Innehållsförteckning för July 2018 från Classic Bike Guide

PARTS SPECIALIST DRAGANFLY’S expansion into Triumph spares continues with the next section of their Unit Twin online shop. You can now browse and buy parts for 1963-72 650cc Unit Twin Triumphs online as well as pre-unit parts. You can use original Triumph part numbers to search the stock, check prices and order securely online. You can also access lots of useful information to help with your order and the restoration of your Triumph. The Draganfly team is working on the rest of the online Triumph shop. Visit draganfly.co.uk to view the stock, call 01986 894798 or email spares@draganfly.co.uk if you can’t find the part you want. Like us facebook.com/classicbikeguide Visit classicbikeguide.com…

BUYING A BATTERY with a separate acid pack will be controlled by new Government regulations designed to restrict the sale of sulphuric acid. The acid has been reclassified as a regulated substance in the wake of a spate of attacks on the public using corrosive liquids. From July 1 members of the public wishing to acquire or purchase sulphuric acid in concentrations of more than 15% will need a valid Explosives Precursors and Poisons (EPP) licence. This means that to purchase a motorcycle battery sold with an acid pack, a consumer will need to apply and receive a valid EPP licence, at a cost of £39.50, prior to purchase. From November 1 it will become an offence to possess or use sulphuric acid at concentrations of over 15% without a…

If you are an A65 owner, you’ll know about SRM, which has been looking after BSA and Triumph twins and triples for nearly 40 years. John Jolley from SRM gives us the low-down on late A65s: “The biggest issue with the bikes is the conical hub front brake, which we can set up for you. Originally, they were either really, really good, or really, really bad. If you get the hub machined properly and have the linings redone it will perform like a disc from the 1970s. There are other mods, such as fitting longer brake arms. These have been made in the past but may no longer be available. You might be able to find a set from a conical hub-equipped 250 single, which are about half an inch…

Triumph’s Street Cup was introduced last year to fill the sports classic category at the lower capacity end of the company’s Modern Classic parallel twin range. Based on its Street Twin platform, the Street Cup saw Triumph tighten up the chassis and fit a lot of high quality bits to help it fill its role as the steed of choice for the reborn coffee-bar cowboy. Triumph describes it as an urban motorcycle and despite the sporty styling, the Cup is powered by the same high-torque, five-speed, 54bhp 900cc motor as the Street Twin. You can even have the power reduced so you can ride it on an A2 licence. The Street Cup’s engine spec involves an overhead camshaft, four valves per cylinder liquid cooling and fuel injection. Classic riders unfamiliar…

BY CHANCE, THE restaurant Suzie Heartbreak chose was Miguel’s favourite, of the many he’d sampled to escape Aprilia’s design studio in boring Noale, 20km away from Venice. Over spectacular local dishes of boiled calamari and risotto Milanese, tabled just beside the Rio della Sensa at tiny Osteria Anice Stellato in Venice’s Canareggio district, we discussed the State of Motorcycles. We’d discovered Miguel Galuzzi was in Noale via Instagram, of all things. He’s currently chief designer for the Piaggio group, but is best known, in fact an immortal among motorcycle designers, for his invention of the Ducati Monster. The Monster is 20 years old this year, and there will be press (well, I wrote an article) about the impact of that machine on the motorcycle scene today, but suffice it to…

THE WILTSHIRE BRANCH of the BSA Owners’ Club held their first Stone Circle Classic and Custom Show in the historic village of Avebury and on one of the first hot days of spring, hundreds of people turned out to the site at the Avebury Sports and Social Club to gather, chew the fat and view a fine selection of classic motorcycles, competition specials and carefully crafted customs. The show raised £3100 to help buy physio equipment and a wheelchair for biker Stuart Vinter, who suffered injuries that paralysed him from the chest down in a swimming pool accident and was subsequently diagnosed with malignant melanoma cancer. Darren Carter, who helped organise the event with the help of the BSA club said: “I estimate attendance was about 800 or so based…

David always liked the look of the A65 Firebird over the Lightning and had intended to convert his Lightning to Firebird spec, a popular mod. You can spot if a Firebird really is a Firebird by looking at the engine number, as it will begin A65FS. He found a Firebird in bits in 1986, intending to cannibalise it to make one BSA Firebird, but having checked the new acquisition he decided to rebuild it as a Firebird, and have two of the last A65s. The Firebird was one of the last produced and it spent its early life running around Welwyn Garden City. The bike was built on July 15, 1971 and despatched the next day to BSA dealer Schwieso Bros Ltd at 177 Lowerfield Street, Dartford, Kent even though…

KAWASAKI’S LEGENDARY EARLY Seventies triple, the H1B, is famous for many things. Awesome acceleration, smoking out the neighbours and just generally being a bad boy of motorcycling. The, erm, interesting handling characteristics are also well documented, so it makes sense for the owner to ensure that the basics are kept up to scratch – tyres and brakes being the obvious example. However, a couple of years back I ended up owning a fine-looking example of Mr Kawasaki’s scariest; the owner had spent fortunes on chrome and paint spread liberally onto scarce parts he’d sourced from around the world. It really looked fantastic, until I saw the tyres. They too, appeared to be straight out of the Seventies and had worn about as well as an ageing rock star’s mullet. Plenty…

IN THE BEGINNING Picture this: teenager, elderly Panther stroker leaning on its footrest against a kerb, rider with nose pressed against the grimy window of Taunton’s Norton dealer. The sound of a sigh, then the same teenager, bump-starting the Panther and pop-pop-popping off in a smoky way home for tea. Repeat. Repeat every afternoon for a full school term. Same teenager, same Panther … and the same motorcycle behind the glass. Sales were slow. It was 1971 and the bike was a Commando, a red one, a Fastback. LATER The same teenager, some months older, parks his G12 Matchless outside Woods’ Transport Cafe on the old A38. The M5 is heading south, but hasn’t reached Bridgwater yet. As he separates goggles from spectacles, the gloomy drizzle is brightened by a…

LIKE LOTS OF other, possibly wiser, riders, I have favourite machines. Several of them, in fact, which leads to enormous expense and storage problems. But at least a long-time fan of – say – post-1964 AMC 650s knows what he likes and what to expect and what to pay for them. And … to know how to fix them when they go wrong. Did I mention AMC 650s? Post 1964? I did? That’s because they’re great bikes. Known fact. If you didn’t know it before, you know it now. All of life is an education. So when I was tottering sleepily around the well patinated chaos of a distant Kempton Park autojumble I was delighted to espy exactly such a machine. It shone like a bathroom-blue butterfly in a sea…

ENGINE: Air-cooled ohv 55-degree V-twin dry sump four-stroke with pushrod operation of the two valves per cylinder DIMENSIONS: 84 x 90 mm CAPACITY: 998cc OUTPUT (AS TESTED): 52.4bhp at 4,800rpm (at rear wheel) TORQUE: 82.6Nm at 4,000rpm COMPRESSION RATIO: 8.5:1 CARBURATION (AS TESTED): 2 x 32mm Keihin CV (EFI available soon) IGNITION: Electronic CDI TRANSMISSION: five-speed Royal Enfield with duplex chain primary drive and seven-plate oil-bath clutch CHASSIS: Large-diameter tubular steel backbone with duplex open cradle and engine as fully stressed frame member SUSPENSION: Front: 35mm Royal Enfield leading-axle telescopic fork giving 130mm of wheel travel. Rear: Box-section steel swingarm with twin Royal Enfield gas shocks giving 80mm of wheel travel HEAD ANGLE/TRAIL: 27.5 degrees/98mm WHEELBASE: 1550mm WEIGHT: 230kg with oil, no fuel BRAKES (AS DELIVERED): Front: 1 x 280mm…

JUNE 27 VMCC (Essex section) 2nd Wrinkly Run: Tesco car park. Tel: Dave Overy 01621 893450. 28 Krazy Horse – Park it in the Market: Greenwich Market, Greenwich Church Street, London, SE10 9HZ. www.krazyhorse.co.uk 29 BRACAN at Breighton: Breighton Ferry Inn, Breighton, Selby, North Yorkshire YO8 6DH. www.bracanmcc.co.uk 29 – July 2 Biker Weekend, Unity Farm, Brean, Somerset. The first Holiday Resort Unity Biker Weekend. On Saturday, June 30 there will be a rideout to Minehead, through Burnham & Highbridge, stopping off at Riders of Bridgwater and on Sunday, July 1 a rideout up over the Mendip Hills, through the village of Churchill and back to the resort via Weston-super-Mare. Visit hru.co.uk/bikerweekend 30 BTSC AGM and Rally: Blackmore Camping and Caravan Site, Hanley Swan, Malvern WR8 0EE. 30 NCC Diamond…

David Bromley has a pair of Oil in Frame BSAs, both in their original trim, a Lightning and a Firebird. David’s Lightning was bought and rebuilt in 1982. He tried to get it as near as possible to the original specification for the bikes original date of manufacture in June 1971. It was kept off the road for many years but is now in use during the summer months. The bike was made on June 3, 1971 and was despatched sent on the same day to A E Milnes & Son, 190-192 Belgrave Gate, Leicester. It spent most of its early life with three owners running around Leicestershire. He bought the bike for a few hundred pounds in April 1982. David said: “I was the fourth owner and the engine…

Some big British singles were slow, basic but reliable plodders – such as Ariel’s Red Hunter or the Panther Sloper – but others, Gold Stars and Thruxtons among them, were some of the sportiest bikes ever made. The very last BSA off the production line at Small Heath in 1973 was a big single, a 500cc B50MX scrambler for the US market, with its origins dating back to the 150cc Triumph Terrier. And with the B50 gone, it was felt by many that the big single had had its day. The big single had not been forgotten, however. Three years later Yamaha came up with the XT500 and in 1978, the SR500 single. And Honda was also on the march and had been producing the four-stroke single engined XL250 and…

LONG-TERM CLASSIC FANATICS also tend to be serial bike buyers. Even if the frequency of such purchases isn’t exactly...er...frequent; most of us buy the odd machine from time to time and today, with the internet and social media, our options are manifold. And yet, even with the advent of such technologies, those “For Sale” ads still often carry more disinformation than the average TV news program. Sifting through the clichés, deciphering the half-truths, dodging the hokum etc, you might, just might, drill down far enough to determine if the advert conveys sufficient real information to make that 400-mile round trip in the vain hope the machine is truly viable. I’m not for one moment suggesting that the adverts that appear in such august journals as this (other magazines are available…

Steve The CS3C generator wouldn’t let go of the crank taper no matter what; so extremely reluctantly, it was angle grinder time. Seven hours later all that was left was this! Errr... and I certainly don’t ‘need’ another bike, yet this careworn Yamaha AS3 is now mine strangely. All complete with some spares with a V5C. All I need now is storage space and cash! Matt Despite spending most of the month on the road with lovely big machines, I’ve been trying to help my brother replace the engine in his Honda CG125. An engine was sourced, which went in remarkably well – but the carbs are different, the wiring plugs too. So momentum has slowed and it starting to get all fiddly… Oli Before taking my T140 from Somerset…