80 MOTORCYCLE TRADER
ag bike, which was just horrendous. I
remember friends getting the new water-
cooled KX80 and they were rockets.
“I was pretty bike-obsessed and had
a subscription to Australasian Dirt
Bike in the Geoff Eldridge and Honest
Muz days.
“I had a CB250 at some stage, but
before I got hold of it a mate crashed it!”
Meanwhile there was also the
small issue of making a living, and he
started off in the car world. “I ended
up working for a car workshop in St
Kilda for a guy who’d worked at Ford
during the GT-HO days. It was a really
interesting place to work.
“ Yo u might call him a really bad
businessman, but I learned to use a lathe
there and we had a chassis dyno and
a distributor regraphing machine, so
really old school tools. I also did a bit of
engine building – really technical stuff.
It was a great place to work and, in the
end, a great place to leave.”
Through a mate, Brad was contacted
by the owners of Moto Italiano (later
called Moto One), about a year after
they’d opened their big store on
Dandenong Road, in Oakleigh, in 1994.
The dealership over the years took on
Ducati, Moto Guzzi, MV Agusta, Gilera,
Bimota and BMW – all of which Brad got
to work on. Over time, he was promoted
to workshop manager.
“I think the service manager is the
most important person in the dealership.
That’s who you deal with over the long
term and it’s quite a hard job. Sometimes
they’re the person at the end of the line: I
didn’t design it, make it or sell it. But I’m
the one who has to fix it!”
That position sometimes means the
workshop manager is the person who- often unfairly – cops the abuse from
angry customers over what may well be
an inherent design flaw in the bike. It’s
one aspect of working in a dealership
that Brad doesn’t miss.
THEY ALL DO THAT
Brad is a big fan of
V-twins and along the
way has developed a life-
long affection for Moto
Guzzis. However, his
first encounter with the
brand, when he started
work at Moto Italiano,
didn’t go so well.
“The first time I rode a
Moto Guzzi it was an 850
T3. I went back and asked
the other mechanic,
Rob, ‘Can you ride that
please, there has to be
something wrong with it!’
“He said, ‘Nup, that’s
how they are.’
Fair enough.
“I’ve since had a couple
of Guzzis and love them.”