Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i Classic Bike Guide

It has been a little quiet for those waiting for the new BSA Gold Star 650 to appear, but the company says plans are rapidly moving forward. Top priorities for BSA are the establishment of a dealer network and the announcement of the price. Originally scheduled for March, this has now been delayed until mid-May, with the first bikes available for delivery expected in June. The UK will be the first place in the world where punters can get their hands on the new Gold Star. Parent company Mahindra and its offshoot, Classic Legends, are concentrating on the Yezdi brand for their home market, which has a stronger local heritage. The 650 single has been designed in the UK, with development company Ricardo having a significant role, as well as…

Those with an occasional penchant for tweed and carefully sculpted facial hair need to start getting dapper – the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride is coming on May 22. Since being launched in 2012, the event has previously run on the last Sunday of September. Riders will head out into the unpredictable spring weather in unsuitable clothing to raise funds and awareness of prostate cancer and men’s mental health. This year, the organisers are eager to get more of us back on the road to ride in a ‘Distinguished’ fashion in towns and cities around the UK and across the world. As an added incentive to raise as much cash as possible for DGR charities, there’s a chance for the person who raises the most to win not just a custom-built Triumph…

Mercury improvement I have not seen any reader’s letter in CBG yet, but maybe you could include mine in the next issue. Hereby I refer to the excellent Phil Chester article about the restoration of his Norton Mercury. The final result will be an even better bike than when it left Woolwich in the 1960s. With all the effort and money already spent, I would however recommend to fit only new bearings to the gearbox. The layshaft ball bearing (6203) is relatively cheap to buy, but also prone to break on the faster twins, especially the Commandos. And the result is a broken gearbox shell most of the time. There is also a replacement roller bearing available (NU203E) and popular with Norton enthusiasts. Best regards, Henk Verstegen, The Netherlands Dear…

THE INTERESTING THING ABOUT THE FRANCIS- Barnett Cruiser 91 Sports – apart from its somewhat ludicrous name – is how out of character it was for AMC to produce it. Francis-Barnett specialised in producing rather worthy, straightforward motorcycles for everyman. Its lightweight two-stroke bikes weren’t exciting to look at, and the company’s own advertising would eschew the usual dramatic images of high-speed riding for pictures of sensible men in sensible shoes, performing mundane ride-to-work tasks. It seems AMC didn’t consider that excitement was part of the experience of Francis-Barnett ownership. Cruiser had been Francis-Barnett’s name for its top-of-the-range machines since the 1930s. By 1961, the Cruiser 89 was the brand’s luxury lightweight, with a top speed of just over 70mph. The Cruiser was – thanks to limited expenditure on model…

I SPOTTED THE LITTLE MOTORCYCLE AS SOON AS I RODE around the bend. The rider was sitting bolt upright in his black waxed cotton jacket as he trundled down the country lane, the saddle springs of his Tiger Cub clearly soaking up more bumps than the plunger rear suspension. I tweaked the throttle of my Gold Star, quickly caught him up, and rode along behind. He could see me in his mirror and I was expecting him to pull over so we could talk. But he kept on riding. And riding. I know, I thought, he’s heading for the next village. I’ve got a friend who lives there and he owns classic bikes – he’s probably going to call in to see him. But he kept on riding, and checking…

NEW PRICE: £519 in 1973 CURRENT VALUE: £8000 CAPACITY: 490cc BORE X STROKE: 69x65.5mm ENGINE LAYOUT: OHV parallel twin POWER: 30bhp @ 7000rpm TOP SPEED: 80mph TRANSMISSION: Four-speed, chain drive AVERAGE FUEL CONSUMPTION: 60mpg TANK SIZE: 2.0 gallons FRAME: Oil-bearing, all-welded steel, single downtube FRONT SUSPENSION: Triumph telescopic forks, 63° FRONT SUSPENSION ADJUSTMENT: N/A REAR SUSPENSION: Girling units, tubular steel swinging arm REAR SUSPENSION ADJUSTMENT: Spring preload FRONT BRAKE: 6.0-inch sls drum, cable operated REAR BRAKE: 7.0-inch sls DRUM, ROD OPERATED FRONT TYRE: 3.00 x 21 REAR TYRE: 4.00 x 18 WHEELBASE: 54” GROUND CLEARANCE: 7.5in SEAT HEIGHT: 32in KERB WEIGHT: 322lb…

I’VE ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD THAT DéJà VU was somehow the illusion of experiencing an event before you actually experience it. So that when you do experience some mysterious thing for the first time, it feels mysteriously familiar. In the case of the woe cry, I have most definitely heard it before – and so have you. You know how it goes. You’re sharing a perfectly pleasant conversation with a buddy or two, all nice and calm and relaxed, and then someone pipes up with a comment about how awful prices are now. All of a sudden. Far from being a conversation killer, this always but always provokes raised voices, sarcastic laughter and insincere sympathy. Folk appear to fall into three camps. The silent minority, who don’t know and don’t care anyway;…

In 1969, none other than the Duke of Edinburgh graced the Isle of Man TT with his presence. The prince first visited the TT in 1949 and by all accounts really enjoyed the spectacle; he was regularly seen riding a Honda Monkey bike on the Royal estates. Here we see The Queen’s consort seeing off the Junior TT with a Japanese two-stroke, the sign and sound of things to come, with an AJS four-stroke. No.3 is the Padgett TR2 two-stroke ridden by Phil Read. Read was busy developing his own race bike with Weslake and a frame from Ken Sprayson. But as a double world champion at this point, winning both the 125cc and 250cc Grand Prix championships in 1968, he still wanted to race – so why the privateer…

Arriving in your local Royal Enfield dealership shortly will be the new Scram 411. Based on the Himalayan adventure bike, the Scram 411 is described as an engaging, accessible and capable street scrambler, built on Royal Enfield’s Harris Performance chassis. It is powered by the Himalayan’s 411cc, fuel-injected, four-stroke, SOHC, air-cooled single-cylinder engine. The engine has a maximum power of 24.3bhp at 6500rpm and max torque of 23.6lb.ft at 4000-4500rpm. RE says this ensures smooth power delivery with a strong bottom end, and is easy to manage over long urban commutes with minimum gear shifts – and the confidence-inspiring engine performance allows it to tackle bad roads and off-road sections, too. There are 41mm forks with 190mm travel, along with 180mm travel on the rear. The colour scheme is a…

A massive thanks to Bournemouth University and Shel Silva, who gave up her time to explain this THIS FEATURE MAY NOT BE ABOUT old bikes and undoubtedly we’ll get complaints, but please read on – it may be the most important thing you do read. As riders of old bikes, we have dim lights – if any at all, often ride bikes slower than the modern traffic around us, and rarely have mirrors, let alone indicators. Oh, and many of us use old, open-face helmets and dark clothing without armour. Yet when there’s an accident with another vehicle, it’s the ‘dozy car drivers’ at fault? Well, new research has proved that actually it may well be... in a way. Bournemouth University has been running a project that studies the neurological…

Alright, so you want a British classic bike, an excellent choice of steed. Perhaps you’re not too bothered with getting a particular make or model, or era. But have you considered the difference between having one, two or three cylinders? Have you thought about suspension, comfort, parts reliability and useability? For some, all these questions have been answered and the goal is defined. For others, the choice could be endless. And sometimes – in fact, a lot of the time – the choice has no particular reason. It could be as simple as ‘that one turned up’, just as much as ‘it must be that one because my uncle had one’. It’s a wonderful problem to have. Triumph, BSA and Norton have earned their standings in our worlds as well…

Enormous thanks to Steph, Rurik, and Chris at Krazy Horse for the loan of their demos (Krazyhorse.co.uk). THE FANTIC CABALLERO IS FULL OF SURPRISES. When I first saw it a few years ago at our local dream-come-true bike shop, Krazy Horse, with its top-flight retro looks mixed with modern tech and suspension, I presumed an equally high price would be attached. To my surprise, there wasn’t – and what’s more, there were 125 and 250 versions, too, that looked like the 500, not a poor copy. Still, a small-scale Italian brand trading on its heritage isn’t often a recipe for success. But despite seemingly all ticks and no crosses to its name, you seldom see this great bike on the road. Fantic isn’t as classic as Triumph, Moto Guzzi, or…

SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED A few easy wins on a project such as my Yamaha AS1. Most of what’s been going seems to have been addressing years of abuse and decades of poor storage. Therefore I decided to play with some nice clean parts to boost my flagging morale. Instead of restoring the very manky switchgear that came with the bike, I’d managed to find some NOS bar switches for sensible money. Long story short, the seller only does sports mopeds and buys up parts lots; anything that doesn’t fit them he moves on ASAP in order to get some money back. Both units came bagged and tagged, replete with the correct screws. However, what should be an easy job was seriously complicated due to the fact the wiring for…

THE ROAD TO ANDY’S SPECTACULAR supercharged pre-unit Triton started in a ditch in the grounds of a ramshackle manor house near Milton Keynes. “We were clearing the ditches and I found a motorcycle frame lying in one of them,” he explains. “I pulled it out and realised it was from an old BSA. “My friend asked what I was going to do with an old pile of junk. The frame rails were rotted but had a few good bits still, including a near-mint rear mudguard, good oil tank, and toolbox. The rim was loose on the hub as all the spokes were gone. Then I spotted the kink in the bottom frame rail. Another friend came by and said, ‘You could build a Gold Star out of that’ and also…

FRANCIS-BARNETT AND JAMES TWO- strokes were a cut above the hordes of Villiers-engined motorcycles being built by dozens of British manufacturers in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet today, these purposeful lightweights are often overlooked by those searching for a British classic. AMC, the owner of Matchless AJS and Norton, took over Francis-Barnett in 1947 and James in 1951. The two firms were combined in 1957, with subsequent models mostly being badge engineered with alternative stylings over the same cycle parts. They did have separate factories until Francis-Barnett production moved to the James factory in the early 1960s. ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS Francis-Barnett coded each model with consecutive numbers across its range from the 1930s. Each F-B model was given a number, and the Falcon started as the model 54, which…

BACK IN THOSE APPARENTLY GLORIOUS youthful days when we were all masters or mistresses of the universe, also impossibly vigorous, good-looking and quite possibly kind to animals, there was a great two-wheeled obsession with building specials. I even tried this myself, and several of my more spannery buddies built a few that were almost acceptable riding machines. Unlike my own attempts. About which I will never darken your lightness, because some things are simply too awful to see the light of day. In case you’d either forgotten 1960s specials – or are in the happy position of being far too young to have experienced them – I will offer a few general thoughts. These are personal, based entirely on the genuine life experiences (or whatever we’re supposed to call them)…

LIKE THE OLD TUNING ADAGE OF ‘HOW fast it can be made to go depends on how much money you’ve got’, in a similar way is ‘how accurately you want something measured comes down to how much you’re prepared to spend on equipment and facilities’. I’ll admit, not quite as dramatic, but it is just as important. Fortunately, in engineering terms, old bike engines for road use are not that accurate, certainly compared to modern machinery, and don’t require thousands of pounds worth of measuring equipment, temperature and humidity controlled rooms etc. to ensure repetitive accuracy. You can usually get away with digital calipers, feeler gauges and a micrometer or two in the workshop. Not even your average rebore or crank grinding shop seem to get into fine surface finish,…

TIME HAS NOT BEEN MY FRIEND this month. Well, it has not been the BMWs friend, in as much as we’ve all been doing lovely stuff and ignoring said German steed. But a few evenings have proved successful and progress is coming. Think less Hollywood film timing, more dull BBC4 documentary. As said before, I needed the rear wheel fitted so I thought cleaning it up, some new bearings and a polish would be a quick goal. Wrong, again, so £100 on new spokes and nipples and a favour used up for a time in a vapour blasting cabinet later, I realised my hotch-potch cleaning of the rim would let the side down. It now looks great, so I thought I’d tell you how. Alloy polishing First off, as my…