Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2025 i The Classic MotorCycle

Printed in The Motor Cycle of October 29, 1953, the caption accompanying this picture read: “Back in London after a trip round the world on a tradesman’s cycle fitted with Power Pak engine, Peter Lee-Warner is greeted by Miss Vivian Blaine, the actress. During the trip he covered 13,000 miles.” It wasn’t the first time Lee-Warner had appeared in the press either, as he’d appeared several times, including when he set off, with a report outlining his plans appearing in The Motor Cycle of March 26, 1953. It was flagged as the start of a ‘round trip to Australia and back’ with the mileage expected to be ‘a 25,000 mile journey’, though the fact that the mileage back in London was 13,000 miles suggests that original aim was only half-completed……

So far as I’m concerned, the transfer on the top of the petrol tank on a Super Rocket is, frankly, reason enough to love the model. It’s a fabulous bit of 1950s ‘Jetson’s’ style artwork, while it also reminds me of the old lava lamps which would glow in my late 1990s student bedroom. Then there’s the usual bright red paint, the twin clocks, the chromed mudguards – and the promise of ‘rocket like’ performance. Ironically, I’ve never owned a Super Rocket – but have had a Rocket Gold Star, which took the Super Rocket’s engine and placed it in a Gold Star frame, generally with clip ons (or at least dropped ’bars), rearsets and all the rest. As I’ve never got on with that set-up, a Super Rocket, with…

“Well, it’s gonna be a hard day’s ride,” was the greeting from Fred Clutterbuck of the Golden Valley Classic Motorcycle Club, announced with a glint in his eye as he greeted riders gathering in the Howley Farmyard in Gloucestershire. One hundred riders were busy preparing for the challenges of the day, some knowing what to expect and others ‘March Hare virgins’, including yours truly, preparing with some apprehension. The March Hare long-distance trial has been on my ‘must do’ list of classic events for several years, but, in truth, you don’t know what you’ve let yourself in for until you actually ride an event – was it going to be a hard day’s ride? History The March Hare was first run in 1982 by Adrian Moss and the Golden Valley…

If you are old enough to rewind back to the 1950s, 60s and the early 70s, the word ‘classic’ in relation to motorcycles was rarely used. From then on, it started to appear and magazines were created using the word in their titles (such as this august publication), and dealerships started selling ‘classic’ motorcycles. Despite numerous debates, both in print or over a pint or two down the pub, nobody has actually defined what makes a motorcycle a ‘classic.’ Some suggest it is age, but others point out some new bikes launched today assume that tagline almost instantly, based on design and maybe rarity. When you check the dictionary for the word ‘classic,’ you get several definitions when used as an adjective. ‘Serving as a standard or excellence’, ‘enduring’, and…

Purchases: Rubber Rings for Headlamp Holders £15.80 Front Fork Oil Seals £9 Telescopic Fork Gaiter £8.50 Total with shipping: £39.30 With the TS’s wheels and frame pretty much sorted, the bits that connect them both together were next on the list of things to deal with. A quick inspection on the bench revealed that both the rear shock absorbers were complete and seemed to be functioning as they should be. Applying a bit of pressure by hand, they don’t feel like the firmest things in the world, but they’re on the lowest preload setting (MZ shocks come with a handy preload-setting sleeve built-in, so no tools are needed to adjust them), so that might have something to do with it. Like everything else, they’d picked up a bit of surface…

It’s the 1920 Isle of Man TT, the first Manx races since 1914 owing to the horrible business of global conflict which swept the world from 1914-1918, meaning such joyful occupations like motorcycle racing were off the agenda, replaced by warfare and all the misery that it entailed. There’d been no IoM races in 1919 either, as the world – and industry – attempted to return itself to an even keel, while counting the cost of the huge number of lives lost. Several popular TT men were among the dead, including Captain Sir R K Arbuthnot, Bt, third in the 1908 race and who went down with his ship HMS Defence in 1916. One man who appeared lost in conflict but wasn’t, was Howard R Davies (HRD), his obituary printed…

How many motorcycles ‘should’ we own? One, two, three or more? I found myself in a position recently, where I had two running, functioning classics in the garage. This was unusual, as normally I have one runner and one project, taking a couple of years to build. And I have to confess, I was really missing not having a project, the pleasure of it coming together and then finally being complete, before taking it out on test runs and sorting out teething troubles, until, finally, it’s fully functional and ready for longer rides. As my interest in motorcycles started in the early 1970s, when the majority of British motorbikes on the road were just ‘old bikes,’ I’m not one for originality. The challenge then was just to keep them on…

“My Ratier is better than any BMW!” proclaimed my new friend Marcel as he knocked back what surely wasn’t his first shot of marc that morning (it’s the French version of grappa!) as another little helper to get him through his day. Marcel worked as a delivery rider in Paris for the French sports daily L’Equipe, starting at 4.30am each morning as the first edition rolled off the presses in that pre-internet era. He continued: “It may resemble a BMW, but it was created with French style, and Gallic passion. Anyway, Monsieur le Président [de Gaulle then] personally chose the Ratier for his Garde Républicaine to escort him with. Vive la France!” I got to know Marcel in life before motorcycle journalism by occasionally sharing with him the zinc counter…

It’s not often a line-up of show motorcycles has hardly a gearbox or some method of braking in sight. But when the line-up is part of the Speedway Anniversary Celebration it all starts to make sense. That annual gathering is held around the generally accepted date when the first true speedway meeting took place in the UK in 1928. The Speedway Museum, within the grounds of Hertfordshire Zoo, opens its gates to track-racing enthusiasts and current and former practitioners of the art who relish the occasion to catch up with old friends, team-mates and rivals, as well as some of the officials. There were many attendees this year, undeterred by some chilly pre-spring weather. The motorcycle show line-up was centre stage on the museum lawn. Not far away, a jumble…

The beginning Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach are credited with building and running the first motorcycle. History informs that Gottleib’s son Paul rode their ‘Einspur’ on November 10, 1885, from their base at Canstatt to nearby Unterturkheim and back. Unfortunately for us motorcyclists, it’s humbling to remember the 264cc Daimler Einspur was built as a test bed for their engine. Simply, their motorcycle, albeit with two stabiliser wheels, was easier and quicker to build than a car, and the development of their independent liquid-fuelled engine was for automotive, not motorcycle, purposes. However, the Einspur ticks two boxes for the development and tuning of motorcycles. It was a motorcycle, and as such was the first motorcycle with a mechanically operated and timed valve, that being its exhaust valve – the Einspur’s…

Hairy Biker’s Beesa charity bonanza There was a packed saleroom at H&H’s auction, held on March 25, 2025, at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham. In-person attendance at sales have clearly dwindled in the postcovid era, with many preferring to do their bidding remotely, but this sale brought out the crowds for sure, with motorcycles following a morning scooter sale. One of the star lots was the BSA Gold Star ridden by the late chef Dave Myers in the final series of TV show The Hairy Bikers. His wife Lili was on hand to watch (and cajole!) as bidding reached £15,800, with all proceeds from its sale split between CancerCare North Lancashire and South Cumbria, NSPCC Childline and The Institute of Cancer Research. Biggest price of the day was for the…

In the kind of antics which probably wouldn’t happen today, an RAF policeman sits on his BSA A65 and watches on, apparently waiting to collect the incoming pilot from an early vertical takeoff RAF Harrier aircraft that had just flown across the Atlantic in an attempt to win a race, backed by the Daily Mail newspaper. Conceived by the Daily Mail to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Alcock and Brown’s first nonstop transatlantic flight, and held between May 4 and 11, 1969, it was called an air race (in fact, The Daily Mail Trans-Atlantic Air Race), though actually it was a race between individuals, between the top of London’s Post Office Tower (now the BT Tower) and the observation platform of New York’s Empire State Building. There were at least…

Words and photographs: JAMES ROBINSON When the Brooklands race circuit opened in 1907, it was not only Britain’s first purpose-built racetrack, a theatre in which competitors could take one another on and stretch the legs of their powerful motors without fear of breaking the law (remember, the national speed limit was then 20mph), but it was also an important proving ground, which was further underlined by the opening of the Test Hill in 1909. An incline over 352 feet in three gradient sections, it starts with a gradient of one in eight for the first third, then it’s one in five for the middle, before steepening to one in four over the last 117 or so feet. Unlike much of the rest of the circuit, closed at the outbreak of…

At the risk of prompting a deluge of correspondence which would fill the magazine’s letters pages, I would suggest the percentage of us lucky enough to have a machine that is of true sentimental value, or has been part of the family’s history, is very small. Like many of us, my dad had motorcycles that came and went. Some he restored – some good, some bad – but in the main they were of a time and have no real significant place in my memories, and I don’t feel the need to trace one to buy it back. Andy Newell is the exact opposite. Despite his impressive and eclectic collection of machines (one of which has been previously featured in TCM), one bike means more than all the others, some…

First, dear reader, some reassurance: you’re not losing your marbles, nor have you picked up the wrong issue. If this TriGreeves looks familiar, it’s because it’s the second one we’ve featured from creator of all things special, Chris Sawyer. sThe machine you may have thought you were looking at was Chris’s other 3TA-engined TriGreeves, which has already graced these pages (September 2023 issue).That build combined a 1961 Triumph 3TA engine with a 1965 Greeves Anglian frame; this latest machine is very much a sibling to that earlier creation, sharing not just a design philosophy, but actual components – Chris’s approach to motorcycle building has always been one of continuous evolution, with successful ideas migrating between his builds like genetic traits. Look closely, and you’ll spot the family resemblance – the…

THE SPECIALIST There is no dedicated club for James motorcycle owners, but the British Two-Stroke Club is probably the nearest. There is a lot of James information on the internet, including a James Facebook group. There are some James and Villiers references on the Iceni CAM website. Villiers Services is a one-stop shop for the power units. Thanks to Roy Poynting, the British Two-Stroke Club James Technical Contact, for kind assistance with this month’s guide. ■ British Two Stroke Club: btsc2t.weebly.com■ Villiers Services: 01384 265797; villiersservices.co.uk MODEL HISTORY Post-Second World War, while the manufacturer continued with its Autocycle, a new James motorcycle of the same capacity appeared in 1948 for the 1949 model year. With high peacetime demand for transport, this lightweight motorcycle had more appeal than the broad market…

With the best will in the world, altering where wires go and modifying their length – making them longer actually – although a necessary part of motorcycle restoration isn’t the most exciting of tasks to read about. Why am I altering such things? Well, the time had come to pull the rear frame loop off and have the brackets welded rather than wedged in place, again necessary, but not exactly exciting. So, until the frame loop is back – I have to fit in to welding schedules of Welder Lad – work is stalled on Project Triumph. While there are other tasks which could be done, they too are of the type which require fitting things in place, so wire length and component siting can be determined accurately. This means…