Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Real Classic

The pre-war Series A Rapide was the fastest production motorcycle in the world, capable of travelling 100,000 miles without needing major mechanical attention. Anyone other than Vincent and Irving might’ve considered that good enough, but instead they greeted the post-war world with an entirely revised Series B Rapide. It was still powered by a 998cc V-twin but almost everything else had evolved. And back in 1980, journalist Royce Creasey rode one. And he rode one really rather rapidly… ‘The Vincent is a very pleasant device indeed, having the best match of bike, flywheel and reciprocating weights I’ve yet encountered. Flexibility and response are exceptional, the transmission is snatch-free, and the degree of engine braking just right. ‘The gearbox suffers from the possibility of play between the positive stop and the…

What should the average attention-seeker choose as their steed to get the maximum number of admiring comments, Facebook posts and general adoration at a show, rally, bike night or other gathering? A lot of the time that’s why people restore motorcycles in minute detail – so they can show them off at, erm, shows, with immaculate paint jobs and clean and polished cases, and absolutely none of these bikes are trailered in without oil or indeed engine internals. Perish the thought. A good special will do the trick, although curiously one with the odd blemish will get more of a crowd. There’s something attractive about a pre-war bike with girders and a leak or two. And while you might think that the restored post-war classic might do the job, it’s…

Building bikes is a fascinating endeavour. I don’t mean the work itself (although it usually is), I mean stepping back and observing the whole process. It’s never the same day twice. You can spend a day and get absolutely loads done, and other days it can take most of it to make one small part or fix one small problem. Some jobs you put off because you think they’re going to be hard work, and when you finally get round to them, they’re an unexpected doddle. Other jobs you think you’ll just rattle off quickly, and then they take on a life of their own and swallow time like a giant bike-building black hole. In that respect, bike building is just another metaphor for life. And now I’ve managed to…

Hindsight makes it easy to appreciate the techno-savvy of Japan’s motorcycle makers, even if it wasn’t much appreciated by British and European manufacturers half a century ago. Each of the Big Four took a unique approach towards the common prize. There’s plenty to debate when it comes to crowning a winner from the Big Four, but give Honda due credit in those formative, big-bore years between 1969 and 1972. Most agree the sohc CB750 reset many standards, but so did the Kawasaki Z900 that followed. New four-strokes appeared and the title became increasingly contested. Things reached boiling point in 1978 when Yamaha’s XS-Eleven and the Honda CBX traded punches, only to have Suzuki slip in between rounds with its smoothly executed GS1000. The Suzuki’s position as a press and competition…

Gan I start straight away by apologising for the slightly surreal quality of some of the photos nearby? Those with the almost psychedelic shades were taken a long time ago on what was known back then as ‘slide’ film, and modern scanning can sometimes produce unexpected results. And there are indeed two different bikes here.. Like many of us, back when the earth was young and old bikes were merely old bikes, I was intrigued by Ariel’s almost mythical Square Four – not least because the idea of having four cylinders was fairly radical around 1970, when I was a schoolboy on a learner Panther 200. Four cylinders! I knew of Honda’s improbably technical 4-pot 750, but only by reading about it. I’d never seen one. And in any case,…

Recently I have rebuilt a number of BSA M20 engines. After heaving around various very heavy components, I got to thinking. There’s an almost infinite number of ways to produce 13bhp. Any number of small, light, two-strokes exceed this figure with ease. These lightweight motors can be carried by one person, who doesn’t need to be an Olympic weightlifter or a bodybuilder. Why then did Val Page design the M20 engine for BSA? Overhead valve engines had been around for a very long time and by the mid-1930s had proved reliable enough. The sidevalve design was, I presume, easier and cheaper to produce, although the M20 engine is very heavy. I once purchased an M20 motor at an autojumble. I attempted to carry it, minus magneto and dynamo, from the…

In the beginning there was the cylinder head, which is fitted to the cylinder barrel, and it shall always be thus. This head will simply not come off. Evidence of brutality becomes apparent. Fitted without the hardened steel washers under the nuts, the soft aluminium has squeezed onto the studs, which are smaller diameter to the thread. I reduced the threaded top of a nut to reveal the top of the stud. This I ‘riveted’ with a sharp punch so that unscrewing brought the whole stud up and out. It meant new studs and nuts; an inexpensive solution. Dismantling was relatively straightforward, and all the little pieces fitted nicely into the ex-Chinese takeaway boxes. But how did all this peculiar Marmite-coloured muck get inside the crankcases? The cylinder barrel, head,…

My introduction to HRD / Vincent came about as a fan of speedway racing in the 1960s in Australia. Riders such as Sandy McRae and Ron Johnston from Queensland and the New South Wales riders, Robson, Treloar, Grocott and Burdis were famous exponents of the Vincent speedway sidecars. I started racing in 1971 when I campaigned a Triumph-powered outfit at our local track. As I improved the Triumph, enlarging it from 650 to 750 and then to 850 with a Norton crank, I started to race at other tracks and was selected to compete at special meetings. At a pairs competition between, I was in a heat when the race was stopped – one of the passengers had fallen off his bike in front of me. To avoid hitting him,…

Recent articles in RealClassic about the current range of Royal Enfield machines, such as the Interceptor and the Continental, made interesting reading since they were thought to be affordable, fun, useful and different to those that exist in my shed. Reading that Frank was going back to a 350 AJS or Matchless suggested that a small machine might be interesting and fun, with its totally different ride to a modern or larger machine. A fellow rider from the Cotswolds was parting with a 1959 Ambassador Envoy for not a great deal of money. Was this an opportunity to try a small two-stroke, such as a Francis-Barnett or James, but with a little bit of pedigree, even if it still used a standard Villiers two-stroke engine? Ambassador motorcycles were manufactured from…

I remember watching the Yamaha 350LC racing series on the television and hearing them referred to as ‘boy racers’. I’m not sure there was ever an official classification so-named, but essentially, I took it to mean that if the blue riband 500cc class was for men, then it was left to the boys to battle it out in the 350 category. Throughout racing history, the smaller capacity has provided thrills and spills and the riders have often used this smaller size as a stepping-stone towards their ultimate aim. Back in the 1920s it was no different, and the 1921 TT races demonstrated the full potential of the AJS ohv 350 single. Revived in 1920 after the cessation of hostilities, the TT was the ultimate shop window for manufacturers and a…

Writing these stories of chaos, disaster and derring-don’t is always an entertaining process. Not least because I write the words, and then write them again until I’m at least vaguely happy with them, and then I sit down with the photos and choose which to use, depending largely on how the story worked out. This time is different. I’m wondering which pics to use first, because it could dictate how I write the rest. And you will never know whether that is what I did, or not. Which doesn’t matter at all, because I want to share with you my own offering in that unknown secret competition; the quest to find The Greatest Displacement Activity ever. What do you mean, you don’t know what displacement activity is? Of course you…