Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i Classic Bike Guide

GREETINGS, OH OILY-FINGERED FOLK. May your chrome not be flaking and your pilot jets clear. Weather’s been good generally, so hope you’ve been out there, and now school is back it should be quieter, though had to hotfoot it the other evening as the nights are drawing in a little quicker than I realised… I must tell you of a miraculous and curious thing that happened just the other day. Some of us ride bikes that are only a few years old, while other steeds are coming up to their 100th birthday. Whichever, they mostly feel a little old. This is often due to simple wear and tear, of the technology of the time, trends and thinking of period, or of parts wearing out. And we appreciate this. Remember, in…

CALSTOCK BIKE SHOW is something of a hidden gem. Tucked away on a playing field at the end of the first (or last, depending on how you look at it) village in Cornwall, on a bend in the Tamar, the event started in 2000 as a benefit for the local rowing club to keep the village regatta going. Founded by Malcolm and Tara, with the help of many villagers and friends, the first show had 35 tents and 36 bikes; by 2019, it was going great guns, with a packed campsite and four days of fun and frolics welcoming 700 campers and 800 locals. After that, of course, things hit a bump in the road until the show returned last year with a simple one-day bash in the village hall…

CBG your guide to... BERT HOPWOOD’S NORTON TWIN-CYLINDER engine lasted in various forms for decades. Indeed, you can see elements of the 1949 design in today’s 961 twins. Hopwood was tasked with building a new engine to take on Triumph’s Speed Twin, so he took it, identified the weak points, and came up with something better engineered and noticeably different. Designed at first as a 500, in its first form in 1949 it powered the plunger-framed Model 7 Dominator using mostly ES2 cycle parts. It had a cast iron block and cylinder head. Then in 1951, the Norton 500cc twin used the Wideline Featherbed frame. This first model was named 497cc Model 88 Dominator, which was available only for the export market at first, then becoming a home market model…

IT’S HARD TO THINK OF ANY NEW MODEL AS immediately dominant straight out of the box as the Suzuki GSX-R750 was in its debut 1985 racing season. In that year’s inaugural MCN Superstock British Championship, it took charge of the first-ever series run anywhere in the world to carry the Superstock name, winning nine of the 11 races. Mick Grant, then aged 41, won the first four rounds in succession, proving he didn’t need to apply for the pension book just yet by convincingly wrapping up the title with five victories in the end on the bike entered by UK importer Heron Suzuki and sponsored by adult magazine . Every race in the series offered nail-bitingly close racing between topline riders on evenly-matched machinery which the average spectator could readily…

HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU READ WORDS like these… ‘This is a fantastic bike! Runs like a dream, handles like the very best and has looks to die for’? Or, conversely, words like ‘Wobbles like a jelly, the brakes are powered only by prayer, and the engine could not separate skin from rice pudding.’ Opinions are wonderful things, and creative writing should always be a joy to behold, but when the two (heavily edited to protect the innocent) writers are describing the same model, what is a chap to derive from such opposing statements? Back when I first started riding a motorcycle entirely to write about it later (as well as to snag the opportunity for a few happy hours on a bike I could never afford, of course!), I would…

CBG your guide to... THE BULTACO ALPINA WAS BUILT FOR THE US market to fill a gap in the offering for off-roaders, without having to make too many changes to existing models. The Sherpa T, made famous by world champion Sammy Miller, had a big following in competition riding, while the Matador, built for ISDT and considerably tougher, had a ready market for those demanding events – but was less forgiving to ride. What Bultaco needed was something as light and manoeuvrable as the Sherpa, but tough enough for a one-day enduro. And it should be useable day-to-day on the street too. And so the Alpina was born. It was close to being a Sherpa, with the same engine, a near-identical frame and a narrow profile, but had a slightly…

THIS WAS UNEXPECTED. THE TRIUMPH TRIDENT 660 in front pulls several bike lengths away from out of the junction. Never mind the gravel or the potholes, the triple howls away from my 600cc single, which should have been the one burping forward with its instant torque. I follow bike and rider in great partnership ahead, and we fly up and shoot down the three hills running south from Arlescote, Warwickshire, just west of the M40, and south towards Chipping Norton, through picturesque villages, woodland, and a rather large military base, all while keeping an eye on that tasty triple hare in front. Oh, and the pilot of said hare? Just one lifelong development engineer, racer, rider and Triumph stalwart, Mr Norman Hyde. Norman may have been putting a modern ‘Hinckley’…

FOR THOSE INTO RACING, AND TRIALS, THE NAME Nick Jefferies possibly needs little introduction in the UK or abroad in motorcycle circles. For the uninitiated, this tall and fast-spoken Yorkshireman is part of a unique racing family. Nick’s father Allan gained two second places in his TT career, which spanned from 1947 to 1949. Nick’s brother Tony raced on the Mountain course between 1969 and 1973, winning three TTs; notably, the 1971 Formula 750 and Junior, plus the 1973 Production 750cc races. Tony’s son David started racing on the Island in 1996 and won nine TT races, but tragically lost his life during the 2003 TT practice. Nick Jefferies has his own claim to fame, winning the Manx Two-Day Trial as a works rider for Honda in 1976, the Senior…

“LOOK. I’VE TOLD YOU BEFORE. IT’S EASY.” CHRIS, WHO WAS selling this Norton on behalf of Bob, its proud owner, displayed a little uncharacteristic exasperation. Maybe he should drink more coffee? Life is packed with minor mysteries, such as why do so many folk of the classic bike persuasion rate overhead cam Nortons so very highly? Who knows? Chris was demonstrating the ease with which a well-fettled ‘cammy’ Norton fires up. I had always thought that the reason racers bump-started cammy Nortons was that they lived in constant fear of broken ankles and terminal embarrassment. Chris habitually wears moccasins when starting big singles. I wear mighty Caterpillar boots, preferably with a steel insole. He fiddled levers and kicked. The resultant backfire startled migrant geese as far away as the Thames…