Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Classic Bike

No doubt the 60,000 fans at the tree-lined Imatra circuit in ’74 had their sense of expectation heightened by local hero Teuvo Lansivuori snatching pole position for the 350 race – 1.5s quicker than second-place man Patrick Pons (#11). That and the fact that 350cc championship leader Giacoma Agostini was back home in Italy nursing a broken shoulder. Third on the grid was another Finn, Pentti Korhonen (#9), with Australian rider John Dodds (#3) fourth. Walter Villa was fifth and Mick Grant sixth to make up the front row. All but Villa were on Yamahas of varying vintages. Lansivuori’s pole position didn’t do him much good, though. He crashed on the first corner of the first lap: “It felt as though something locked up,” he claimed. Mick Grant (already out…

The Honda Sachs Wankel that featured in your ‘Extreme Smoking’ article in the September issue of Classic Bike does indeed still exist. It recently emerged as a ‘barn find’ in a general sale at Amersham Auction Rooms on August 18. It was complete and intact, but in a very dilapidated state, as you can see above. It sold for £1800, which with the addition of buyer’s premium is a total of £2232. The price achieved certainly raised a few eyebrows on the day. It was a bit of a mystery to most onlookers, with an uncertain history. It had no documents and clearly would require a full restoration to recover. Even in this state of disrepair, what was immediately apparent was how well the bike had been assembled and detailed.…

£1735 1976 Honda XL125K With the popularity of Japanese trail bikes on the up, this looks a fair price. It’s fairly rare to see an XL125K in this condition – all original apart from rebuilt wheels with stainless spokes and alloy rims. Restored 10 years ago. ebay.co.uk £3245 1978 Honda CB250N The humble Superdream? A sought-after classic? Oh yes. This first-year example, which was in a private collection for some time, is in fine running order and has been fully restored to original condition. manorparkclassic.com £3900 1976 Yamaha DT175 This example of Yamaha’s popular trail bike made top money. The UK-market machine is in excellent condition and original, apart from a replacement seat cover. Used regularly, it is in good running order. mathewsons.co.uk £3100 1975 Triumph T150V This US-market triple…

Commando discharged Norton are stopping production of the Commando 961, the modern descendent of the classic 750/850. But it seems unlikely it’ll be the end of the Commando – Norton will announce a new range at the end of the year and insiders reckon there'll be a new version. Ex-Hayden Ducati sold This Ducati GP8 that was ridden by Nicky Hayden in the 2008 end-of-season MotoGP tests recently sold for £213,000. Decked out in a stars and stripes paintjob because of sponsor problems from his previous Honda contract, the bike was in ‘collection condition’ and will need fettling to run. New loom for £33.60 If you have a Vespa Rally 200 scooter with dicky electrics, VE (UK) now have the answer: replace the entire loom. It comes in two versions:…

Every era of Ducati is here “The motor I’m working on here is a 996RS which will have competed at the Classic TT by the time you read this [it’s one of the Prosperity Racing bikes, this one ridden by Davey Todd]. I have a guy looking for parts for me – for example, if I need some valve collets for the race bike, he’ll find them. I also have George (see page 83) who tends to do the service work on the more modern bikes. But anything like the 996 will be down to me. The bike in front of the bench is a Ducati Pantah from the early ’80s. It was a pile of bits that we’ve put together – the owner had three Pantahs, all in bits…

Progress has been made. The RD is slowly getting there – and my domestic situation has improved. I bought the bike by blowing the cash I’d promised my wife we’d spend on a scooter – but I’ve made amends. There’s now a cheap scooter in the stable, which has cheered her up and got me out of the dog house. As for the RD, it’s now getting me home more often than breaking down. When I got the bike, it was on standard 80 main jets with foam pod filters, aftermarket reeds and the lovely pipes that inspired its purchase. But it was still running lean after I’d fitted 100 main jets. The bike also developed a slight but unnerving weave from the rear, which felt like a puncture, and…

This picture was taken in 1972 for the local paper, as we were getting ready to do a Land’s End to John O’Groats run for the Red Cross charity. It shows us on our 250s: myself (18) on the Yamaha YDS7, Pete Moran (19) on the Honda CB250 and Steve Williams (17) on the Suzuki T250. We set off from Nantwich, Cheshire, rode down to Land’s End and spent three or four nights camping and enjoying the warm, sunny weather and the Cornish pasties. After that, we set off towards Bristol to pick up the M5 where it started in those days. We then rode up to Sandbach on the M6 to met Pete’s parents for refreshment, then continued up to Carlisle where the motorway ended. The final stage of…

Gez Kane Our market expert is also a dab hand at digging up exceptional builds and restorations. This month’s Norvin is right up there. Pages 28-34 Jim Moore Few journalists are as willing to wade in and ask questions as Jim. We sent him to unearth the finest bikes and greatest stories at the Classic TT. Pages 36-43 Andy Withers The first Laverda Jota went on sale exactly 50 years ago. Andy went for lunch with the brothers responsible to get the story behind the icon. Pages 50-56…

Have you just bought a new project? Or have you finished a project, taken part in an event or just been for a ride? Do you have pictures of you or your friends from your biking past? Or can you identify the riders or a face in the crowd from the Startline image on page four? Please write and tell us Startline How many riders from the 1974 startline can you identify? Your classics Just acquired a new project, completed a restoration or been for a great ride? Letters Want to start a conversation about bike values or commend good service? The Way We Were Have you got pictures and a story from your biking past? Let us know. Contact us at… letters@classicbike.co.uk Subscribe to Classic Bike: flick to page…

£5500-6500 1978 Kawasaki Z1000 A2 More affordable than the earlier Z1/Z900 models, this A2 is in excellent original condition and runs perfectly. A lowered seat and aftermarket brake calipers are fitted, but the originals are included in the sale. charterhouse-bikes.com £4500-6500 1969 Triumph TR6R Tiger It’s rare to find a Triumph twin in such original condition. Owned by former Triumph factory engineer Norman Hyde, it was discovered in California in 2012. Unused for 18 months, it will require careful preparation for the road. bonhams.com £3500 1999 Aprilia RSV1000 A modern classic, going up in value, and better value than to a Ducati 996. Owned by the seller for 19 years and has just been recommissioned after seven years of nonuse. Light cosmetic damage one side. Private sale 07748 833770 £5995…

’How much?’ Gez Kane on classic values Several of the Hinckley-built 1990s models are landmark machines. Yet the modular line-up seems to be going through the ‘just an old bike’ stage of its lives. This is fine by us – it means very usable machines selling for around £1500, with even the best rarely topping £3000. The first Speed Triples are something of an exception to the trend, though. With few examples coming onto the market, you’ll probably have to pay between £3000 and £4000 for a good one – if you can find one. And I can see prices rising further. If you fancy a naked Triumph, the best value bikes are the 750 and 900 Tridents. Very nice 900s are still under £2000, while £1500 gets you a tip-top…

The 1958 British 500 motocross champion Dave Curtis has decided to sell his huge collection of scramblers and parts. Curtis was a Matchless works rider from 1954 to 1962, won the British motocross GP in 1961 and was a member of the British team which won the 1954 Motocross des Nations. He held on to many of his race bikes and later expanded his collection when he retired. He continued running his motorcycle dealership for many years, so was well connected in the trade. “One of the most interesting bikes is the 1960 Matchless G80CS,” says Henry Biss, from auctioneers HJ Pugh. “Dave rode this to victory in several six-day events – it’s believed to have won six gold medals. The engine turns over with compression, but it has been…

RIDDEN Perfect for potholes This is my 1997 Honda Transalp, which had sat in a garage in Brighton for 20-odd years and had done 815 miles before I got it. By a series of unfortunate events, my Suzuki V-Strom had been destroyed (Little Miss Muppet was yakking away to Goldilocks and didn’t see the Big Bad Wolf coming). Then, all of sudden, this Transalp appears in Stafford. I’d already had two, one of which was identical to this one, bought new in 1997 (and 126,000 miles put on by yours truly). In seven years, I have done 103,000 miles on this bike – and it still has its original spark plugs! It starts instantly, so if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. It’s easy to service, apart from the tappets…

Honda’s humble CB350K really is a remarkable bike. Along with the street scrambler CL350 and trail-bike SL variants, way over 600,000 were built over a six-year production run. The CB350 family were the machines that really opened the door for Honda in the USA. With smaller machines making a comeback with classic fans, their combination of peppy performance, relatively light weight and ease of handling is proving increasingly popular. All three variants share basically the same sohc parallel-twin engine, with minor variations to carburation and valve timing. With so many sold, mechanical parts are plentiful as both genuine NOS and pattern items, and they’re relatively simple to work on. And, if you’re not convinced about referring to the CB350 as a ‘sporty’ roadster, consider its performance compared to its contemporaries.…

Chaos right from the start You can almost smell the two-stroke fumes in this picture from the first-ever race in 1983. The event was inspired by the Le Touquet Beach Race in Northern France, and in the early years there was still a pretence this was an enduro – notice that most of the bikes in this picture have got lights. Rider #71 is on a Suzuki PE175, and the outfit could well be a Wasp-engined Wasp. Showing the way to do it What do you need to win? “A lot of mates riding,” says 1984 winner and former British 125 motocross champion Roger Harvey. “The trick is to get through the queues, so you need people to move over for you and let you past. You’ll come up behind…

What goes around comes around– that’s what people say. And the people, in this case, are correct. When Giuseppe Benelli fell out with his five brothers in 1948, he launched the Moto B company, making a 200cc horizontal two-stroke single. His offshoot was still in Pesaro, on the Adriatic coast, where Benelli was based. Must have been a seismic disagreement, even by Italian standards; squabbling one against all five siblings is full-on family aggro. Those riders who favoured a stylish lightweight to get around on were the beneficiaries. The B200 was clean and modern. The ovoid outward form of the engine unit was pure, distinctive and would be carried forward into later laid-down four-stroke singles, the first of which was released in 1955. By 1962, Moto Bi (as it became)…

As last-minute entries go, this was a cracker. Five-time TT winner Dean Harrison and a 1967 Hansen Honda CR450 replica were announced as entrants in this year’s Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy at the Goodwood Revival, just days before the event was due to take place on September 13-14 (just after this issue of CB went to press). The CR450 is a machine that was born to race. Based on the CB450, it was the result of US racers badgering Honda to make go-faster bits for the humble CB – and it became Honda’s biggest-capacity factory production racer. Chief among those hassling Honda to produce the bike was Bob Hansen, an American Honda dealer and race fanatic who Honda charged with assembling and running the bikes in the States. This was…

It’s a quarter of a century since Ulsterman Joey Dunlop did the unimaginable, taking his final three TT wins – including an incredible F1 victory – an amazing 23 years after his first victory on the island. His wins in 2000 (his third TT hat-trick) were all the more remarkable given Joey was 48 years old and hadn’t won a ‘big bike’ TT since 1995. He took the top step in the Ultra-lightweight (125), Lightweight (250), and F1 race, as well as the final podium spot in the Senior. It was his most successful TT in years. The stuff of legend. And then, less than a month later, he was gone. Joey’s legend lives on, however. Only his nephew Michael Dunlop has won more TTs, so it was appropriate that…

There have been some fabulous Norvins and more than enough questionable ones – but few are as mouthwatering as Gerry Fry’s latest creation. “I started with a bent Commando frame and a Rapide engine,” he recalls. “A Commando frame might not be the traditional starting point for a Norvin build, but I could see the potential.” It seems a brave move. Gerry committed to a whole stack of extra work by not using the classic Norvin mix of Vincent V-twin and Norton’s legendary earlier Featherbed frame – but it was all a happy accident. Gerry is a man of experience when it comes to Norvins – and classic bikes in general. He’s been workshop manager at dealer Chris Bunce’s Classic Superbikes in Fleet, Hampshire, for 13 years. It was Chris…

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You’re looking at the component parts of a 1970 Triumph 650 TR6C engine – the US spec, single carb model. It belongs to Tony, who got the bike with dismantled engine from the estate of an old friend. “He’d owned it since 1974 and was forever blowing it up, trying to make it fast enough to keep up with Japanese bikes!” laughs Tony. “If it’s still saveable I’d love to get it back on the road in his memory, although I’d rather it was tuned more for reliability than speed…” I was 22 when I stared chasing modern bikes on my own TR6 – but with a very different outcome. The engine needed a rebore in 1990, along with new cams, but I’ve had no reliability trouble at all. So…

The need for a sprung fork came about after people started fitting engines into heavy cycle frames. While the rider was fairly comfortable on a deluxe version of a bicycle sprung saddle, the greater weight and speed of a motorcycle hammered the rider’s arms and affected roadholding. Various systems were devised but by the late 1920s they had mostly resolved into the classic triangulated girder fork shown. Although large manufacturers like BSA and Triumph made their own forks, others bought them in from companies like Webb, Brampton and Druid – and like telescopics, there’s a wide variety of sizes, so when looking for forks note all dimensions. Triangulation is the girder fork’s main advantage; they are very rigid in the foreand-aft direction that supports weight, braking and road shocks, more…