Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2025 i Real Classic

When you’ve waded through this month’s bumper crop of unlikely stories involving derringdo, blind optimism and many other things, you will land at this month’s Tales From The Shed. That’s not a surprise, nor is the fact that there is – once again – a Triumph on the bench of woe. What has surprised me is that I truly do feel a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work required to finish what I’ve started. To be honest, I had my doubts long before the stripdown passed the point of no return. Every rock-solid fastener, every electrical component which simply fell to bits as I attempted to remove it; the sheer impenetrable filth and corrosion resulting from decades of regular use and minimal maintenance. Several times, Gentle Reader, I…

I wrote this piece primarily for Frank-the-editor, who I understand has always fancied a TR5T but never had the opportunity. He asked me to box mine up and send it across the Pond. When I checked my Amazon boxes, I had none of a suitable size, so sorry Frank. I also wrote this for my legion of loyal fan(s), who exist entirely in my head, but we nevertheless have some wonderful chats… ‘I’ve got this old Triumph under a tarp that hasn’t run in ten years, if you’re interested’. My friend George is not a fisherman, and I am not a fish, but that statement was like throwing a juicy shrimp to a hungry red drum. I was working on a 75 Norton Commando for said friend when he offered…

I think it’s fair to say that Hazel is no stranger to bikes. She started riding when she was sixteen, which is, er, some years ago now. During that time she’s owned somewhere around forty motorcycles – a rough count which ranges through Harley, Moto Guzzi, Moto Morini, Serow 225, Honda XL185, Yamaha Radian, Kawasaki W650 outfit, Tribsa, plus several NSU Quicklies and Raleigh Runabouts via a Reliant-engined trike and a matt black Honda CX500-engined trike that the accountants where she worked at the time weren’t too keen on having parked in the staff car park out front but nobody ever quite plucked up the courage to say so. At the time of writing she’d just sold a big single Panther and was contemplating buying a Greeves. So quite an…

I last worked on a totally original and immaculate pre-unit Bonneville some twenty years ago, when I was presented with a fully restored machine which just needed assembly. Everything was present, in bits. The engine was wrapped in acres of cling film, having been rebuilt by Hughie Hancox, no less. It came with a pair of chopped Monoblocs, fed by a remote float chamber hung between them. The owner's brief was that it had to start first or second kick, hot or cold, as two kicks were all he could manage. No pressure, then. He would turn up occasionally to have a chat and check on progress, and I would have to put a chair halfway between where he parked his car and my workshop, in order that he could…

Ask the average person in the street three things he knows about Denmark and they will probably come up with butter, bacon and Lego. However your average RealClassic reader is far more sophisticated and will undoubtedly include Nimbus motorcycles in the list. This machine is rare in the UK and elsewhere because not many were exported, but that doesn’t mean that the nation is entirely devoid of the marque. To prove this statement, Richard G has kindly allowed me to write about his 1955 Nimbus. cue applause. First let’s delve into the history of Nimbus, which is not without interest. Back in 1906 Hans Marius Nielsen and Peder Andersen Fisker went into business and soon gained a reputation for manufacturing high quality electric motors, switchgear and metalwork. However in 1910…

It was a difficult day–one among many difficult days – in the late 1970s. Fora long-forgotten reason, I had somehow fallen into the habit of buying defunct motorcycles, fiddling and faffing with them until they ran once more, then either selling them or trading them against a better machine. A supposedly better machine; in too many cases the new model was little better than the old model, although trading a runner against a non-runner usually lined the pocket a little. This particular difficult day involved me riding over to Crewe to a truly characterful bike shop which specialised in the unlikely. The proprietor was one of those unforgettable characters who ambled cheerily through life with one foot in legality, the other… elsewhere. He was a hoot to deal with. Until…

Once the largest-volume manufacturer of motorcycles in the world, Indian’s acquisition by Polaris in 2011 marked the latest chapter in 110 years of tribal turmoil representing the roller-coaster fortunes of America’s oldest and most historic motorcycle marque, ever since ‘The Wigwam’, as the Indian Motocycle (sic) Manufacturing Company liked to call its factory, was founded back in 1901 in Springfield, Mass. by Indian chiefs George Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom. By the way, that makes Indian today America’s oldest extant motorcycle company, established two years before Harley-Davidson… Polaris Industries’ then VP of Motorcycles Steve Menneto was the man tasked with making the takeover work, and when specifically asked about the chances of a future Indian Four alongside the inevitable range of new V-twin models wearing the Headdress emblem, he didn’t rule…

It’s probably best to commence in a transparent manner and confess that I am not a dyed-in-the-wool motorcycle classicist. Prior to buying my 1932 Model 23, the oldest motorcycle I had ever ridden on the road (so not counting my 1956 Panther Model 10‘project’) was a used Honda CD175 back in the early 1970s, although it could be argued that my subsequent 1974 Triumph Tiger 750 was, in terms of technology, an older motorcycle than the Honda. Feel free to go philosophical on that. My lack of classic experience has caused me, more than once when reviving the New Imperial, to consider the relationship between technology and understanding (as the stepping-stone between knowledge and wisdom; deep stuff!). I now realise just how little of modern-day knowledge helps (at least in…

My friend Graham, not known for his subtlety in language or demeanour, said little as we loaded my prized (read rusty), new (read thirty years old) and rare (read unwanted) bike into the back of his van. My Cheshire cat grin was in in contrast to his expression, which was a mix of disbelief and bemusement. I assured him that despite it looking a little rough around the edges, and with an engine seized solid, that it was still exciting and great value for money. I gently rubbed a bit of rusty rim to let some of its great potential shine through… and instead we silently watched the chrome coating peel off the entire rim like skin off custard and land on the plywood floor of the van. Graham said…

You may have seen it on a map. That little island hanging out there in the Atlantic off the east coast of Canada, colloquially known as ‘The Rock’ by its residents. Except it’s not little at all. At over 108,000km2, it’s about 20% larger than Scotland, significantly larger than Ireland and more than five times the size of Wales. I don’t trot these numbers out in some unwholesome display of North American braggadocio – there’s more than enough of that in the world – but simply to provide a sense of scale. The attraction? Empty roads, wild scenery, a rugged coastline, and a population of less than half a million, mostly scattered around the coast in small towns and fishing villages. The capital, St John’s, and the only settlement of…

Despite spurious and plainly excessively imaginative critical comment from my good friend Ian, the BSA A65L is finally performing its ongoing impersonation of an A65FS– or possibly an A65FFS, as younger people might say, should they say anything at all about an antiquated Brum-built motorcycle. It may not be entirely perfect (a classic example of understatement if there ever was), but I’m spending no more on it. No more money, that is. Time is for something else. And in this case, the prime something else is another Triumph, a TR65 Thunderbird, which I have mentioned before in these pages, and with which readers of the RC Facebook group may well already be overfamiliar. While I’ve been writing about my various and generally ill-fated adventures in late BSA land, I’ve also…