Innehållsförteckning för March 2025 från Classic Bike Guide

Greetings all, Hope we find you warm, content and well-fed. Because here in the UK it hasn’t been that great outside so I’m guessing many haven’t even looked at any steeds, and as I found out to my cost, you are the sensible ones. The weather was looking alright, if slightly chilly, last week, when I was due at a feature in Leicestershire, about 140 miles away. I’m lucky enough to have built up top-class kit over the years (Rukka, Daytona boots, Arai, as people have asked – all very expensive, but all do what they say they will if you look after them – boots are more than 10 years old) and the BMW has a very respectable fairing with built-in foot warmers, so I set off, looking forward…

CRAIG MCMARTIN’S FAIRYTALE WIN ON THE Irving Vincent in the 2008 Daytona Battle of the Twins was much more than just ‘there ain’t no substitute for cubes.’ The rival, oversized 1200cc Ducati, Buell and KTM V-twins that were used to grappling successfully with 1000cc superbike fours, had the tables turned on them big-time by the neo-vintage Vincent, whose air-cooled pushrod motor measured a whopping 1571cc in capacity! This enormous engine came thanks to ‘square’ 100x100mm dimensions which delivered 162bhp at the crank, at a torquey, slow-revving 6500rpm, in a bike scaling 175kg with oil, but no fuel – or water. “Water’s just what we use for washing the bike with!” grinned Ken Horner, in pitlane at Phillip Island, as he prepared to give me the keys to the Daytona winner…

■ Buy a radio. It gets tiring talking to yourself. ■ Get some shelves, and some storage boxes to put on them. Big discount stores are good for these, old fruit boxes look cool, and old Post Office letter sorting boxes are brilliant. For big items, the bread and vegetable trays from supermarkets are excellent; you can find them at jumbles. ■ While the garage is empty, get a few security ground anchors in place while fitting out, too. ■ Get some overalls or a foreman’s coat and lots of disposable rubber gloves – you can never have too many. An old beer crate makes a good engine stand and gives you somewhere to sit while you ponder your next move. ■ You will need a solid workbench with a…

Herbert Schek was an acclaimed trials rider. A giant of a man at more than 6ft 6in tall, Schek had been racing in enduros and trials since he was 18 years old. He started with Puch but found them unreliable, so he moved to using Maico machinery. This gained him several titles of the German Enduro Championship. In 1966 Schek used BMWs for his campaigns. At the ISDT held in Sweden, East Germany, he won overall team honours, at West Germany collected the Silver Vase, and won his class on his factory-built machine. But it was not to be, as BMW decided not to compete in trials the following year. Schek went back to Maico. The year 1969 saw BMW decide that enduro could be good advertising again when it…

IN 1991, AN AMERICAN JOURNALIST DECLARED THAT THE THEN all-new Ducati 900SS Supersport was ‘the best street bike Ducati has ever made.’ Today, it might just be that the machine at the top of the SS range is the greatest-value classic motorcycle you can buy, if you rate it on a pound-per-fun ratio. Auctioneer Bonhams sold one in January for £1800, and you can get 600 or 750 versions for less than that. Admittedly, Supersport ownership might also be the quickest way to get a hefty physiotherapist’s bill, but then glory does have its price. The story of the SS goes back further than you may think. It started way back in 1973 with Ducati’s last try at winning 500GP races. With Taglioni busy on 750 racer duty, he handed…

British bikes will always have incredible charm. Ownership genuinely takes you back to the days of daily maintenance, but it also gives you that authentic riding experience. The majority of marques have a loyal following, great clubs with enthusiastic members only too keen to help, and parts availability is mainly great. This month sees us finish our tour, heading from Panther to Vincent. As always, prices are a rough guide based on auction results and market analysis, not a definitive amount. Hope you enjoy – Oli and Matt. PANTHER Owning a Panther is like owning no other motorcycle. More than 90% of the M100 and M120 slopers were produced for sidecars. The 594cc M100, which first appeared in 1932 and later the 645cc M120 made from 1959, were designed as…

IT’S 1969. YOU ARE STROLLING OUT OF THE factory on a Friday night and your meagre apprentice wages are burning a hole in your back pocket. You are determined to go looking for wheels on Saturday morning, a copy of Motorcycle and Three-Wheeler Mechanics stuffed into your overalls. If you don’t want a scooter, and they were quickly slipping out of fashion, your limited financial resources might just run to a 125. Small British bikes are dead in the water. No matter how much the Government says you should be ‘Backing Britain,’ the Francis-Barnett Plover had been out of production for two years and that wasn’t going to cut it down at the bus stop. Your local bike shop might have an array of small Italian bikes, but those are…

SO, YOU WANT TO OWN A DUCATI but don’t like fairings, or back pain, and get bored of long, sweeping bends. Do you like riding on back roads and racing through city centres with traffic light GPs and the crobba-crobba of the big (or indeed not so big) L-twin? What you may need in your life, then, is a Ducati Monster. Launched in 1993, the Monster didn’t just help make Ducati a success – it had a massive influence on motorcycle design around the world. Until the Monster, urban street bikes followed the faux-Harley line or were just naked fours. The Monster was something new, and it was extremely cool. Designed by Miguel Galluzzi from a concept by Ducati technical director Massimo Bordi, this flash of genius introduced the world…

THE DAUGHTER, SON, AND extended family of one of the most legendary Senior TT winners visited the Isle of Man for the Manx GP last year. They came to finally get to know the place where the great Schorsch Meier achieved his sensational victory 86 years ago in June – as the first non-English rider and, for the first time, on a non-English motorbike. Schorsch Meier, born in Bavaria, Germany, had always ridden motorcycles. He was a motorcycle instructor for the German police and would later do the same in the war due to a back injury sustained racing. He also raced off-road and competed in the 1937 ISDT held in Wales, and he excelled on four wheels too – he was a reserve driver for the Auto Union team,…

IN THE SPRING A YOUNG MAN’S fancy lightly turns to thoughts of… Well… What? What exactly should a young man’s fancy turn to following the dreaded realisation that winter is leaving us, and spring is due any month now? Probably. You’ll notice that I’ve carefully ignored the increasingly obvious fact that I am no more a man who could be described as being young – except possibly in a low-rent comedy routine on a very poor YouTube channel. Having asked myself the What? question, I of course need to answer it myself. The very definition of a rhetorical question, probably, although it’s a long time since I suffered O-Level English Grammar. And the answer is? My thoughts almost always turn to projects. Not to increasingly unlikely visions of riding an…