Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2021 i The Classic MotorCycle

Welcome to the first issue dated 2021, which, for most of us, is a year that can’t come fast enough, given how 2020 went. Though it’ll be some time until we all collectively return to a normal way of life, as I write there is some light at the end of the tunnel, with talk of vaccines and a genuine way of seeing an end to a worldwide crisis the likes few of us will have ever experienced, and which, hopefully, we’ll not have to endure again. There’s certainly been nothing of this magnitude during the last 40 years, which is the anniversary (ruby, hence the spine masthead colouring) The Classic MotorCycle celebrates, the first issue being published in June/July 1981. With Bob Currie – Midlands editor of The Motor…

There are archived articles in the motorcycle press, there are photos from provincial and sometimes even national papers, but other evidence of motoball is rare for such a long-established activity. Built from bits, often hacked and welded, the bikes were almost scrapyard specials and presumably treated accordingly when their playing days were done. One admirable exception is the ‘Den Brown Special,’ a bike gifted to the Hayes and Southall club by Den’s nephew in 2018 and a magnificent souvenir from one of the sport’s more talented players. The bike’s build was a feature article in The Motor Cycle in 1959. Den Brown was captain of the Border Motoball team, a position he had achieved astride a 1930s BSA, which obviously provided him with a competitive ride. The experience persuaded Den…

PHAIDON doesn’t normally publish books about motorcycles. Claude Monet, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso are more at home as subjects for the art house publisher than combustion-powered bicycles. But now, after several years in the making, the publisher has released The Motorcycle: Design, Art and Desire, which charts the design evolution of the motorcycle from the early steam-powered machines to the futuristic concepts of today. The book – which hit the shelves at the end of November – also serves as a catalogue to an exhibition which was scheduled to run at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, Australia. Of course, Covid knocked that on the head and so the exhibition is soon to go virtual as well as in person. The Motorcycle looks and feels like a gallery: formatting…

None of us in the modern world can do without electricity in some form or other, and closer to our hobby of old motorcycles, electricity plays a part in igniting the fuel/air mixture in the engine, and allowing us to see as we travel the highways and byways in hours of darkness or dull weather. The electrics of an old motorcycle are a source of exasperation to many owners, actually I’d say all owners, adding the caveat ‘though there are some who know what to do to make them work again’. With a wide range of components involved in the electrics on a typical British motorcycle, where do you turn if you’re not that switched-on with the current topic? Well, since 1976, many enthusiasts have turned to Alan Osborn, when…

Even in the depressed late 1920s, many Brooklands and TT racers opted for new JAP engines. This was partly because JAP delivered good power and usually remained in one piece, but, also, the factory offered their latest TT/Brooklands motors in early season. These often followed standard designs, but if makers/buyers wanted specific modifications, often they got them. In 1927, over 30 TT entries used JAP 246cc, 346cc or 498cc ohv single cylinder engines. Some riders used older engines, but the new motor’s specifications included revised main bearings and big end assemblies, valve/valve gear modifications and more. Again this development paid off when Freddie Dixon (HRD-JAP) won the year’s Junior race, after race leader Wal Handley’s Rex-Acme melted its Blackburne engine’s piston. And at Brooklands, JAP were involved in setting some…

Paused by the side of the road, a 1931 550cc Ariel side-valve ‘Sloper’ and sidecar, which has ferried The Motor Cycle’s correspondent Wharfedale (real name Donald Smith, The Motor Cycle’s Northern correspondent) and his wife on a continental trip ‘from Manchester to Maggiore’ – which was where the picture was taken. In the background – gazed on by Mrs W/S – is Isola Bella, ‘the beautiful island’, while the Ariel awaits further instruction. Ariel’s new Sloper was the very height of fashion – the Selly Oak, Birmingham, firm took the trend for sloping engines further than most, with the motor inclined at 60 degrees. There were two overhead valve models in 1931 – the SF31 and the SG31, the former with two-valve head, the latter with four-valves – as well…

Retired garage owner Alex Taylor has often provided us with deliriously distressed, very original classic motorcycles – a typical example was the Francis-Barnett Seagull we sampled in TCM, March 2020. Unrestored cosmetically but well-sorted mechanically and electrically is Alex’s way. So by those standards his 1960 Triumph T100A Tiger 500cc unit twin is unusually tidy, visually. Just finding a bathtub 500cc Triumph that has complete panelling and an original engine – the numbers match on this one – can be quite a feat, as the tinware was often stripped off (especially in the US, where ‘stamped steel’ was anathema to macho young buyers), or the sports engine was often pulled out and rehoused for scrambling. But Alex has an unusually good network of contacts. He snared the 500 for £3000,…

It’s June 8, 1962, and on a glorious Friday morning, 33 riders have come to the start line of the ultra-lightweight 50cc TT race. It was the first time for the ‘tiddlers’ around the 37¾mile Mountain Course and the huge crowd anxiously waited for the flag to drop and for the action to get under way. The field was full of world-class stars on an impressive line-up of factory machines; four eight-speed four-stroke Hondas, then, from the two-stokes, four Suzukis and five Kreidlers, sporting a staggering 12 gears. These were all specially prepared works offerings but filling up the rest of the entry was a list of privately prepared machines, comprising of a Dot, a solitary Benelli, three specials, a Tohatsu and no fewer than 14 Italian Itoms. The rider…

Barry Winter, the keeper of this 1939 Type C Nimbus 750, stood next to me as I first contemplated the blue bike. After a long silence, the best I could come up with was: “It’s like… it’s like… it’s not like anything else at all!” When introduced in 1934, the Type C had been technically innovative in many ways. The inline four format was more familiar then, with Belgium’s FN produced in the 1920s, and the US Henderson, which morphed into the Indian Ace, in the 1930s. But a motorcycle with an overhead camshaft engine, built in unit with a car-type single plate clutch and gearbox, with horizontally split cases, coil electrics, shaft drive and telescopic forks – that was going some. And where Indian Ace production petered out after…

How to carry a passenger? Today, we motorcyclists may carry passengers on pillion seats or in sidecars, but for the first pioneer motorcyclists, no such existed. Many early motorcycles were direct drive machines, powered by small, attached engines, which were often pedal started. They were devoid of a clutch or other free engine facility and the rider stopped the engine at each halt. If a passenger was to be carried, that passenger would have had to mount after the machine was underway (with the engine started) and dismount on stopping, or the rider would have to pedal/bump/paddle start the motorcycle with the passenger aboard. Either scenario was hardly ideal. Even if carrying a passenger aboard the motorised cycle was viable, where to place their seat was the next question. Ideas…

THE SPECIALIST Laverda owners have their own dedicated club, but many bikes are also eligible for Vintage MCC events. A man who has a foot in both camps is Graham Clemans, known universally as ‘Clem,’ who willingly agreed to help out with this guide to the first of the Italian manufacturer’s larger capacity machines ■ International Laverda Owners’ Club: www.iloc.co.uk ■ The Vintage Motor Cycle Club: 01283 540557; www.vmcc.net MODEL HISTORY Well established in its native Italy as a supplier of lightweights, Laverda’s 1966 decision to pursue the lucrative American market with a 650cc twin was a surprise compounded further with its Honda-esque appearance when the bike broke cover at the Earls Court Show. Apparently, Laverda hoped the Japanese company’s reputation would be reflected on its own efforts. Almost immediately…

In 1960, the Sidecar TT returned to the Mountain Circuit for the first time since 1925. There’d been no Sidecar TT from then until 1954, when it resumed, held on the shorter Clypse Circuit. For 1960, though, it was back on the full course. Here, experienced sidecar driver Bill Boddice has borrowed Reynolds’ Ken Sprayson’s Ariel Huntmaster and sidecar, for a bit of pre-event – the start of May – familiarisation. Joining him in the sidecar is Graham Stokes, his regular passenger, while riding pillion is Bill’s boy Michael – ‘Mick’ Boddice, nine times a TT winner, who made his own debut in 1966, recording his first win in 1983 and last in 1991. He earned over 40 silver replicas during his TT career, which lasted until 1998. Though he…

Bonhams sale date change The Bonhams Winter Sale has been deferred by one week due to the current situation regarding the pandemic, and will now take place on Friday, December 11, and Saturday, December 12. It will be staged as a live and online auction ‘behind closed doors’, with an auctioneer at the rostrum and bids accepted online, by telephone or by leaving an absentee bid. All lots will be available to view in the 50,000 sq ft former RAF Bomber Station hangar at Bicester Heritage, from Wednesday, December 9, to Friday, December 11, 9am to 5pm each day, by appointment only. The National Motorcycle Museum reserve collection will be on the Friday, with other machines – including the three V-twins and the three fours pictured left – sold on…

The year 2020 has truly been like no other in all of our lives, with things we took for granted – like meeting pals in the pub for a pint, visiting a relative in a care home, even hand shaking and hugs, to give very few examples – all gone by the wayside, hopefully to return. Also, for us involved in this – the classic motorcycles world – the vast majority of our shows and events have gone too, so, with a brief bit of respite between lockdowns one and two, the opportunity to visit Newark on October 25 was taken. And I was by far from the only one. The whole rigmarole and ritual of the autojumble – the writing out a list of ‘things to buy’, the going…

‘The right crowd – and no crowding,’ that elitist Brooklands’ strapline had a new relevance over September 26/27, 2020, when, for the first time in its existence, and in the face of Covid-19 restrictions, the Surrey circuit played host to motoball. But what is motoball? “The most obscure sport you’ve never heard of,” Ray Attewell says with a smile. He is the manager of the Hayes and Southall team, which operates as a section of the ACU club of that name. As a club affiliated to the ACU, this enables the section to organise events, as the ACU remains the governing body for motoball although, sadly, the Hayes and Southall team is currently the only one still active in this country. Thankfully, there is sufficient interest among the Hayes and…

After five decades of riding and repairing motorcycles, Andy has built up a large collection of spares and bits and pieces, many of which have made up his and Ben’s Itom/Aprilia special. The frame is from a 1957 Astor Competizione, the six-speed engine is a modern, overbored liquid-cooled Aprilia AM6, the long petrol tank once was on a Kreidler 50cc racer and the seat was one that had been in Andy’s store for over 30 years. Feeding the fuel is a 20mm Dell’ Orto carb, an HP ignition system takes care of the sparks, a radiator formerly from a Gas-Gas TX-pro trials bike keeps the engine nice and cool, while the exhaust gases exit through a long Tecnigas expansion chamber. A pair of Grimeca brakes take care of braking, which…

What started out as a joint project between my father and I has, truth be told, become his solo enterprise. While I spend my days indoors in my ‘office’ (aka the spare bedroom) at his house (where I’ve been since March, owing to you know what) staring at my computer screen, in between fretting about have we enough material to get through winter and trying to understand and remember the principles of invoicing, among many, many other things, he, pretty much, heads out into the garage, to keep up the Velocette project momentum. That’s how we’ve got on as far as we have. The other evening, I was chuckling at my colleague Matt Hull’s reference to ‘part 507’ of his own Norton ES2 rebuild in our sister title Classic Bike…

It has more than once occurred to me that since all proper engines contain the same basic components – flywheels, con rod, piston and valve gear – they ought to be more similar than they actually are. In fact, some are lovely and some not so, but I am certain that optimising the timing of any engine will see it at its best. One of the most useful tools in the workshop is a timing disc. It is the principal method by which we can optimise an engine’s performance. Time and money spent on new engine internals during a rebuild might bring little benefit if the valve and ignition timing are not correct to the manufacturer’s specifications. The most accurate way to confirm this is in degrees of the flywheel.…