Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i Real Classic

Tom Willison knows his Commandos. He’s owned two and raced four, including a featherbed 750 Commando that belonged to his old employer and ex-IoM racer Jack Gow. Tom’s latest Commando is seen here, but we’ll get back to it after you’ve been wowed by Tom’s impressive racing career. Not only did youthful Tom compete in the Scottish championships during the 1970s, he was talented enough to race alongside Mike Hailwood during the star’s famous Manx comeback. Back then, Tom had snapped up a dream job at Dundee’s premier motorcycle dealer Jack Gow and during his first week was offered the chance to race the firm’s Ducati Silverstone 200 race bike. Jack Gow was a real biker and encouraged young riders in his employ to get involved in racing. He once…

Many things about quirky motorcycles appear intended to amaze the unwary. For example: how did BSA’s main board OK the decently amazing Sunbeam parallel twins for production? It is so entirely unlike anything else built in the UK that it is indeed entirely amazing that it got built at all. Almost as amazing is that it’s also amazing to ride … even today. This is a sort-of personal story, as well as a collection of riding impressions of a bike which your (almost) humble scribe has always admired. I mean… Sunbeam twins are right up there with the Velocette LE and rotary Nortons as examples of seriously eccentric machinery from a notoriously conservative manufacturing industry, aimed at an even more notoriously conservative buying public. It should never have succeeded. And,…

It’s impossible to start this article without referencing Editor Westworth’s ultimate wisdom on the subject of BSA-Triumph triples: ‘Everyone should own one. Once.’ It sounds like an ancient Chinese curse, doesn’t it? Something akin to living in interesting times… Certainly, if you’re looking for your first British classic bike then a Trident or Rocket 3 may not be the best starting point. The triples offer brawny, chest-beating performance, spine-tingling sound effects and a fast-track to a full-on adrenalin rush. This is no cuddly old duffer. This is a proper 750 superbike and, unlike the four-cylinder opposition from the Orient, the Brit triples matched their power with poise. While a CB750 will wallow comfortably along, the stiffer triples slice through the switchbacks, making the most of a decent chassis package and…

How is it that you can park a bike for the winter, go to ride it in the spring, and discover that it has developed a mysterious fault while sitting idly in the garage? When I parked my beloved Moto Guzzi Eldorado at the end of 2017 it was running well. If it seemed a little hesitant to engage first gear occasionally, I put it down to the foibles of respectable old age and hard use. We were closing in on 100,000 miles, 65,000 of which I had personally added since I bought it in 2008. I had no reason to think that I was about to encounter a major issue. Despite the deep snow in the Ontario bush and the sub-zero temperatures, the 26th of January 2018 brought clear…

Love affairs are terrifying things. Also potentially dangerous. And almost always expensive. Of course I’m talking about motorcycles here, as I’m sure you’d already worked out. And I’m still at the misguided passion phase of life with the little Triumph, the Street Scrambler I chatted about a couple of issues ago. It’s still great. It lurks in The Shed in the shade, carefully away from the old clunkers and the modern clunkers – a svelte little glamour model surrounded by great clumping heavies. But hang on just a moment. This is not a 98cc James. This is no Flying Flea. It’s not even a Bantam. This is a 900cc motorcycle weighing in at 206kg (which is apparently 454lb in old money). When, exactly, did a 900 twin start to feel…

Around a quarter of a century ago rotary-engined motorcycles seemed set to be the next big thing. It certainly felt like it, after the Norton RC588 scored a Wankel-engined bike’s greatest victory by winning the 1992 Senior TT in the Isle of Man in the hands of the late Steve Hislop at a then record speed of 121.38mph, after a thrilling battle with future four-time World Superbike champion Carl Fogarty’s Yamaha. Coupled with the Duckhams Norton team’s domination of the 1994 British Superbike championship, with riders Ian Simpson and Phil Borley finishing 1-2 in the points table, Norton might have expected to benefit from this win with a spike in demand for its F1 Sport race replica streetbike. But the indebted British company was sliding towards insolvency, and production was…

Harley-Davidson introduced their ‘middleweight’ K series in 1952 to counter the growing popularity of lighter and faster British motorcycles. The sidevalve 750 (or flathead 45 in the local lingo) was based on the bottom end of the previous WL engines, with the same bore and stroke (70 x 97mm), a compression ratio of 6:1 and aluminium cylinder heads. The rest of the machine was a radical departure from its predecessor, moving from a foot to hand-operated clutch. The new unit-construction crankcase housed a four-speed, right-foot change gearbox and primary transmission. The all-new frame had swinging arm suspension and telescopic front forks, giving hydraulic damping at each end for the first time on a production Harley. The soft-tune motor was lighter and less leaky than its predecessor but produced 30bhp –…

Dave owns four BSAs, so I suppose you could say that he is a fan of the marque. One of those Beesas is a 1955 Bantam which he never uses. That’s because, being a big chap, he reckons he needs one for each foot! Then there’s a 1954 plunger-framed M21, and a 1961 Golden Flash which he rebuilt from ‘a red and rusty wreck’. Tying with the Flash as his favourite ride is the machine featured here, a 1957 499cc B33. Just to clear up any confusion about pre- and post- war models, there was a B33 built in 1933. This was a 249cc bike known as the Blue Star Junior (B33-3). It wasn’t until after WW2 that the model we now associate with the designation was introduced. The post-war…

Ihaven’t bought a new motorcycle since 1979. It was my second bike, a MZ TS150 Eagle that I part-exchanged for my Batavus HS50. After stuffing the MZ into a hedge in a bout of late night enthusiasm, each motorcycle since then has been more secondhand than the last. Once upon a time I needed to keep my motorcycles running to keep food on the table. Now I don’t, and thus the garage is jammed with what are laughably referred to as classics, none of which can be used without planning at least 20 minutes of tweaking and checking before taking it out the road. What I really want is a motor bicycle I can just get on and ride. Studying the Husqvarna Svartpilen 401 on the dealer’s forecourt I heard…

DANGER UXB When we were young – apprenticeship age – transport work and for pleasure at weekends was essential. All my buddies seemed to be on two wheels. My introduction to two wheelers started in 1968 when I was old enough to get a licence and pass my test. I took the RAC/ACU training course on a local airfield, which was very comprehensive, even riding across a seesaw. After several days of training I was followed by an observer for an extended run of about 10 miles. This was all done on a Bantam 125 with three gears. But when it came to buy a two wheeler, my parents decided a motorcycle was too dangerous and said it should be a scooter. So a Lambretta GT200 was bought for the…

In the 1920s and early 1930s the American factories spent small fortunes racing highly developed prototype machines. To reduce the cost of racing for ordinary riders and level the playing field, the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) introduced Class C racing in 1933, based on production motorcycles. As the Great Depression hit home and racing budgets were slashed, the factories moved into Class C racing. It became the premier US racing class and fuelled an intense rivalry between Indian and Harley-Davidson. Class C machines used production-based sidevalve engines with a maximum displacement of 750cc or ohv motors up to 500cc. That’s why the KRTT retained its 45”  / 739cc motor while the roadgoing KH was increased to Harley’s new benchmark 54” / 883cc for 1954. The AMA amended their rules in…

The B33 is the very epitome of a solid British workhorse which, given fresh oil and regular maintenance, is likely to celebrate its centenary in 2047 with minimal mechanical misfortune. The model followed the usual pattern of chassis development between 1947 and 1960. It definitely became more comfortable with improved handling but got podgy in the process; the duplex swinging arm frame was shared with the 650 twins, after all. The rigid B33s were the most sprightly but had the worst brakes and feeble lighting. With the heavier frame and full rear suspension the B33 put on weight and lost some of its initial vigour. Braking improved in the mid-50s, although the full-width Ariel brakes which were fitted from 1958 are far from impressive. Be wary of ‘tuned’ B33s which…

Seven years after Edwards missed out on a factory ride at the TT – thanks to war breaking out when practice was due to start – he was finally in a position to make his continental debut. He’d been invited to ride a Norton at the 1946 Spanish Grand Prix but the start money was so poor that he instead chose to race at the Grand Prix of Belgium. Again, Edwards was offered a Norton to ride in Belgium. But this was not just any old Norton. This was the machine built in 1939 especially for Stanley Woods. According to Robin, Stanley Woods did not want to see an Englishman riding it but he, as a proud Welshman, was entirely acceptable. Robin did have a way of spinning stories, so…

Last year (back in RC173) I related my experiences with the Royal Enfield Fury Scrambler, a machine based on the 500 big-head Bullet and a competitor for BSA’s Gold Star. This time I am looking at the ‘ordinary’, roadgoing 500 Bullet of the same time. It was also fitted with the bighead for the last couple of years of production. The Bullet version used the same valves as the Fury, as well as those huge rockers which look like something from the Caterpillar Tractor Co, but with a much smaller inlet port and an Amal 389 Monobloc rather than the huge 1½” GP carb on the competition machine. The Bullet’s power was only a couple of horses up on the earlier, ‘ordinary’ head at 27bhp over 25, but there was…