Innehållsförteckning för February 2018 från Classic Bike Guide

BART MAATJE FROM the Netherlands has collected the 1960 BSA DBD34 Gold Star he won in the National Motorcycle Museum summer raffle. Bart already rides a Honda VTR1000 Firestorm but the Goldie will be his first classic bike. Bart purchased the first prize winning ticket from the museum shop while visiting the UK last year. The next NMM raffle offers ticket buyers the chance to win a brand new 1200cc Triumph Bonneville Speedmaster and is now live. The draw date is on Sunday, April 22 and the tickets costing £2 each can be purchased at thenmm.co.uk…

TRIUMPH MOTORCYCLES IS continuing its offer of a complimentary track racer kit worth £1950 on all purchases of the Thruxton R. This striking additional extra includes a café racer fairing, fender removal kit, brushed stainless steel slip-ons, front and rear short-stem LED indicators, leather tank strap and grey diamond knurl handlebar grips. A £500 personalisation contribution is also available on the classic-looking Street Twin and Street Cup models in addition to a low-rate finance offer of 6.9% APR. All offers run until March 31. Visit triumphmotorcycles.co.uk…

ANOTHER LONG DORMANT British motorcycle name is rising from the ashes. Levis, which built a range of lightweight sporty two- and four-strokes in the years up until the Second World War, has returned as the brand name for a new range of motorcycles with an all-British modular engine concept. The new Levis motorcycle is based around a compact two litre V10 engine developed for the Connaught Type D GT car in 2004. The first motorcycle engine, a 22° V6, will be fitted into a tubular stainless-steel frame with stainless infill panels and a Hossack style independent front end. The modular engine can be made in a V10, V8, V6, V4 or V2 configuration. Proposed models included a cruiser, café racer, urban roadster and sports version fitted with V6 or V8…

The 1969 Honda CB750 was, as is often claimed, the first superbike of the modern era. Three years later Kawasaki unveiled the Z1, the fastest production motorcycle in the world at that time, bringing the fight and raising the bar. An exciting superpower war had started. You can’t talk about Kawasaki's new Z900RS without referencing the original Z1 – its primary reason for existence is to remind you of the company's heritage and to take you back to that original bike and a different time. Plus there’s the added bonus of modern technology and, ironically, a significantly cheaper price tag than an original Z1 is now commanding. The official line from Kawasaki is that its Z900RS is an ‘homage’ to the Z1, not a copy. What that means is that…

“Even bikes we thought a bit, erm, poxy, back in the day were three grand. Then, one evening over a coffee, okay a pint or three, a mate said “what about an MZ?” Once I’d finished laughing I realised he’d never joined in; he was being serious.” I LOVE BUYING a new-to-me bike. Spending hours poring over old copies of Classic Bike Guide or searching the World Wide Web is tremendous fun. I usually zero in on the exact make and model I’m after pretty quickly, before spending the next few days confirming that hasty first choice was indeed, the correct choice. Confession time, I like nice bikes... even more than that, I like nice shiny bikes, it’s just the magpie in me, I’m attracted to glittering things, even if…

W hen 1980 arrived the 900SS had reached its fifth year in production and many believed the ‘end was nigh’ for the sophisticated semi-naked Ducati design. To many, the earlier 750 had nailed the vision, one which was only enhanced over the following decade; a look that still works today, especially with Miss Knightly on board in that television perfume ad. Unfortunately, the 900SS was out of reach for most Paul Smart grand prix wannabes and certainly this 17-year-old apprentice; in 1980 the finances ensured I would continue my sacrifice at the temple of the two-stroke. That year's Earls Court Show featured Barbara Windsor on a Honda CB1000R, while a largely unchanged 900SS sat alongside the much delayed Mike Hailwood Replica and the new 500cc Pantah. As with all Ducatis,…

Hang on aminute – a new Daytona for sale in 1984? Didn’t production end in September 1973 when NVT, the parent group of Norton, Villiers, Triumph and BSA, announced that the Meriden factory would close and production move to the BSA works at Small Heath? The Meriden workers had responded by locking the gates and began their famous sit-in, which would last until 1975. Although a few Daytona models might have appeared in dealers’ showrooms later that year they would have been old stock, because after the sit-in the factory only built the larger twins. So what was the story? It was Ted Bloomfield, boss of MCS, another North London bike shop, that was the reason. This strongly opinionated Brit bike enthusiast opened his first shop in 1958 when he…

PRESCOTT BIKE FEST is to be held over two days for the first time this year. The popular, family-friendly event will return to the Gloucestershire hills on April 14-15 and will once again boast a brilliantly diverse range of machinery. Track action is being kept for the Sunday, while Saturday gives visitors the chance to get up close to awide variety of machinery, from cutting edge electric road and race technology, an innovation zone from the universities and their EV projects plus special displays featuring Formula E, TT Zero and the new electric Harley-Davidson, which this year is the festival’s featured club. Paddock Specials remain a special feature of the festival and the show will welcome Brian Glover’s 1903 Royal Sovereign a Salon Privé class winner and the engineering genius…

WHETHER IT’S EATING roasted chestnuts on the bridge by Notre Dame Cathedral or seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, there are lots of reasons to visit Paris in late November. But for the last 20 years classic bike enthusiasts have been making their winter pilgrimage to the city of love for only one reason. So we’ll stroll past the stunning Château de Vincennes and along the Route de la Pyramide to the Parc Floral de Paris. It might be one of the biggest parks in Paris but we’re not here toadmire the autumn foliage. We’re here for the Salon Moto Légende. Running over three days, the Salon gets bigger and better every year and now hosts more than 350 trade and jumble stands and over 60 club stands. And…

If you really want to stand out from the crowd you need one of Honda’s more exuberant offerings – the CL350 Flying Dragon, says David Silver. As the world went psychedelic, tie-dyed and Day-Glo, Honda, and in particular its boss, Soichiro Honda, wanted to make sure they were on the crest of the cultural wave. Despite the Japanese not going a big deal on individuality, they had been one of the centres for the development of tie-dyeing long before the hippies picked up on it. The legend goes that Soichiro Honda went to one of his company’s special projects departments, gave the young designers a free hand, and told them to come up with something special for the US market. And that something special turned out to be the swirling…

Simon Nethercott, a two-stroke fanatic from way back and head man at Alpha Classic Motorcycles has his own KH400. Vapour-blasted crankcases and cylinders are dotted all over the Alpha office from a range of Kawasaki triples. “We’ve had a lot of wrecks come into this country from the States, bikes that are well chewed up and badly rebuilt. But they are straightforward and easy to work on, there’s nothing major there to go wrong,” says Simon. “When they are standard they are smooth and well behaved, especially if you’ve got stock pipes and controls. Everybody tries to find H1s and H2s but if you get a KH you get a nice little bike you can ride every day. It’s just that when you play about with them, they’re chaos.” Weak…

By the Sixties, both Kawasaki and Honda had to change. They both came to the conclusion that what was needed was a bike that would take on the large British twins in the UK and the Harleys in the USA, to expand their companies as Japan started to pick itself up after the horrors of the Second World War. By 1966, Kawasaki had got their W1, anice 624cc twin, which bared an uncanny resemblance to the BSA A10, but was still the largest Japanese motorcycle at the time. However they were busy building their prototype 750 four-cylinder, which would be their crowning glory. Meanwhile, Honda had released their CB450 ‘Black Bomber’ in 1965, but they were developing their first large bike, the CB750. Neither company knew it at the time,…

Yes, my mother bought my first bike, which must be unique. Anything to gain points, I suppose, after ditching five kids to live with the Hippies. My father and step-mother weren’t keen, but saw the logic. LIKE MOST RIDERS, my start on powered two-wheelers had humble and practical origins. Iwas suffering when America was supposedly Great before, a skinny, mouthy egghead of queerish attire (Bowie was my hero) and no interest in sports... all of which marked me as a target in the simian hothouse of High School. The bullies at our school weren’t shove-you-into-a-locker types, they were the point-a-gun-at-you types, the stand-on-a-roof-and-yell-racial-epithets types. Stockton California was the murder capital of the USA, and the last school district in the nation to be racially integrated, years after the Supreme Court…

Just where you first dip your toe in the world of bygone motorcycling is very much a personal thing. Once upon a time the interest was spurred by the desire to ride the kind of bike you owned, or more probably wanted to own, years ago, when passion was abundant but cash was in short supply. More recently, it has been the challenge of breathing fresh life into something rather sad and neglected. Now, for an increasing number, it is the desire to explore new and unknown territory. For Dean May, that territory is the days of board track racing. He first discovered this peculiarly American form of motorcycle sport through the “Wheels Through Time” programme on the Dave television channel. It was something totally new to him and he…

It has become absolutely clear that my life will be incomplete unless I build a custom bike. I gaze in wonder at every one of them I see – almost all of them on stands at shows, for some reason – and I reverently admire all the tiny details. IN A COMMON moment of weakness, I attempted to calculate how many old bikes I’ve rebuilt. The word ‘rebuilt’ should behandled with care here. It is open to misuse and to many interpretations. In this case it can best be described as ‘taking some non-functional pile of two-wheeled scrap, assaulting it with spanners and riding it to – and through – an MoT test’. That’ll do. I failed to work it out. Ihave no idea. Dozens? Maybe. While pondering upon this…

THE NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM has announced the first details of its 2018 programme of Friends Scheme activities. Members of the scheme can take part in Classic Bike Tours, Ride a Classic Days and Workshop Training Days. The first of these dates for 2018 is a Museum Workshop Training Day on Saturday, February 24 which will be held in the museum’s Compton suite. This event will feature two sessions presented by Rick Parkington. The museum’s own restoration team will also be on hand to discuss some tricks of the trade. Museum Workshop Days are free of charge to friends of the museum. The first Classic Bike Tour will be held on Saturday, March 24, and CBG plans to be there. Friends have the opportunity to ride some of the most exciting…

MOTORCYCLE RACING IS to return to Eppynt Road Race Circuit near Sennybridge in Wales, 65 years after the mountain roads last saw a racing wheel turn in anger. The Eppynt circuit, last used in 1953, will be re-opened for racing from August 3-5 with full range of classes up toSuperstock. The revival has been made possible by the repeal of clauses in the Road Traffic Act, which previously banned racing on public roads in the UK, except Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. The secretary of state for defence has granted the organisers of Welsh Road Race 2018 a licence to use the historic road circuit which lies within the heart of the Crown Estate which was used to stage the Eppynt Motor Cycle Road Races between 1948 and…

AS THE MOTORCYCLING world waits for the first appearance of the new Royal Enfield and Constellation 650 twins in the showrooms, the company has quietly slipped out another livery for the model, and it harks back to the company’s late 1960s heyday. The Interceptor is now being offered in a chrome petrol tank finish, similar to that which adorned the original 700cc Interceptor II models in 1970. The tank also has old-style raised badges rather than painted graphics on the livery, named Spectre. Production of the Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650 is due to start shortly with the first bikes in the showroom in April ,with a UK launch to catch the UK riding season. The price of the 650 has not yet been released.…

BETWEEN 1968 AND 1973 Honda sold more 350 four-stroke twins than the British motorcycle industry’s entire production over the same period and a third of those sales were of a motorcycle that never reached UK showrooms – the CL350 street scrambler. Honda didn’t invent the street scrambler or dual-purpose off-roader – the British were there before them with the likes of the Norton P11, BSA Cyclone and Firebird scramblers and the Triumph TR6C Trophy Special. The idea of a road bike you could ride all week in the city and take to the forests and deserts at the weekend had been a hit with US buyers, but while the British bikes focused on cubes and high-performance, in the mid-1960s Honda came up with a design for a ride-to-work, ride-for-fun two-wheeler…

THE ORIGINAL TRIUMPH Speed Twin of 1937 broke all kinds of moulds. There had been parallel twins before it, not least Val Page’s Triumph 6/1, but never one as stylish as the Edward Turner-designed twin. With an engine some claim to have been derived from a Riley car design, Turner created a motorcycle that was to be the backbone of Triumph’s production for the next five decades – and that of most other Big British manufacturers, too. Turner, who had designed the original engine to be built on the same production lines as the company’s singles, recognised that motorcycles didn’t just have to be fast, but they needed to look good doing it too, even if this was at the expense of handling. The Speed Twin looked fast when standing…

If anybody were ever to compile ‘The Bedtime Storybook of the English Motorcycle’ it would be sure to contain a chapter entitled ‘The Sad Tale of the Enfield Interceptor’. It may be that you are puzzled as to why that should be; in all fairness, you could be forgiven if you cannot recall exactly what an Enfield Interceptor was and why its passing has been left virtually unmarked. True, there is a book written by Andrew Stait that bestows a title befitting a hero of legend – ‘The Mighty Interceptor’ – and if you browse through a marque history you will note that the Interceptor holds aunique place in the last three years of Royal Enfield production. So where did it all go wrong? It helps if we understand a…