Zane Dobie has been working with BikeReview since late last year, mostly working on the news, sport and back-end of the website. Get to know him a bit more by reading his story..
For the past nine months, you might’ve seen my name pop-up here occasionally. So it’s time to put a face and a story to the name. My name is Zane Dobie and I have been a motoring journalist for three years but an enthusiast for much longer…
“Riding motorcycles for a living at just 21 years old, straight out of uni, has been a dream come true for me.”
For my entire life I have been a fan of everything with a motor in it, growing up working in the garage with my Dad doing my best to hold the torch for him taught me many things, the most important being my first word, which was ,car’. It wasn’t all about learning how to work on things for me, as the second I was old enough my Dad put me in the seat of a go-kart (that had to be specially made as I was too small) and took me around NSW, racing for a few years.
“Over multiple years my riding improved as I got older and moved to larger sized bikes until it was time to give road racing a go”…
While it was extremely competitive and fun, we simply couldn’t keep up with the costs of constantly changing rules and regulations. No stress, after the go-kart was gone, the first purchase after that was a Kawasaki KX65 motocross bike, which sparked my riding interest. Over multiple years my riding improved as I got older and moved to larger sized bikes until it was time to give road racing a go. I would frequent Classic Race meetings on CBR250RR race bikes and had the odd race on R3 Cup bikes, spending a lot of time at SMSP and Wakefield Park where Dad would often throw me the keys to thrash his 1000cc bikes around the track when I was only 16!
From a young age Zane wasn’t interested in conventional sports like football and rugby. Instead, he would always opt to give motorsports a go. He and his Dad would always manage to find the absolute cheapest way to go about it.
If you haven’t recognised my last name yet, I am Chris Dobie’s son. Dad was a journalist and photographer most of his career and is ex editor of AMCN. Despite Dad giving me gaming reviews to write in the local newspaper when I was just 12 years old, it wasn’t until I finished year 12 in 2017 that I knew I wanted to be a journalist.
“I am now a fully qualified Journalist working freelance and helping Jeff out with the plenty of stories that need to be edited and published here at BikeReview.com.au”…
So I buckled down and did my Journalism Bachelors Degree over three years at UOW while working with Dad at AMCN (for the first year and a half I was studying). I am now a fully qualified Journalist working freelance and helping Jeff out with the plenty of stories that need to be edited and published here at BikeReview.com.au.
I have also been a photographer for many years, the same as my Mum and Dad who are both photographers by trade. My high school years were spent traveling Australia taking photos for ASBK race reports as well as WSBK and MotoGP Australian rounds each year, somehow Dorna didn’t realise that I was 18 years old for about five years while applying for my media credentials!
Unfortunately, I have no daily rider at the moment due to selling my fleet of Honda MC22 CBR250RR’s in favour of finishing off building the number of rare and classic cars I have in my possession. However, I would love to have an early Suzuki RGV250 in my garage, so I have been keeping a keen eye on the auction pages for a few months now…
I look forward to spending more time getting some writing and getting reviews done for BikeReview, while sharpening my skills through editing and reading. I’m sure you’ll be seeing my name pop up a lot more often throughout the year as more bikes get released!
Check out the articles Zane has written for BikeReview here…
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