Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Real Classic

In March 1957 a group of about fifteen of us had broken away from the West Middlesex branch of the Triumph Owners’ Motor Cycle Club and founded a new club which became known as Southern Triumph Riders Motor Cycle Club. It soon sprouted its own badge as you can see from the photo. We used to meet in The Ostrich pub in Colnbrook, near London Heathrow airport. This club later put up a team of despatch riders for the Auxiliary Fire Service, part of a new Civil Defence scheme, and we were the first club in the country to do such a thing. The AFS team was of about ten riders and we were issued with 350cc AJS single cylinder machines in AFS green livery whenever we went on convoy…

There was a time when British 500 singles dominated nearly everything in motorcycling, from commuting to sport to racing. Even when the all-conquering 650 twins ran right through the industry, there was also a good 500 setting the standard – think Velo Thruxton. So when the last of the classic British industry ran down in the 1970s, many enthusiasts claimed the time was right for a modern 500 to emerge. Inevitably, such a machine did appear in the following decade. It became one of the most unusual episodes in British bike history. This was the short-lived arrangement between Europe and Newton Abbott which briefly produced the Matchless G80 Rotax 500. Traditional pushrod Triumph 750 Bonneville builder Les Harris had the facilities in deepest Devon to make it all happen, and…

NORTON ACTION #1 Norton enthusiasts have lots to looks forward to in the next couple of months. For those down south, the Norton Owners’ Club are hosting a barbecue at the Stepping Stones pub in Dorking, not a million miles from Box Hill. They’ve arranged for an array of extra-special machines of the marque to be displayed and some will be started and run – look out for a Peter Williams John Player Norton, the very rare ‘Thruxton’ Commando and special guest Colin Seeley. A Dave Degen’s Triton and a Matchless G50 might also put in an appearance apiece, and you’re very welcome to bring along your own classic, vintage or racing motorcycles. The fun takes place on Saturday 17th June from noon. Admission is free, everyone welcome and funds…

I bought a new Alton for my Velocette Viper Clubman way back in December 1999, and I got around to fitting it sometime the following year. All the claims made for the Alton were realised and I have enjoyed great lights and charging for many years... until about a year or two ago, when I noticed that charging wasn’t as good as it used to be. I expected the magnets were losing magnetism due to old age. The annual MoT was due on the 1964 Viper, so as always I checked the bike over and put the battery on charge overnight with a small modern trickle charger. It did charge sufficiently to pass the MoT, but soon after the battery lost its charge. When the battery was removed for closer…

The Egli Vincent. If ever there was a name to quicken the pulse in any red-blooded, true blue motorcyclist, it’s the Egli Vincent. It sits in the stratosphere alongside the Manx Norton, the Brough Superior, the Black Shadow. Elevated to legendary status, such motorcycles aren’t owned by us lesser mortals, they are the province of ultra-rich collectors, mostly stashed safely away in air-conditioned trophy-room garages, many rarely seeing the light of day. Or, er, not... Roger owns this particular Egli Vincent, and he’s neither rich nor precious about it. He does have a penchant for acquiring the unusual and oddball, bordering on the exotic, but his tastes are widespread, jumping to whatever takes his fancy at the time. If life is about experience, then to many of us experiencing the…

How do you know when you really shouldn’t have sold a bike? In my case the feeling usually manifests itself a few months after the oil stains start to fade on the garage floor. So it was with the T140ES Bonneville I sold, twice, a few years back. Yes, you heard right: sold twice – twice failing to learn the lesson. But all things come to those who wait and so, last September, a TR6RV 650cc Tiger came to grace the shed at the bottom of my garden. It now lives next to an immaculate Laverda that I may have fallen out of love with (but I won’t know for sure I until after I’ve sold it). I’ve been given another chance to keep and enjoy a big Triumph twin,…

It is often said that less is more, but sometimes more is just, well, more. And so it is with the Trident: more cylinders, more power, more refinement, and, ahem, more weight than its sibling, the ubiquitous Triumph Bonneville. Ignoring the last ‘more’, why was it that ‘less’ prevailed in the British motorcycle industry in the form of the parallel twin at the expense of the three? Perhaps the ‘less’ had the advantage in terms of price – the three was definitely a more costly proposition. As such, it was built in fewer numbers. Despite being more of a motorcycle, the Trident was for many years less desirable than its fewer cylindered counterpart, the Bonneville. But times they are a-changing, and the Trident now takes its place at the top…

I made new engine plates because the ones that came with the project were a bit battle-scarred and the holes somewhat sloppy. The engine cases now sit in the frame nicely. I fabricated a lot of new studs in stainless steel to hold everything in place. It was now (just) a matter of carefully reassembling the engine, to allow me to make up fittings for the oil tank, so that things fit without obstructing other parts. Mounting the oil tank was a bit of a game. I rubber mounted it with Austin Mini exhaust mounting bobbins, four in all, to make sure it’s secure since I’m hanging the battery box on the back of it. This was made from stainless steel to be corrosion resistant, although as I’ve used a…

‘Falcones are great bikes from an era when dealers were almost non-existent,’ explains Stuart Mayhew from North Leicester Motorcycles. Yes, NLM are predominantly Morini specialists, but if you need to pick a brain about any interesting old Italian motorcycle then Stuart’s expertise is positively priceless. He regularly buys, sells, fettles and preps the various interpretations and incarnations of Moto Guzzi’s singles and is well acquainted with their intricacies. Not that a proud owner living in the Italian hill country back in 1955 could call on such services, as Stuart wryly observes: ‘A blacksmith might be an owner’s only source of help! The bikes were designed for that market, tough as old boots with no real weaknesses.’ Guzzi started building 498cc flat single four-strokes in 1921, so by the time the…

When writing something like this you are conscious of standing on the shoulders of giants – those people who have gone before you and done so much research already. One of these giants is undoubtedly Alan Burman, without whose work much of the information about not only the Cedos but also this, the, the final Northampton machine, would have not been available. Mr Burman was a renaissance man – author, journalist, historian and photographer – who recorded information not only relating to motorcycles but also histories of his home town, Northampton, and one Joseph Grose, a well-known local coach builder. With the help of members of the Northampton VMCC I uncovered an article by him in the Northampton Chronicle and Echo which sheds light on this machine. In 1886, in…