Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i Real Classic

I love this bike. It belongs to a mate of mine, Eddy Matt Lomas, and he's just as barmy as the bike looks . I heard tell he was up to something and then, sure enough, he came pottering past one day sounding like and indeed looking not dissimilar to Biggles on a flypast in his Sopwith Camel, letting rip with the twin Vickers. How could I not rush over and arrange a photoshoot? The bike in question is a 1927 Motobecane MB2 175 with a splendid story behind it. Eddy deserves to tell it himself really ... 'A bit of history; I first saw one of these bikes about six years ago and for some bizarre reason fell in love. I think it was because they reminded me of…

The T160 has great performance for its era. I've owned this one since 1995. The previous owner purchased it 'in the box’, assembled it and registered it in 1977. It was reputedly the last T160 delivered to Brisbane - the Australian compliance is dated January 1976. All of the items shipped with the bike, handbooks, service books and vouchers, warranty information, assembly instructions, tyre care booklet and Champion spark plug booklet , as well as the English number plate bracket have been retained, as has the original key fob. I visited the owner to purchase a Triumph T25 he was selling. The T160 was in the shed and we looked at it. Severayears later he contacted me it see if I was interested, but my finances didn't permit the purchase.…

The seemingly endless summer of strangeness continues - or at least, it's continuing as I write this in late July. And magazine deadlines are as interesting as always! So it is, gentle reader, that I can reveal that although you may only just have recovered from a bout of hero worship and possibly terminal admiration for my actually almost nearly a little bit completing the ten-minute rebuild of the Matchless CSR, in fact it was up and running several months ago. As all Star Trek fans will know, time travel moves us in mysterious ways. So there I was, with another functional - and road-legal - motorcycle, ready to ride and nowhere to ride to. The weather at the time was also superb, which is great for the gardening and…

Everyone I know indulges in harmless obsessions. Many of my own involve deciding that I absolutely need a particular motorcycle, whereupon no advert, no auction, no online enthusiasts' group is safe. I plot and I scheme and I find a few, make a shortlist, consider the familial and financial outcomes and .. . do nothing. Usually. Sometimes I even abuse my happy position as a Top Magazine Chappie and go ride one of the chosen few, but mostly I resist that wicked temptation. Mostly . So it was when Rowena of this parish remarked that she was prepping a feature on my almost-favourite Triumph, the T160 Trident. All things being equal, you should be able to read about this elsewhere in this very issue, and a truly handsome machine it…

Taking apart the one bike I rode year-round in late autumn wasn't one of my better plans. This was for a major overhaul which wouldn't be finished until that cheery time of year when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of motorcycles. Meanwhile, this man's thoughts turned to the question of a bike for the winter months and beyond. After all, they say that everyone should have a winter hack and here was my opportunity. The Plan was looking decidedly better as I mulled over the options for a cheap, robust bike . I even consulted A Noted Expert.'Easy; he said, 'get a Bullet Electra: He had a point. Affordable, solidly built, electric start and plenty of spares and accessories around. At the same time, I was thinking about…

Not long ago, I rebuilt two different Interceptor engines, both from before the Series 2 era. It brought back the days when I worked for Eric Williams, the Enfield dealer in Worcester. I lived near the Enfield Factory in Redditch and was often instructed to detour to the factory to collect a parts order or deliver I collect a bike. One such trip was to collect a special Constellation racer from the competition shop. The factory instructed me to ride the bike to and fro for about 300 miles and then service it per their instructions. Although familiar with the twins we were selling and servicing, riding this racer was something else. It had close ratio gears but the engine was so forgiving with loads of torque. The high first…

Back in 1975, the T160 was hailed as being everything the British bike industry needed ... seven years earlier. If the first Trident had been this competent, said Bike magazine, then 'there wouldn't be half as many Honda fours on the road now.' Ouch. Swing a leg over a disc-braked electric-start T160 and you immediately understand that this is no traditionally svelte Brit single or one ofTurner's pint-size twins. The Trident never lets you forget that it's a big bike, weighing over SOOlb with half a tank of fuel. The 740cc engine sits quite high in the race-bred steel frame, so it boasts decent ground clearance but feels hefty - not unlike the first generation of Hinckley triples, in fact. But while some machines manage to minimise the impression of…

'I want to buy my first British bike; says the chap . He seems sound in mind and body, and in possession of a most excellently trimmed beard, so I take his enquiry seriously. He's younger than me, somewhere between five or ten years my junior. Therefore he's only known motorcycles since 1990 or so. His life has been full of high-revving water-cooled Japanese hyperbikes, or maybe chic Continental twins. I can't help wondering why he'd want to experiment with an old Brit clunker. Is he having a midlife crisis? Should I send him to the Samaritans? 'My dad rode a British bike’. Ah. All is explained. 'It was a Vincent, I think. Maybe a Brough Superior. I don't know, really, he sold it when they got married in 1970…

Since my retirement from Norton Motors at Rugeley in 2009, I've occupied my time by doing much the same thing but at a much slower pace, working on a variety of machines including a couple of local farm quad bikes, two 1930s AJS and Matchless V-twins, a few Norton twins, and several Norton rotaries. The last of these was a rotary-engined Norton F1 Sport from 1992. This one is number 22 in a series of 66 bikes, some badged as 'F 1 Sport' for the general market and around 20 badged as 'TI' for Germany. It passed final inspection at Norton's Shenstone factory on 29th January 1992. It carries a West Midlands registration suggesting that the first owner bought it directly from the factory. Factory service records for this machine…