome, believe me!
Choosing to forgo riding in, and competing with hundreds of other motorcyclists for parking in the surrounding streets, this year I left the MT-07 Tracer at home and caught the train, meaning having a few of those afore-mentioned beverages wouldn’t be a concern.
Naturally the atmosphere was great, with live music playing from the stage at the very rear of the event and people enjoying stands from Royal Enfield, Invictus, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Triumph and of course Yamaha, who had their stage set up with an XSR700Â based ‘Enduro XT’ and XSR900 ‘RD 900’ and were showcasing the stylish Segura jackets.
Ducati naturally had their Scramblers on display, including their learner legal offering the Sixty2, as well as the Scrambler Classic.
At Royal Enfield there was a variety of models, including one machine fully fitted out to carry a surfboard.
Harley-Davidson also had their new Street Rod 750 on display.
At the Triumph stand there was a new 2017 765cc Street Triple RS hidden away over the back, with most of the attention going to the Thruxtons, Bobber and Scrambler, including Wenley Andrew’s ‘Phantom’ custom.
To the backdrop of the roar of motorcycle exhausts – some louder than others – the event also showcased some great custom machines on the scaffolding, ensuring great vision and opportunity to gawk for all on-lookers. You’d be hard pressed not to find something you liked with the variety on show as any custom motorcycling fan.
There was a little dancing happening up at the stage when I went past, but it was still early, with Throttle Roll continuing until well into the night, and it was easy to see there was plenty of families turning up.
Entry at $20 a head pre-purchased online became $25 at the door, which I opted for, rather than passing my details over to a ticketing company I didn’t recognise, with a good hour or two’s wandering around on offer at the very least.
It was worth making a meal of it too once you were inside, as the food stalls were all dishing up some pretty fine cuisine, the kind of thing you’ll see people lining up for when these stalls appear in the suburbs and while it wasn’t cheap it’d be hard to complain about quality.
At last year’s event that had been my only criticism bad been a lack of foot stalls and that was certainly not an issue this year, with great variety on offer and the bars set up were accessible.
For the kids there was also a mechanical bull, which proved popular with seating available throughout a number of areas if you wanted to sit down and eat or drink, although there was competition to get a seat at times.
Overall the 2017 Throttle Roll proved another great event and well worth the visit. You can check out the display bikes below, as well as the full gallery of images.