Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i Classic Bike

Auction house name change The auctioneers formerly known as Silverstone are rebranding under the name ‘Iconic’. Their next sale featuring bikes will be on 12 November at the NEC’s Classic Motorshow. iconicauctioneers.com Sammy’s collection grows Sammy Miller has added two more bikes to the vast collection at his museum in New Milton. They’re a 1950 Vincent Grey Flash (the Stevenage firm’s 500cc racer) and a 1963 Victoria moped featuring Dan Dare-style enclosed bodywork. sammymiller.co.uk Museum Live dates This year’s National Motorcycle Museum’s free-admission ‘Museum Live’ event is scheduled for October 28-29. Guests include Mick Grant, John McGuinness and Henry Cole. Rick Parkington (of this parish) will be doing museum tours, too. thenmm.co.uk Honda Specialist to sell up Honda Classics Restoration Services, the Northamptonshire-based business set up by former Honda UK…

50 Ivan Rhodes We love a true marque expert at Classic Bike, and they don’t come more bona fide than Ivan Rhodes. He huffs modestly when you suggest he’s the world’s leading Velocette aficionado, but few would deny he is. Now 89, Ivan still restores Velocettes to unfeasibly high standards – as he has for the last 50 years – and has built no end of extraordinary Velo race bikes. Perhaps the most famous is the Roarer, Velocette’s supercharged-twin prototype racer. For years it was on display at the Motorcycle Museum near Rugby, but was missing most of its engine internals. Ivan managed to buy it and – with his late son Graham – made all the components and got it going. You can read the full amazing story in…

It’s the only new-model press release I still rememberseeing for the first time. When news of Honda’s RC30 arrived in the autumn of 1987, I was editing Performance Bikes magazine – Iopened the envelope, gawped at the photos and knew the world had changed. At the start of the 1980s the world’s sharpest sports bike was either Honda’s CB900F or Suzuki’s GSX1100 Katana. Those machines made 95 and 101 horsepower and weighed 233 and 240 kilos. The 750cc RC30 made 125 horsepower and weighed 180 kilos. One giant leap for motorcycling. Performance Bikes got the first RC in Britain, which I promptly crashed, by colliding with a Suzuki GSX-R750 during a photoshoot for a comparison road test. The GSX-R had dominated racing since its arrival in 1985, but the RC…

28 Bike lift benches Fact of life #437: once you’ve sampled the joy of working on your classic on a lifting bike bench, you’ll never want to go back to crawling around on the floor with your steed balanced on an old beer crate. Hydraulic foot pump-operated benches are available from under £500 – that might sound a lot, but the investment will pay back every time you spend an hour fettling without your creaking back and knees complaining. GK 27 Roger Moss Energetic 82-year-old Roger Moss has spent years making his own Scott (based on a 1934 600cc Flying Squirrel) faster – and making the Scotts of other owners better. His own bike started out with around 26bhp, but its now upto 42, with a spread of torque from…

17 Barber Motorsports Museum Without question the world’s greatest motorcycle museum – not just in terms of size and scope, but in the way the bikes are presented. Even if you stride through the doors with expectations set sky-high, your jaw will still drop when you see five stories of immaculate bikes stacked one on top of each other in little cubicles. Or when you’re shown into the storage area and see 900 bikes neatly lined up, either waiting to be restored or wheeled out onto a display (many of the bikes are rotated to keep things fresh for return visitors). And then there’s the race track behind the museum where bikes are regularly paraded during events. The place is remarkable. The only downside is it requires effort to get…

6 The Featherbed frame Thus named by bald and primitive pre-war 500 NorBSAs, Norvins and bespectacled works ace single-cylinder engine to Noriels, but also to Harold Daniel, comparing it remain competitive against accommodate engines like to the previous and clearly far superior designs right Triumph triples, Honda less refined ‘Garden Gate’ into the 1960s. But on top Fours, Ducatis, JAP and Norton chassis. The of that, it offered space for Yamaha 1000 V-twins. I‘ve Featherbed frame was a countless different owner even seen a Suzuki game-changer from 1950 engine options to create GSX-R1100 and a Rover V8. that enabled Norton’s not only Tritons and That’s special! RP 5 Vincents There’s plenty of hyperbole surrounding the Vincent V-twin, and we’re happy to report that most of it is actually fair comment.…

1When you run an old or unusual bike at events, it pays to take a paddock kit along in addition to your usual tools. This is the Scott box: inside there are things like alternative carb slides, a home-made spanner for the hose clips, spare radiator cap, odd gaskets – and the alternative sprocket and carrier to alter gearing. 2 Unlike most British bikes, the Scott’s gearbox sprocket sits outside the clutch, on an outrigger unit with its own bearing. Detaching the sprocket from the unit is difficult and takes too long, so I use a spare unit complete with smaller sprocket. First job is to remove one bolt and swing the footrest hanger out of the way. 3 The Scott gearbox is mounted on what’s called an ‘under-tray’ –…

AUCTIONS BUYING SELLINGA NALYSIS What’s the attraction? Based on their looks, that’s a good question. Motorcycle designers have periodically decided that it’s a good idea to enclose motorcycles in plastic, hiding their engines from view and providing improved weather protection. Unfortunately the move didn’t send buyers flocking to Vincent’s door, and sales of the Black Prince (and the less powerful Black Knight) weren’t enough to save the company from closure in 1955. Honda tried the same trick 35 years later with the PC800, also known as the Pacific Coast. The enclosed Vincents remain an acquired taste, while the PC800 seems to be something of a cult classic. Both bikes will waft you through inclement weather in comfort. Both are V-twins, both have all-enveloping full fairings covering almost all the workings…

‘I try to ride every bike that comes in’ Irun my business largely on myown. I have a mechanic who comes in a few days a week, but mostly there’s just me. Some people may think I just sit in the office all day drinking tea, waiting for the phone to ring, but being a classic bike dealer isn’t quite like that. I usually try to divide the day in half, spending the morning in the office unless I have specific appointments for viewing or collecting bikes. I get a huge volume of emails every day for a start. Personally, I prefer actually talking to people, either in person or on the phone – Ilove the interaction. But emails are the way of the world and I try to get…

£5000 1940 BSA WM20 Cheffins Vintage Sale, July 22 The barn finds just keep on coming – and this lovely military M20 is just how you want to find them. Part of a collection unused for years, this is a remarkably original machine, still shod with WD tyres and complete with original field stand, early-type control levers and 3½-gallon tank. Rebuilt to ‘Class 1’ condition by the Army Auxiliary Workshop on January 10, 1945, it was released onto the civilian market in 1969. Clearly it needs some work – the engine turns over, though one valve appears to be stuck – it’s a bike deserving preservation rather than restoration. cheffins.co.uk £85,000 1973 MV Agusta 750S Silverstone Shuttleworth Collection sale, July 30 Silverstone’s sale venue – Old Warden Aerodrome in Bedfordshire,…

INTERNATIONAL WEST KENT RUN Tod Teare 1973 Suzuki GT 750 It’s hard to believe that, just 18 months ago, Tod’s GT750 was a sorry-looking eBay purchase. He didn’t complete the run this year – but it was nothing to do with the bike. “What a day! There was a big hold up, an accident or something, so what with the weather we just decided to turn round and find our way back to the start,” he explained. “I’ve wanted a GT750 since I was an apprentice. This one had done about 23,000 miles, came from the States and its three owners had all pinched bits off it, leaving me to find what was missing! But all the nuts came undone and the chrome that wasn’t missing was still good. A…

Terry Rymer, Carl Fogarty and Steve Hislop dominated the 1992 Bol d’Or on their Team France Kawasaki ZXR750, beating the French favourites on the other Team France ZXR by four laps. Rymer and Fogarty went on to win the world endurance championship that year. “I think this shot is from qualifying,” says Rymer, “because during the race the bike looked like it had been ridden through a sandstorm – you’d get sandblasted down the Mistral straight. Also, Foggy [rider on left] isn’t wearing his factory Kawasaki leathers, and people are just standing around the bike – they wouldn’t be allowed there during the race. “My boots look pretty new – but I’d wear out three pairs of boots per race. This was my first ever Bol, and my first win…

The June issue, featuring bikes with non-standard frames/chassis, was a thoroughly excellent read. Here’s my my special-framed race bike, which I built back in the ’70s. I built Triumph T150 engine entirely from spares – a man from Birmingham who worked at a well-known bike factory sold me a set of crankcases, a crankshaft, cylinder barrels, gearbox castings and rocker boxes, all brand new and very cheap. I managed to pick up a secondhand 650 Rickman Mettisse chassis and set about fitting the Trident engine. A fairly good season was had, with one win at Brands Hatch in the wet. However, to me it seemed very heavy and only had one disc up front, I could never brake as late as similar bikes using a Rob North frame set-up with…

A year into his job as one of Honda’s first ever Europeantest riders, Dave Hancock was thrashing a prototype FireBlade at the Tochigi circuit in Japan. It was 1989 – three years before the Blade launched – and Honda’s R&D department had a lot on. The oval-pistoned NR750 was also on test that day. “The project leader asked me if I’d like a go,” says Dave. “I got on the bike, he tapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘Enjoy’.” But Dave didn’t. “The NR was nothing to do with us because it was done by a small team of Japanese, so I had no idea what to expect. I came back in after a few laps and all the engineers gathered round me. I took my helmet off and…

35 Velocette KTT  Velocette introduced their Support staff: the backbone of classic events They do it for the love of it – and we should give the love back. made, with a huge finned cylinder barrel overhanging narrow crankcases and an overhead camshaft 350 at the 1926 TT, and by the time of the introduction of the MkVIII version in 1939 it had evolved into one of the best-looking bikes ever unusual combination of girder forks and swingarm rear suspension. It was effective too, winning five out of five Junior TTs between 1938-49. HW 34 Event organisers Let’s hear it for the extraordinary people who give up their time so the rest of us can just get on and enjoy the ride. To the track marshals, the trials observers, the…

I thangetting to Albania and popping into Milan and Graz where friends have offered a meal and a bed. I ride off the ferry at Calais in lovely sunshine and am almost immediately stopped by the French police for reasons I never discover. Luckily, they aren’t interested in interrogating me and I escape, riding east to see how far I get before darkness (the MZ’s lights are comical). I don’t make a huge amount of progress and I eventually pitch my tent somewhere between Cambrai and St Quentin. The next morning I’m up and away in good time, with the first thing on the cards a quick stop in St Quentin to look around the cathedral and have breakfast. I stop for lunch in Troyes, having hopped on and off…

This is issue 524 of Classic Bike. Since 1978 we’ve been reflecting the classic bike world, watching it change and sometimes leading its change. We’ve seen prices rise and fashions shift, and now bikes that weren’t even a twinkle in their designer’s eye back in 1978 appear in the magazine.We might be a magazine about old bikes, but we move with the times and the tastes – and with the happy memories of our readers. There are some things that remain constant, though; we’ve always put the reader first, and we’ve always believed that bikes are for riding, however old they are, and however much they’re worth. There’s a subscription offer on page 68 – treat yourself, or drop it in front of the person who always asks what you’d…

GP carb This picture shows my bike during a break in hostilities; its wearing a Concentric carb. But the GP can be made to work right. They don’t have to be impossible to start. I blame wear in the pilot system. Crank The original crank is not ‘the Achilles Heel’ as is always said – it’s just got a finite life. You have a race-tuned top end on a 1930s bottom end – however reinforced, it cannot last forever. Gearbox The RRT2 has four beautifully-spaced ratios, but needs five. In effect first is missing, making pulling away a pain, especially two-up. Five-speed clusters are available... but costly. Engine My mistake was seeing the Goldie as just ‘a BSA single with knobs on’. It is, but the tuning makes things like…

BSA A10 Spot the Spit It’s big ups to the VMCC library this month. As keepers of the BSA factory records, they were my first port of call when I received an email from Bruce Pleger in the States, who recently acquired a 1961 BSA A10. Bruce tells me that although the numbers suggest the bike may be a ‘Spitfire Scrambler’, very little of the original factory-wear survives. The engine prefix A10SR and frame GA7A certainly suggest a Spitfire and the VMCC library quickly replied that the bike was despatched to BSA Inc, New Jersey on the July 19, 1960 as a ‘Rocket Scrambler’ – and Bruce’s engine and frame numbers match. Although it’s the 1963 ‘Gold Star Spitfire’ scrambler that is the really sought-after model (essentially the off-road version…

PART 3 Special builders have an innate affinity for lists. Scrawlednotes on scraps of paper when inspiration strikes and a fading, overworked memory can’t be trusted to retain an idea, let alone the detail; the workshop white board that attempts to give some formality and semblance of order to the process. Then there’s the eBay and spares wish list of parts yet to be sourced. Add to that the mental list – ‘mental’ in that it’s in your head and ‘mental’ in that it’s inclined to drive you a little crazy as your obsession with your project intensifies. It’s all about lists, and as soon as one thing is struck off, two more items have to be added. It’s my mental list that preoccupies me the most as I steer…

Genuine GP raceware rarley escapes onto the open market, but this Ducati has. It’s from 2003, as campaigned by Australian Troy Bayliss, and is for sale at respected specialists Made in Italy Motorcycles of Stowmarket, Suffolk) Before 2002, 500cc two-strokes had ruled the roost in the premier class. But, from the start of that season, 990cc four-strokes could run alongside the strokers. Four-stroke machinery won every race in that first year of MotoGP, with two-stroke machinery managing only a handful of podiums. The following year, two-strokes were gone from MotoGP grids. The switch to four-strokes was a call to arms for Ducati. Already successful in the production-based World Superbike Championship, Ducati returned to the blue riband class of motorcycle racing after an absence of 30 years. The GP03 was campaigned…

WE’RE A BIT suspicious of the word ‘collectible’ at Classic Bike, but leaving that aside, this 940-page, two-volume, 9.5kg, £250 book is certainly some kind of ultimate. It features 100 bikes, starting with the 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmuller and finishing up with a 2020 Aston-Martin AMB001 (it’s the limited edition supercharged version of the modern French-built Brough Superior). In between are 98 fantastic machines, all featured in glorious studio photographs along with period images and a detailed essay on each bike. The machinery ranges between a 1914 Flying Merkel to the 1978 Laverda V6 endurance racer, the cigar-bodied 1930 Majestic to the 1947 Indian Chief, with Vincents and Brough Superiors along the way, along with a lot of race bikes. Some are meticulously restored, some are beautifully patinated time warps,…

Kop Hillclimb has a dark past and a bright future. Adopted for motorcycle sport in 1910, with the cars following a little later, an accident in 1925 involving a car killing a spectator ended not only this event but also all closed roads motor sport in the UK. Revived as a charity event in 2009, matters went full circle when just a few years ago its safety record and success (an astonishing £107,000 was collected last year, contributing to the present £977,000 total) proved instrumental in the closed roads ban being finally lifted. So, apart from being a good cause, what’s it all about? In the distant past, this part of the Chilterns was bare hillside, but now the lane climbs through a cool green tunnel of overhanging woodland. With…

Ducati 860 GTS I bought this bike new from Fraser’s NSW, Australia in 1977 when I emigrated. I did a lot of miles on it going on weekend runs with the Ducati Owners Club. When I returned to Scotland l had the bike shipped back, using it for my daily commute – 350 miles a week – and another 200 at weekends. I did all my courting with the bike, travelling from Hawick to Newcastle to see my girlfriend Lindsey, who became my wife in 1979. In 1981 l bought a 900SS and the 860 was sold, then changed hands three times. It hadn’t run for nine years when I managed to buy it back in 2016. It had been modified, but most of the original parts came with it.…

None of us wants to think of ourself as prejudiced. Itmay be a part of the survival instinct of all living things but, in a civilised society, judgement should not be passed on impressions alone. Although I have to admit that the thought of riding a Triumph Hurricane was clouded by my prejudices. I’ve never really got into the triples – they were unaffordable in my youth and, with Triumph twins having formed so big a part of my life, I’ve never felt the need for an extra cylinder. And the Hurricane... well, I never got into that whole ‘factory custom’ thing, sacrificing handling for fashion. But, while I admit to prejudice, I deny bigotry – and the simple truth is that, now I’m here riding Shane Hill’s glorious, sun-kissed…

Everyone has their own heroes, but here are some of ours – and their greatest moments in our eyes... Barry Sheene’s 137.83mph lap of Spa Francorchamps in 1977, the British ISDT team escaping Austria as WWII started in 1939, blokes in tweed plus fours racing round Brooklands in the ’20s, Evel Kneivel trying to jump buses at Wembley or Las Vegas, EJ Potter riding a Chevy V8-powered Harley at US drag strips, Hubert Auriol finishing the penultimate stage of the 1987 Paris-Dakar rally with two broken ankles, Mike Hailwood’s 1978 TT win, Cannonball Baker riding an Indian motorcycle 3378 miles from San Diego to New York in 11½ days in 1914. The heroic tales from motorcycling’s past are one of the things that makes the classic bike world so brilliant.…

Howard ’Oz’ Osborne doesn’t believe in doing thingsthe easy way. And his meticulous approach to motorcycle restoration reflects a widespread passion in the classic world for doing a job yourself – and doing it right. “I like to take on bikes that are unusual,” smiles Oz, a Suffolk-based joiner. “I love the challenge of bringing a bike back from the dead. And the tougher the challenge, the more rewarding it is. I enjoy researching, tracking down parts and overcoming the challenges thrown up by bikes that are a little out of the ordinary. In the past, I’ve had one-off gearbox components and pistons, among other things, made for me – and I’ve picked up ever more workshop equipment, and learnt to use it along the way. The more effort I…

Classic Workshop 74 Imperial Fixes Spannerman Rick P wields the Whitworths 78 Metric Fixes Al Seeley’s your man for rest-of-the-world woes 82 Project Harris Magnum Part 3 Seeley gets his bike back from Harris HQ 88 Our Classics Rick’s eventful time at the West Kent Run Classic Market 91 Buying & Selling Vincent Black Prince vs Honda PC800 92 Deep Pockets & Loose Change Cheap temptations and a MotoGP bike 95 Buyer’s guide: Yamaha TRX850 How to buy the best Japanese Ducati-alike 100 Auctions Standout sales and attractive upcoming lots... Get in touch at: workshop@classicbike.co.uk …

£995 1987 Honda VFR400 NC24 A fairly tidy looking bike, but one which will require some work. There’s no compression on one cylinder, but it comes with a spare bottom end, plus another crank, pistons and rods. 07710 853756 £695 1955 Francis-Barnett Falcon Turns over on the kickstart and looks to be largely complete – there is a front wheel included, along with a box of other spares. With a bit of work, this could provide classic biking on the cheap. tradebikesdirect.co.uk £995 1990 Yamaha FJ1200 A non-running project, but looks a fairly straightforward job. Will need the fork seals replacing and the brakes overhauling, along with a new seat cover and front mudguard. tradebikesdirect.co.uk £950 1990 Honda CBR600F Riding and running nicely, with an MOT. Some new parts fitted…

TIMELINE 1995 The TRX850 is released on the Japanese domestic market only. With a Ducati-alike red (with white frame) or Yamaha Racing white (with red frame). Both were also distinguished by a black-finished engine and Brembo front brake calipers. 1996 TRX850 arrives in the UK and Europe – minus the Brembo brakes of the original Japanese market version. Instead, standard Yamaha FZR600R brake calipers were used. Bikes also had silver engines and frames. 1997 No changes through to 1999 2000 No changes. This was the final year of the TRX850. There are only two versions of the TRX850 – the Japanese-market 1995 model and the 1996-2000 machines for Europe and rest of the world. First-year Japanese bikes have superior (Brembo) brakes and striking white with red frame, or red with…

£118,489-142,187 1903 Indian Camelback Mecum John Parham Collection sale, September 6-9 USA-built bikes feature large in the dispersal sale for the collection of the founder of the country’s National Motorcycle Museum, John Parham. The Indian Camelback is highly prized– and this is a very early example of Indian’s first production machine that has been meticulously restored. The ‘Camelback’ name refers to the flat fuel tank above the rear mudguard. A sophisticated machine in its day, it features chain final drive, a Hedstrom automatic carburettor, rear coaster brake and coil ignition. It remained in production, substantially unchanged until sprung forks, twistgrip throttle and ignition control were introduced around 1905. A real pioneer machine. mecum.com £5530-6635 1973 Husqvarna 450 Desert Master Mecum John Parham Collection sale, September 6-9 No sale of an…