They're a secretive underground bikie gang. One that's often feared and often misunderstood.
Boundary riders even within tribal motorcycling circles, they challenge every single ideal associated with riding motorcycles.
This gang gently buzzes down the road like a swarm of excitable tweenage bees.
Welcome to the cultish world of Monkey bikes – where men spend up to $30,000 on low-powered vintage children's toy motorcycles – currently undergoing a sheepish revival with an unlikely bunch of macho blokes.
“Don't judge us by the size of our motorcycles,” says Tony Gregoriou, a hulking 35-year-old tradie from south-western Sydney, the self-proclaimed "Monkey godfather".
They are bashfully ridden by ordinary grown men, earnestly righting the wrongs of Christmases past by owning the motorcycles their parents deprived them of throughout their 1980s' childhoods.
These bikes were immortalised in retro posters and advertising of the day – Honda Z100s and Z50s ridden by perfectly blonde, bell-bottomed families – largely as a ploy by the Japanese manufacturer to embed motorcycling in a new middle-class generation.
If you were lucky enough to be given one.
“I told my dad I wanted a motorbike for Christmas so I got up at five o'clock Christmas morning and under the tree there's nothing. So because of him, I'm, like, going through a mid-life crisis and now I've got ten of them,” Tony says.
But Tony is not the only one realising his childhood fantasies.
“We all love our little fetish thing we got here with the Sydney Monkey Riders club,” he says.
Their club has over a hundred members and is not the only club in Australia. Huge Monkey bike gangs roam the streets of Bangkok and Manila.
It's a blossoming community, enabled by meticulous internet forums, allowing Monkey riders to shyly come out of the shed and connect with others who share their 'fetish'.
Some restore forgotten, rusted-over bikes, salvaged from barns and wreckers, some even keep rust on for credibility.
“The scene is growing here, like it is overseas. But these are not toys, we are about tires on the road,” he says.
But that presents a unique problem – their tiny gas tank requires Monkey riders to carry a thermos of petrol in their backpacks, just so they can make it between petrol stations.
“These are just your average Joe Blows,” Tony Gregoriou says.
“You get married, you have kids, your life is all about your family, and sometimes you do lose touch with your friends, because you just don't have time. This is a good reason to keep in touch with mates”.
He says it's his Monkey bikes that stand out and get attention more so than big Harley Davidsons.
“It's all about just the happiness that you get. When you rock up on the bike, they smile. When people put out a positive energy to you, it's always good”.
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