Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i Classic Bike Guide

THE BEEZUMPH RALLY is one of the best track-based classic bike events in Europe. This year it returns to Anglesey Circuit on Friday, July 14 and Saturday, July 15 – as always under the aegis of the Trident and Rocket 3 Owners’ Club. What makes the event very clever, and so popular, is that it combines a friendly and laid-back feel with super slick organisation. That’s a hard trick to pull off. On the Friday, there will be relaxed ride out around Anglesey – and a very pretty route it is too. In the evening, there will be an autojumble of BSA-Triumph triple spares and other parts you didn’t realise you needed, with local band Bad Dog providing aural entertainment. Saturday sees a full day of track action using, unusually,…

WIRTSCHAFTSWUNDER IS ONE of those splendid German compound words that tell a story. The event Wirtschaftswunder – in English it means economic miracle – refers to is the way German manufacturing recovered despite being almost completely ruined at the end of the Second World War, where those parts of Germany’s industry that hadn’t been bombed into oblivion or destroyed by the defeated Nazi government were taken away to Moscow, Detroit or Birmingham. Munich-based BMW had been making aero engines and had lost their main car and motorcycle plant in Eisenach, now firmly in the Russian zone. The Munich factory was not allowed to make motorcycles in the first years after the war; BMW were turning out pots and pans using whatever scrap metal they could lay their hands on, as…

HONDA’S CX IS BACK in vogue in a big way. Once derided as the dispatch riders’ weapon of choice, the unfortunately nicknamed plastic maggot has turned and is now highly desirable. Significant numbers of CXs were made and it would appear they’ve been biding their time waiting for their moment of glory. It’s impossible to ignore the new wave of CX powered café racers hitting the streets, with some machines changing hands for serious amounts of money. Marketed as a long distance sprinter, Honda’s CX500 shaft-drive water-cooled twisted twin was specifically designed for high miles and low maintenance. In time-honoured Honda tradition, early CX500s had camchain and tensioner issues, mainly with the manual tensioner which was soon replaced by an automatic item. The CX continued in various guises including Custom,…

What goes around, comes around, and with the resumption of tribal warfare between Indian and Harley-Davidson in 2017 – not only in the showroom stakes, but with full-on factory race teams pitted against each other in the revitalised American Flat Track Championship – it’s yesterday once more. Exactly a century ago the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, which had been hitherto hesitant about going racing, took the fight to its dominant Indian and Excelsior rivals with its all-new Model 17 FHAC 61ci (998cc) eight-valve racer, which made its competition debut at the gruelling Dodge City 300-mile race in 1916 – and won! This was the equivalent of the Indianapolis 500-miler on two wheels, held on a two-mile oval track in the heart of the Midwest, and Harley’s Irving Janke won at a…

WE HAVE A SERIES of border clashes and tensions between India and Pakistan to thank for the longest-lived motorcycle design in the world. Two Indian entrepreneurs, K R Sundaram Iyer and his nephew K Eswaran, were in the business of importing bicycles and motorcycles from Britain when in 1953 their company Madras Motors received an order for 800 new Royal Enfield 350 cc Bullets for the Indian army. Launched in the UK in 1948, the Bullet had quickly gained a reputation for solidity, reliability and simplicity – a good combination in those postwar years for soldiers and everyday users alike, and a particularly good choice for an army looking for a military machine to use on the dusty frontier roads of Kashmir. The Bullets were dispatched from Redditch in kit…

THIS GUIDE IS as exhaustive as we could fit into the pages of this supplement. We update the information throughout the year as we trawl the marketplace... so it’s as up-to-date as possible. We offer you just two prices; the CBG High Price is for a top-notch, top-spec model in excellent condition. You might not win concours awards with the bike, but you’d expect to be a contender. At that price, your target machine should have a new MoT, its tyres should sparkle, its chrome and alloy should be excellent. Its paint should not be dull, and it should run like the dream machine you’re after. Oil should not dribble from its casings, it should start easily and readily. If it has more than one carb, then they should be…

NORTON SPECIALIST NORVIL’S holding an open day and mini autojumble on Saturday, July 22 from 10am-4pm at their premises in Burntwood, between Lichfield and Cannock. Norvil’s customer counter is usually only open by appointment, so this is an opportunity to pop in and look around – and aficionados can speak to Norton guru Les Emery and pick his brains. Norvil stocks about 8000 new Norton parts and kits of parts for sale and has a huge stock of both restored and secondhand treasure to pick through. At the first event last year they invited a few stallholders at no charge for a stall and that offer remains open. The local Norton Owners’ Club branch will be there too. There will be free tea, coffee and snacks, so if anyone wants…

OF ALL THE TRIUMPH TWINS the early Oil in Frame (OIF) models from the Seventies are the most controversial and the least loved. Introduced in 1971, the OIF Triumphs had an unhappy birth. The last of the pre-OIF twins were loved and respected as the pinnacle of the twin’s design, so when the team at Umberslade Hall Technology Centre – set up by parent company BSA – came up with their new look they were always going to have a tough job winning hearts and minds. That would have been okay had the design been good, but there were so many problems with the first models that they almost sank the company. The frame was the biggest problem from the start. The pre-OIF twins were so popular in the US…

ROYAL ENFIELD’S CONTINENTAL GT was surely one of the most alluring learner bikes ever built. The GT’s predecessor, the Crusader, was described in The Motor Cycle as ‘spectacular’ at its launch in 1956. The Crusader was streets ahead of pretty much anything the rest of the British industry was turning out, and with the soon to be imposed 250cc learner limit, Royal Enfield was in the right place to exploit the change in the law. The Crusader was a completely new design. The engine was well over-square with a stroke of 64.5mm, a bore of 70mm and a compression ratio of 7.3:1. It was a good performer, but in 1959 the factory responded to calls for more power by introducing the Crusader Sport, upping the compression ratio to 8.3:1, fitting…

IF JEFF WHITWORTH were a stick of rock, he would read ‘Velocette’ all the way through. Not only is he a man who owns two of the finest examples – a 350 Viper and a 1959 500 Venom Clubman – but he is also a dab hand in the garage, and on the racetrack too. He has the cups to prove it. Many believe that the Velocette motorcycle company was as British as fish and chips, but with a sort of French-sounding title. And they would be almost right, for the company, founded in 1905 by John Goodman and William Gue, the company being originally titled Taylor, Gue Ltd, had its factory in the heart of England, in Hall Green, Birmingham, a midlands city where other small motorcycle firms had…

THE MORINI RIDERS’ CLUB caters for anyone who owns, rides or simply appreciates these Italian thoroughbreds. The club was founded in 1975 when the 350cc V-twins were first imported to the UK, and the majority of members own one or more of these sporting lightweights. But that’s not all – of course – they also have members with early single-cylinder bikes and a number of owners of the modern generation of Morinis are also active in the club. The MRC pride themselves on being a riders’ club, using and enjoying their bikes, and this active approach to marque loyalties is plain to see in the kind of events they organise and attend. The highlight of the riders’ club year is the MRC Trackday at Cadwell Park, which takes place on…

THE NORTON COMMANDO is one of the great classic bikes of the second half of the 20th century, and was essentially the final stage of the British archetypal twin cylinder arrangement designed by Bert Hopwood back in 1948. But… is it possible to take a grubby, ill-maintained 1970s Norton Commando and turn it into a better machine than it was when it came from the factory in 1974? Alan Clark shows us how to do it, with lots of work, new stuff and a certain amount of hard cash. I genuinely went to Alan’s to sing the Norton’s praises. Unfortunately, the 850 Commando – finished as it was to a very high standard – was parked right next to an equally beautifully restored Honda CB750, and I couldn’t help but…

MINDFUL THAT MARCH in Scotland can mean ice, blizzards, floods or brilliant sunshine, the Scottish Motorcycle Show is now mainly contained in three large, heated halls. Thankfully this year’s show broke recent tradition with uncharacteristically mild weather and no snow. As a result the stunt shows and bike fire-ups were very well attended, leaving many attendees more than a bit deaf the following day. Catering for a wide range of tastes, there were plenty of new machines showcased. Triumph’s Street Cup with its very reasonable 30in seat height, potential 76mpg and 10,000 mile service interval proved extremely popular, as did Royal Enfield’s Continental GT and Himalayan. A wide variety of stands offered services ranging from tools, riding gear, spare parts and gel seat pads, right down to a beard trim…

KAWASAKI’S MILLENNIAL W650 parallel twin has deservedly carved out a niche in the marketplace as a go-to, easy to live with retro-styled machine. The long-stroke 72 x 80mm 676cc air-cooled motor is very much of classic proportions, the styling evoking the timeless lines of a Meriden Bonneville – possibly to better effect than the Hinckley Triumph twins themselves achieve. This combination of simple, robust engineering and subtle, understated styling has endeared the Japanese twin to a legion of special builders, professional and amateur alike. The Kawasaki has often been the starting point for a café racer, flat-tracker or bobber project for builders attracted by the relative affordability of the basic machine, especially when compared to the equivalent British classic 650. The W650 also offers the prospect of better garage behaviour…

MOST OF US are familiar with Honda’s distinctively styled, iconic CB400F. But who knew that Moto Guzzi launched a rival 400/4 in 1975? When Argentinian industrialist Alejandro De Tomaso bought Benelli in 1971 his team of designers immediately started work in earnest on multi-cylinder four-strokes. Benelli, in common with many manufacturers at the time, were losing sales to the wave of modern Japanese multis and needed to fight back. Two years later De Tomaso bought Moto Guzzi and began manufacturing at the Guzzi factory in Mandello del Lario. The Moto Guzzi 350 GTS and Benelli-badged 500 Quattro were launched shortly after, followed by the impressive six-cylinder Benelli Sei. The slightly inclined cylinders on De Tomaso’s engines could not hide the obvious influence of Honda’s CB500F. The Benelli 500 Quattro shared…

Imagine, for a moment, that it’s 1962 and you’re in the market for a brand new motorbike. BSA has recently launched its all-new, unit-construction twin-cylinder range and so you’re off to the Motorcycle Show at Earls Court, London, filled with anticipation. In marked contrast to the old bits and pieces design of the earlier A-series twins, BSA has now produced a ground breaking ‘power egg’ combined engine and gearbox assembly. The crankcases and gearbox housing are cast in one, there’s a new cylinder head with high-efficiency combustion chambers, a triple row primary chain, alternator electrics and coil ignition. That’s an up-to-date, tough nut of an engine by anybody’s standards. Even leaving home before first light with a ticket for a special excursion coach trip to the Smoke, the queue is…