Glory Days

This entry is part 3 of 19 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #45

Marty Blake’s 1988 Suzuki DR BIG 750 Agreeing to the price was the easy bit.

Although it’s not talked about much, Suzuki had a good run in rallies, including the Paris-Dakar, in the 1980s. A French rider, Gaston Rahier, had a fair bit to do with Suzuki’s success, but the bike Suzuki put under Rahier was a good one.

In the late 1980s Suzuki parlayed its rally success into a road-ready version called the DR Big.

It was aptly named. At the time the 727cc DR Big 750 boasted the world’s largest single-cylinder production-bike engine.

That meant a stonking 50hp and just under 60Nm of torque from a bike that claimed a dry weight of 175kg.

The numbers were great from a marketing perspective and Suzuki made the most of them. A 29-litre twin-cell fuel tank was considered monstrous and a seat height of 876mm titanic.

The bikes raced out of dealerships around the world.

In the late 1980s Suzuki parlayed its rally success into a road-ready rally look-alike called the DR Big. It’s a DR enthusiast’s holy grail.

Short lived

There must’ve been pressure on Suzuki to get even bigger, and in 1990 the company released a 779cc DR Big 800, and the 750 was no more.

So the bike you see here had only a two-year model run, and despite its popularity at the time of release, there aren’t a great many still roosting around three decades later.

Marty ‘Hard Core’ Blake found one in really good shape and was left fair drooling. That was odd because he didn’t know he wanted a DR Big until a strange alignment of the stars.

A stonking 50hp and just under 60Nm of torque from a bike that claimed a dry weight of 175kg.

How it happened

Readers should note that, in addition to being responsible for the Dualsport Australia discs and a rabid DR650 fan, Marty Blake is also a motorcycle-magazine collector whose dedication approaches fanaticism. His shed is stacked high with every Australian motorcycle magazine stretching way back to well before the editor of this title typed out his first words (literally on a typewriter), and his collection of international motorcycle magazines is probably just as thorough. More than that, Marty actually reads the old magazines at every chance he gets.

“I’d always wanted a vintage club bike,” said the Coffs Harbour rider, “and I thought I wanted a two-stroke. But I grabbed an old magazine from half-way down the pile and there was this orange-and-white DR Big with an orange motor. It was just…oh, so pretty! I fell in love with it and instantly thought, ‘That’s what I want.’”

Once Marty makes his mind up to do something he’s a hard man to stop, and in what he was quite happy to interpret as some kind of divine intervention, a good-looking example appeared on Gumtree a few days later.

Despite its popularity, the DR Big 750 had only a two-year model run before Suzuki upped the capacity.

Pass the test

“I thought it’d be gone,” said Marty, full of wonder, “but I phoned six times, eventually got through, and the bike was still available. I offered to pay the price he asked if he’d meet me at the Queensland/NSW border for the handover, so I thought the thing was bought.

“But then he said, ‘No. Tell me about you.’”

“I had to go on about how I’d had four DR650s, and I even had a two-stroke Suzuki four-wheel drive. He loved two-stroke Suzukis, so I thought, ‘That’s it. I’ve bought it!’ But then he said, ‘I’ll ring you back in about three hours. I want to think about it. I won’t sell it to anyone else.’”

Nothing too hard core for this bike.

Ends well

After an anxious wait the phone rang as promised and the deal was done.

Marty was judged a suitable owner.

“I was a teenager in love,” he swooned.

“My heart was racing. I was just so excited.

When Adventure Rider Magazine’s editor showed up to photograph the bike it was under a padded cover in a special, reserved place in the garage.

There can’t have been more than a litre or two of Bike Shine and Armor All coating every surface, and the only difficulty with the photography was trying to shoo Marty and his polish cloth out of the way while the shutter was dropped.

He’s pretty happy with this bike, there’s no doubt about that.

So what’s his intention for the DR Big now he finally has it?

“I’ve got a DR650,” he said, with a wistful wave of the microfibre over the dual fuel caps. “This one’s going to do easy dirt roads. Maybe I’ll do a few adventure runs with my boy – he can ride my DR – and I’ll get club rego so I can do club runs.

“I’m not going to go hard-core.”

The long-term plan?

“Just keep spending money on it, bit by bit, when my wife’s not looking,” he grinned.

Sigh. So easy to use and read.
Even with electric start, the big single runs a manual decompressor.
Arguably the first beak in the adventure-riding world.
The only difficulty with the photography was trying to shoo Marty and his polish cloth out of the way.