Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2022 i Classic Bike Guide

Speedway star Gus Kuhn was born on October 17, 1898, in Birmingham. He was of primarily English descent, though his paternal grandfather was German. He served in both the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and the Royal Flying Corps (RFC). Gus was riding motorcycles long before speedway became a popular sport. In the early 1920s he was riding lightweight Levis motorcycles in trials, hill climbs and scrambles all over the country. He also enjoyed some success in the Isle of Man TT, riding a Sun in the Lightweight TT of 1922, one of Coventry’s Omega motorcycles in the 1924 Ultra Lightweight TT, and a Velocette and Douglas in the 1925 Junior and Senior TT races. His best finish was fifth in the Junior TT of 1926 on a Velocette. Gus…

The Westland Classic Motorcycle Club is running the first of three charity events this summer on July 10 to support for the designated charity, Headway Somerset. The Coast to Coast run will follow a marshalled route from Lyme Regis to Minehead. Entrants will set off at about 10am in small groups (as designated by the start marshal), with time breaks between the groups. There will be one intermediate stop for lunch. The finish, and award ceremony, will be on Minehead seafront. The event is open to scooters, motorcycles, combinations, and bike-based three-wheelers in the following classes – veteran, vintage, postwar classics, and bikes in manufacture up to the year 2000. The fee for entry prior to the day of the event is £15, or £20 on the day. Visit www.wcmcc.org.uk…

The Wells Classic Motorcycle Club’s Tortoise and Hare Run is to return on July 15-17. The organisers have secured three days of camping at Wells City Football Club, where there is a licensed bar and facilities. This will need to be pre-booked. There is also a Travelodge nearby for those who don’t fancy a weekend under canvas. The Tortoise and Hare Run, with three routes for motorcycles of different power outputs, takes place on July 17. The event is open to all motorcycles and scooters, riding on routes with point marshals, plus some signs showing you where to go. The event raises much-needed funds for the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance charity. The club has donated more than £25,000 over the last 10 events. For further details and entry forms,…

IN 2015 I TOURED EUROPE ON MY BMW R100CS. I HAD the briefest sample of Albania, an afternoon riding the most dramatic mountainous landscape on a pristine ribbon of tarmac. Smooth riding perfection soon turned to a perilous off-road trail that put me and my bike well out of our comfort zone. As snow fell and my extended sump rebounded off rocks, I made a rare sensible decision and turned back to Montenegro, vowing to return to Albania, but better prepared one day. Seven years later I took my BMW R80ST to better cope. Not a true off-road bike, but with modifications such as wide ‘bars, 21-inch front wheel, long rear shock and a bash plate, it’s more than capable of taking on tricky terrain. With countless days of preparation…

Cometh the turn of the Nineties, cometh the grey imports. Here in the UK, biking was sexy sportsbikes all the way until you were old – Harleys kept themselves to themselves, the old bike world rode in the week when everyone else was working or were stuck in the workshop, and adventure bikes weren’t born yet. The cyclic nature of motorcycling meant that young ’uns were coming into motorcycling again, pushed in part by World Superbikes and Grand Prix being televised, as well as a fairly buoyant economy. Unfortunately, insurance prices were also buoyant, meaning your average late teen or early 20-something couldn’t afford to insure the 600cc sportsbike they could afford to buy thanks to finance and the Supersport bikes that were imported – Kawasaki ZXR400 and KR1 250,…

“An old bike involves a lot more than just riding; you have to learn it inside out, how it works. Modern classics are so much easier to live with than a true classic.” YOU HAVE TO LEARN AN OLD BIKE inside out. How it works, its strengths and weaknesses. Modern classic-looking bikes are so much easier to live with, giving the look and a little of the feel of a true classic. I love my Tribsa, one of biking’s true lash-ups, with a Triumph engine encased within various BSA parts – a common marriage back in the day. Riding it gives me such satisfaction and I put up with the shortfalls, of which there are many. Lights are not fit for purpose. The stand acts like a renegade union worker...…

OLD RELIABLE – A NAME I’VE JUST MADE up and have never previously applied to any of my own motorcycles – has just let me down. And this is for the first time in a decade and a half of ownership. Memory is an increasingly fickle adventure. Some memories are hazy at best (and probably just as well in many ways), while others are reliable, like my Matchless. I forget – of course – how often I’ve recommended Matchless twins as being paragons of rugged reliability, comfort, and even affordability, and over many thousands of our imperial miles they’ve proved themselves to be considerably dependable. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever called out the emergency services to an AJS or Matchless twin. I could be wrong about this. There’s…

The year is 1954 and Mr J Whitehouse is astride a 1930 Scott Squirrel. The happy throng is the end of the ACU National Rally at Rhyl, North Wales, a navigation exercise taking in a large proportion of the country. The idea was simple – to cover as close to 600 miles within 24 hours, passing through as many waypoints as you could, with one point per mile and two points per waypoint. A total of 946 two and three-wheeled vehicles started from various waypoints in the country, with the final destination, Rhyl, within a two-hour window. Most machines were solo but many had pillion, and the three-wheeler Morgans and Bond Minicars had passengers to help with navigation duties. The weather was horrendous this July weekend but most were prepared,…

Norton Motorcycles has purchased 55 classic Norton bikes to start its heritage collection. The collection, which spans from 1916 to 1992, boasts some of the rarest Norton bikes and sidecars ever produced, including models such as Model 1 ‘Big Four’, the company founder James ‘Pa’ Norton’s favourite bike, a rare speedway Norton from 1930, and a F1 Rotary. A 1968 Norton Atlas police motorcycle used for royal escorts that previously rode alongside The Queen, the Queen Mother, and the Prince of Wales is another notable acquisition. Norton bought the bikes from a single collector, Ian Loram, who has amassed the unique collection since his first classic purchase in the late ‘90s. A small selection of bikes will initially take pride of place in the reception area of the recently opened…

SERVICE Check to see if you’ve got any services coming up. You might not need one right now but if you’re planning to do 4000 miles then you might end up going well past your next interval. Plus it’s an extra chance to have a close-up look at your bike and spot any potential issues. See next section... BIKE INSPECTION ...and do it well in advance! I’m speaking from experience here. On this trip I thought I had most things checked over and sorted well in advance. It was only while changing the rear tyre that I noticed a very stiff drivetrain. Further investigation found the gearbox output was severely compromised and the swingarm bearings completely worn out. Without some good friends and very helpful businesses, the trip would’ve never…

Cat Pena, 20, owns this beautiful Bros 400. She passed her CBT last July, rode a 125 for a few months, and then did her A2 training and test on a restricted Suzuki SV650 bike. Ironically, the SV is larger and heavier than the Bros! It is also older than Cat, so what made her go for a Bros and not one of the shiny, new bikes out there? “I’m in a bike group and a friend there had one his dad had owned since it was first imported. He is tall but wanted it to still be around so he could see it ridden. I was looking for something more modern, but with the single-sided swingarm, aluminium frame, and undated looks, I fell in love with it. And it’s…

THE WONDERFUL DVLA HAS LOST my logbook. In fact, according to them, they never received it – naturally. So I now have to pay £25 to apply for a new one. Top tip: send anything going to the DVLA by registered post. This still doesn’t mean I have any excuse not to finish it… WIRING The wiring loom is nearly in its original place, I think. Forty-plus years in one position may leave telltale marks and bends, but a year scrunched in a box makes all that disappear. I really need the front fairing fitted to help make sure, but I’m concerned of the build-up of loom and connectors around the headstock, and subsequently effecting the steering. Luckily, there was a gorgeous blue example at our local meet last week,…

SHELAGH AND RONNIE MOORE BUILD AMAZING Norton-based specials. Tritons, ES2-based café racers, sporty Commandos and all manner of marvellous Bracebridge Street-born creations have graced their shed. At one point the couple were considering relocating to France to build the café racers that the Gallic biker seems to love so much. Even now buyers will happily wait for years for one of their creations to cross the channel. Both are long-term motorcyclists. As a teenager, Shelagh was too young to compete on the track so she borrowed her older sister’s identity to get a sidecar racing licence and would travel hundreds of miles across country to Snetterton to be a passenger in a racing outfit. Ronnie was a member of the famous 59 Club in 1962: “I used to go to…

Oli’s bilees of the show Lyndon’s fake flat tanker Lyndon Askey’s Royal Enfield flat tanker isn’t quite what it seems. Certainly at first glance it looks like it is straight out of the 1920s. Lyndon says he wanted a flat tanker for years but didn’t really want to spend a five-figure sum for the privilege, so he decided to build his own. “This is my Royal Enfield Autojumble Special. It’s made from old bits, new bits, bits from my shed, and ‘anything you like bits’. It cost me about £2000 to build.” The engine, gearbox, clutch and hubs are from a 1956 250cc Royal Enfield Clipper, which is what Lyndon started with. The rest of the bike was made, adapted or made from scratch to suit the 1920s look. The…

I’D ARRIVED AT THE BATH AND WEST Showground for the Bristol Classic Show a day early, just to scope out the entries and see if there was anything that might be worth investigation. As I secured my Moto Guzzi, a motorcycle was wheeled out of a neighbouring van. And it was this stunner. I knew nothing about Parillas, but the whole stance of the thing, the superb finish, the lines, made it one of those unignorable motorcycles. This 1960 Parilla was restored by John Crookes. “This is the high cam engine with short pushrods to the rockers – it will rev to 8500rpm and used to see off British 650 twins on the road,” he said. The MSDS F3 is how it came out of the shop – though in…

What is it? Built from 1988 until 1992, this Honda was a fabulous answer for anyone wanting a small, lightweight, yet punchy naked bike with modern looks. A Honda what? Well, if you were in Japan, this model was called the Honda Bros: the Product One was the 650 (NT650) and Product Two applied to the 400 (NT400) model. However, if you were in the United States of America, it was the Honda Hawk GT 650 – there was no 400. And in the UK, well, we weren’t deemed worthy enough to have either. The all-important Honda code was RC31 for the 650 and NC25 for the 400. And no one knows where the Bros name came from. Got all that? Behind the confusing names and codes was rather an…

THERE IS A SWEET SPOT FOR MANY, IN THE history of classic motorcycles. Vintage bikes are fascinating insights to the thinking of early engineering, and just starting them can be a sight to see – but nowadays they tend to be for special occasions, due to fragility, speed, or both. Later bikes, from the 1950s for example, have more of a look that a modern rider would recognise – swingarms, brakes, automatic timing, and possibly even performance. But they can be a little too similar to modern bikes. Yet there is an area in between that some find the nirvana, the blend of old and new, when the motorcycle industry was starting to get a grip on reliability but the roads were rough, the traffic still quiet – and the…

I WAS ONCE TOLD DURING A LECTURE THAT the definition of engineering was that it is an intellectual process. The lecturer was not suggesting that all engineers are intellectuals, but rather that engineering is a thought process rather than the technique of the application of hammers or the production of drawings. Meanwhile, a rather nice little Honda CB175 was delivered to me, not running. It had gone, coughed or popped, the owner had flattened the battery trying to re-start it, and had to be pushed home. Being the sports version of the utility Honda CD 175, the CB benefits – among other things – from twin carbs, 12-volt electrics and an electric start. Simple things to check first. The battery was removed, charged and re-installed. The electrics and wiring looked…