Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i Real Classic

BIG BANGER This is my nearly-new Enfield which I collected recently; it’s a lovely old banger, most suited to a geriatric. The new Enfields have a real hard time here in the USA. They are as distrusted as diesel cars and generally lambasted by the motorcycle press who insist on comparing them with the very latest Japanese whizz-bang crotch rocket. I asked around with my fellow flat-hat Brummies who, like me, had careers in the motorcycle industry, because I was initially sceptical about the claims from the Indian factory about howmany Enfields they build. The figures are either correct or several mainstream Indian news media are sending out fake news. One old pal confirmed Enfield’s production successes and said he was stunned when he recently visited Chennai production facilities. Both…

Classic Techniques in RC159 by Dave Blanchard was excellent. I’ve been makingmy ownpaper gaskets since the late 1950s. I was shewnby my father how to use cartridge paper (still available from art shops) and the edge of an open spanner; the rounded edge used just as Dave uses the ball-pein of his hammer. On larger gaskets I run my dirty finger round the edges of the machined facewith the paper on it, to leave an indentedmark soI can use scissors for the easy bits. I have a selection of ball bearings of different sizes to punch out holes, and a set of leather hole punches found at an autojumble donkey’s years ago. As Dave points out, modern cereal packets are of no use as they disintegrate in oil (must be…

The D14/4Swas only manufactured for one model year but manywere registered later, so you’ll find 1968 and 69 examples listed. It’s very easy to turn a D14/4 ‘Supreme’ into a ‘Sports’with an upswept exhaust system, humped dual seat, flyscreen and Flamboyant Red paintwork, so you should double-check the provenance to ensure that a bike being sold as a Sports was original equipped as such. It should have the heavier front forks, in common with the Bushman, and a revised front mudguard. Genuine Sports which are ready to ride typically sell for between £1500 and £2500; the standard Supreme model is worth 10 to 15% less…

PART THE FIRST Dear Reader, there’s quite a backstory to how this latest project came about, so I’ll get straight into it. And trust me, after these initial meanderings, this series will actually be about a proper classic motorcycle... Our kid, Scott Speed, bought me an entry to an event called Dirtquake for Christmas 2014. Dirtquake is a day of dirt-track madness and mayhem, held at Kings Lynn speedway track every year. There are racing classes for Street Tracker, Harley, Ladies, Chopper and Inappropriate Road Bike, along with various attractions such as the Wall of Death, moped tug of war, motorcycle limbo, pushbike races for kids, gorillas on Raleigh Choppers, policemen in roofless Austin Allegro Panda cars. Picture a Frenchman in a pink tutu riding a stock R1 Yamaha racing…

RC 158 arrived read as usual, particularly as it has Odgie’sVilliers content. I dohave to comment onFrank’s identification of themystery machine.You were very nearly right but it’s the year younger TS of 1929. It’s easy to spot the difference as 1930 was the first year of dry sump lubrication for the whole Matchless range and, if you look carefully, you can see the Pilgrimpumpon the timing case of the previous total loss lubrication. Although this was the great granddaddy of the AMC heavyweight singles, itwas a disaster of an engine. I have the remains of several T-series engines and all have suffered catastrophic big end failure and conrod breakage, plus abysmal timing gear wear. The big end consisted of a single row of ¼”x¼”rollers which were optimistically splash fed fromthe…

Bantam owners are brilliantly served by not one but two active and enthusiastic owners’ clubs. The model-specific BSA Bantam Club is only 15 years old but it rapidly established itself as one of the most welcoming organisations on the old bike scene – and you’ll find an extensive array of Bantams on display on the club’s stand at just about every big event. The Bantam Club not only supports existing owners and committed fans of the featherweight, but works hard to introduced people to the low-cost delights of classic motorcycling in the shape of this affordable two-stroke. The club’s membership has grown to over 1100 and it costs £18 to join. See bsabantamclub.com The BSAOC, by contrast, is one of the UK’s longest-runningmarque clubs – but it promotes itself as ‘the friendly…

Afew years ago I had just ended a painful relationship with a BMW R69S. Things hadn’t started well when the bike didn’t, well, start well. Eventually this led to a torn Achilles tendon from trying to kickstart it, which was not only painful but a real nuisance for severalmonths. A carburettor overhaul sorted the starting problembut then, a few miles fromhome, the BMW(nowknown as Basil the B*****d) decided to shed its oil all over the road andmy Altberg boots. This was toomuch and Basilwas shipped off to John Lawes at BEMW in Derby for a thorough looking at. The result was not a happy tale and a lot of expenditure was mooted to bring Basil to a robust condition. Divorce proceedings were instigated and Basil was sent to a new…

Spinning my way down to Newton Abbot racecourse on the mighty Norton rotator, and carving through the clots of traffic forming up behind tractors and caravans, provided plenty of opportunity to think. Specifically, I was travelling down to watch a private performance by the legendaryWhite Helmets, organised by the most excellent spares provider LF Harris to celebrate the firm’s long association with the Royal Signals White Helmets display team. I’d heard the announcement earlier this year that they were to be disbanded at the end of the 2017 season and had incorrectly assumed that this was due to budget cuts. In fact, it’s been deemed that their performances no longer represent the modern image the army wishes to project in the 21st century and has nothing to do with funding…

PART TWO Ibought the R80 knowing that there was a problem with either the clutch or the gearbox and it turned out to be the latter, more expensive problem. While the gearbox was away being rebuilt by someone infinitely more capable than me, I set about resolving some of the minor problems. These 1980s airhead twins have an interesting breather arrangement that involves a breather valve and pipework that deposits the oily fumes (plus some liquid oil, I suspect) into the inlet tracts via the airbox. Is this early emission / pollution control, I wonder? I don’t think it works that well! I encountered this first on my since-sold R45 a few years ago and Hi-Yo the silver R80 was the same. The breather bit of the arrangement works OK,…

Endlessly riding other folks’bikes is a peril. No no – it really is. Mostly, it’s a fine experience, almost always interesting, and there’s almost always something to write about – which is why I ride other folks’bikes, remember. Not for fun. Oh no. I gave up fun in 1971, as you’d expect. After that … nothing but duty, diligence and a desperate desire to earn a little money. Occasionally – rarely, in fact, and happily – the test victim is a horror story and it’s not possible to write it up. Sometimes I just cannot get to grips with the idea of the story at all, scratching my head for so long and procrastinating to the point at which the story becomes pointless anyway. This is also rare. Less rare…

Sunbeam were renowned for building quality push cycles long before their pre-war singles were celebrated for being light, fast and reliable. Good enough in fact towin four TTs between 1920 and 1929. But global recession and a second world war hit the British economy extremely hard, starving Sunbeam of much needed sales. Sunbeam struggled financially and were subsequently bought by Associated Motor Cycles. BSA then acquired Sunbeam in a move designed to compete favourably with the UK’s top cycle manufacturer of the time, Raleigh. During the war years, Britain’s leading industrialists were given captured German war machinery, ranging from aircraft to motorcycles. As we know, BSA was presented with a DKW RT125 and their engineers came up with the extremely successful Bantam. Another German motorcycle that influenced BSA was a…

Just read Rowena’s musings on whether smaller engined bikes can be nicer than their larger engined siblings. Noquestion; they can be. She refers to the 20 year-old Hinckley Triumph 750 Trident. Andat the risk of upsetting the esteemed Mr Minton I agree with your view. One of my beloved bikes of the past was the Mk1 750 Triumph Speed Triple. A lovely, lovely bike and I think muchnicer than the 900 version, sweeter, lighter and more chuckable. However the 750 hardly sold and the 900 sold in shed loads, sowhat do I know? Even more controversially, I think the later TriumphDaytona 500s are much nicer bikes to ride than the equivalent Bonnevilles... and the 650 Bonnie is nicer than the 750! Mike Matthews,member 6700 Some years ago I owned a Nightster…

The article by Odgie in RC159 stirredmy memories of the Sportster 883 I owned around the time the man himself owned his. Like Odgie, my 883 was the first brand new big bike I’d ever bought. At the time they were selling the new Evo-engined 883s for £3995. This was considered to be loss-leading as the 1200 version, with less metal in the bores (1/4”off the thickness of the steel liner) was a lot more expensive. That is whymany a bought an 883 (or the short-lived 1100) then had it bored out; that way it produced more power than the stock 1200 because of the better squish effect of the 883 head. I remember reading about Odgie’s much-modified Sportster at the time. He commented that he wanted tomodify his Sportster…

There are two ways of looking at the BSA Bantam Sports, and both are correct in fact and interpretation. The first is that the bike is a not very extensively updated version of the original Bantam launched in 1947, and that motorcycle was itself a direct lift from the pre-war DKW design. Viewed in this way, the little BSA is a crude, outdated, poor performing embarrassment when compared with the automatic lubrication, six-speed pocket-rocket ship which Suzuki were selling at the time, in the form of their iconic T20. But there is another view which can be taken of the bike. It is such a cheerful little thing, in both looks and riding experience, that it brings a smile to any rider’s face. It’s light, low, easy to handle, ridiculously…

As a student in the early 1970s I travelled extensively in Scandinavia. All over Denmark I was struck by the unusual appearance of what seemed to be the most common motorcycle in the country. It was a very retro looking (even then!) inline four with exposed valve springs and an almost Meccano-like frame bolted and riveted together from quite heavy flat steel. After that brief exposure I never really thought of the bike again until I came upon a very well restored example in the Barcelona Motorcycle Museum some forty years later. By this stage collecting, restoring and riding classic bikes had become my life and I felt a Nimbus would fit well into my collection. I’m trying to include an example of as many types of motorcycle engine as…

BE A RealClassic WRITER WEWANT TO PUBLISH more stories about real life classic bikes. You don’t need to be an inspired writer to see your story in RealClassic, but you do need to say something relevant. We like profiles about a single model (or maybe two very similar ones; a pair of Triumph twins, for example), which should be at least 1000 words in length. Most RC features are between 1000 and 2500 words. If your story is longer than that then it’s heading towards being a series (or a book!). If your thoughts run to under 1000 words then they’ll probably appear in the letters section. TO SEEWHATWEMEAN look at Oily Boot Bob’s Crusader stories, the Velo MAC or Norton Big4 articles in RC142. These are just what RC…

PART ONE OF THREE Woolwich, a London suburb on the South bank of the River Thames, is famous for its huge military establishment known as the Royal Arsenal, where weapons research and manufacture was carried out for over three hundred years and which, at its peak during WorldWar One, employed around 80,000 people. The Ministry of Defence finally closed its doors in 1994 and today the site is being redeveloped for industry, housing, and community activity. But in our two-wheeledworld, Woolwich is famous as the birthplace and spiritual home of Matchless motorcycles. Henry Collier startedmaking pedal bicycles at his home there at the beginning of the 20th century and then, aided by his sons Charlie and Harry, adapted them to have engine power. These machines were so successful that the…