Innehållsförteckning för May/June 2021 från Motorcycle Classics

It's a funny gig being the editor of a motorcycle magazine. Sometimes rather than going looking for a bike, a bike finds you. If you’ve been keeping up with Founding Editor Richard Backus’ column, some time back he mentioned how much he had enjoyed riding a Ducati Paso that belonged to a reader. Sure enough, it led to another reader offering him a Paso at a price he couldn’t refuse. The bike is now on Richard’s lift, and someday soon we’ll get an update on its ongoing revival. Then it happened to me. Randy Clatterbuck, a friend and reader of the magazine, mentioned last spring that he’d just bought a 1988 BMW R100RS from a guy in the Kansas City area after finding it on Craigslist. After later hearing the…

1985-1988 Suzuki 700/750 Intruder Introduced in tariff-beater 700cc form in 1985, the Intruder was styled in the U.S. though built in Japan, and testers agreed it was the most stylish of its class. Like the Shadow, the Intruder used a 45-degree V-twin with offset cranks, this time at 45-degrees to give what Cycle World called “… a perfect balance between engine character and smoothness.” Each cylinder had its own overhead camshaft operating four valves in Twin Swirl Combustion Chambers (TSCC). Transmission was by 5-speed gearbox and shaft final drive. The drivetrain fit into a compact, lightweight frame making the Intruder somewhat lighter than its classmates, an advantage that was also felt in performance. Testers liked the broad, torquey powerband which gave the Intruder impressive roll-on performance. Where the Suzuki fell…

“A phone call to P. C. Vincent explaining my troubles — and the fact that I had been talked into entering for the five lap outer circuit handicap race [at Brooklands] on the following week-end produced the sort of service for which the firm has always been noted. The bike was collected, rebuilt (and between you and me, secretly breathed on, I think) and returned in three days. “We lined up for the race, and I felt horribly out of place with fearsome track machines on either side, drilled almost transparent with holes, and with handlebars which made me want to laugh. There were plenty of glances at my machine, complete with mud-guards, dynamo, toolbox… We were off! What fun that ride was and how soon it was all over!…

MV Agusta race team manager turned motorcycle manufacturer Arturo Magni was one of life’s achievers, a man with a passion for the sport and for two-wheeled design who made a massive contribution on both road and track to Italy’s motorcycle heritage. Even if he hadn’t started building the street bikes bearing his name more than 40 years ago at his home town of Samarate, northwest of Milan, Magni would still have been a legend in his lifetime, a backroom boy made famous by the race victories of the MV Agusta Grand Prix team whose leader he was. As supervisor of the small band of men responsible for the serial success enjoyed by Count Domenico Agusta’s two-wheeled Ferraris during their 26-year dominance of Grand Prix motorcycle racing, Arturo Magni was the…

I swear this story is true, though sometimes I have trouble believing it myself. Walking home from junior high with a couple of buddies, we spied an AJS 350 leaning in the hedgerow beside a farmer’s field, apparently abandoned. The question: Would it start? We pulled it from the hedge, and one of our more adventurous friends lunged on the starter pedal. A steady exhaust beat answered the question. One kid who had ridden his older brother’s bike hopped on and was soon chugging around the field. Then came my first ride on a real motorcycle. The exhilaration of bouncing along the dirt path and shifting gears with the engine thumping willingly below is seared into my memory, and an obsession seeded. Of course, the AJS eventually ran out of…

If you’ve ever rebuilt an older Triumph motorcycle engine, you’ve probably heard from everyone that you must tear it down completely to clean the sludge trap. It’s true. To completely trust that all that hard work won’t be in vain, you have to clean that primitive oil filter. Once you’ve done that, you certainly don’t want to have to ever do it again. The best way to ensure that the oil stays clean is for the oil to run through a spin-on filter that can be changed on a regular basis. So for this How-To, we’re going to install an aftermarket oil filter kit from Legend Cycle (legendcycle.net) on this 1968 Triumph Bonneville so you never have to worry about the sludge trap again. Here’s a short link directly to…

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”— Albert Einstein Fifty years ago newsstands in grocery and liquor stores were crammed with motorcycle magazines boasting energetic names like Popular Cycling, Motorcycle World, Modern Cycle, Cycle Illustrated, Hot Bike and Big Bike. Leading the pack, though, were the four major stalwarts, Cycle, Cycle World, Cycle Guide and Motorcyclist, which, first published in 1912, could be construed as the granddaddy of American motorcycle magazine titles. Today practically all of those and other titles are absent on what few newsstands remain in America’s retail outlets. Print media today has changed, catering now to a specialized market composed of people like you who enthusiastically subscribe to genre-specific publications such as Motorcycle Classics (which will continue, in print). It could be said that the…

“I'm more than happy to be upright and feeling the exhilaration of acceleration.” Remembering On Any Sunday When I read the On Any Sunday article, I felt so fortunate to have grown up in those times. I remember the motorcycle that set the path for me and thousands of others, the Yamaha DT-1. Motorcycles were freedom and I will ride until my body says no more. That movie truly captures the motorcycling fraternity and I’m so proud to have been a part of it and for so long. I always look forward to your latest issue. Thanks. Jeffry Carruthers/Calgary, Alberta Hi Jeffry, Thank you for the note. We’re all lucky to have motorcycling as a part of our lives, and OAS was the beginning of that for many of us.…

Universally beautiful is an apt description of the 1974 Ducati 750 Super Sport. Restoration expert Brady Ingelse of Retrospeed in Belgium, Wisconsin, has worked on two of these rare and exotic Italian motorcycles. The first was several years ago. Most recently, Brady helped Rick Fuhry of Milwaukee purchase the one seen here. Over the 15 years Brady’s been in business, one or the other of the Super Sports has graced his showroom for an extended period. Brady says, “It doesn’t matter if it’s a man, woman or child coming in, they all stop and admire the Super Sport sitting in the showroom. And, they all say, it’s just a beautiful motorcycle.” Regular readers will recall Rick’s name. We met him in the September/October 2020 issue with the story about his…

Eddie Lawson’s epic back-to-back titles for rival manufacturers in 1988-1989 was a world first. On his way to victory he also defeated two young rising stars of American roadracing, while taming a motorcycle many thought unwinnable. Much has been written about the mercurial and complex character that is four-time world 500cc champion Eddie Lawson. He’s been described as a calculating collector of race points, not wins; a master of mind games on the starting grid; introverted and arrogant; distrustful of journalists and hangers on but happy to use them to unsettle his rivals; and a perfectionist with a clinical approach to both life and racing. Very little has been written about how Lawson’s single-minded determination to achieve greatness, coupled with a love of riding the world’s fastest motorcycles at their…

Evolution is a natural process that occurs over generations. But it also applies to this story about Steve Willgoose and his 1982 Kawasaki KZ1000R-S1 replica — it’s an evolutionary tale if ever there was one. Since he was 17, Steve hankered after a KZ1000R Eddie Lawson Replica. It took him the rest of his life to achieve his goal by slowly piecing together the Kawasaki of his dreams. At 17, Steve was just getting into riding track days on 2-stroke Yamaha RD350s. At the racetrack in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where he was learning the ropes, Steve saw a seasoned racer show up on an Eddie Lawson Replica. For Steve, the bike was interesting because it was rare, expensive, and something of a large and daunting machine. Originally from Calgary and…

“The best way to find exact TDC is by use of a piston stop or dial indicator.” Finding top dead center Q: I’m having difficulty setting the timing on my Boyer-equipped 1966 Triumph Tiger T100SR. I’m using a Motion Pro degree wheel that measures 6.75 inches. I set the timing at 38 degrees BTDC as per the shop manual. No joy! I have also tried 19 degrees BTDC thinking of exhaust cam rotation. It’s been decades since I’ve done this, what am I missing? Randy Randall/via email A: It depends on where you have mounted the degree wheel. If you have it mounted on the crankshaft, the 38-degree measurement is correct. If you have it mounted on the camshaft end where the points cam sits, you cut that in half…

My wife and I are always on the hunt for interesting places to visit, and a couple of years ago at the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show we spotted the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department booth. There to promote Oklahoma as a place to explore, it worked for us. I had another motivation: A lifelong friend is a retired federal agent in Tulsa (with bona fides that include Waco, the Los Angeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and more). Tulsa would be a good base for exploring, with Oklahoma City to the west and the lake country to the east. Tulsa is a city with a storied history. Originally settled in the early 1800s by the Lochapoka Creek Native Americans and later by the Cherokees driven out of Georgia,…

Pivoting is a favorite buzzword in modern business-speak, meaning to radically change strategic direction when current products or services are not meeting market needs. Yamaha did just that with the 1981 XV750 Virago. Through the 1970s, the yardstick for progress was performance. Though “custom” and “special” versions of ’70s UJMs conceded the trend toward cruiser aesthetics, they were clearly just street standards with a stepped seat and pulled-back bars. Yamaha pivoted with a radical new V-twin aimed at the American buyer. Style and comfort replaced speed and strip times as the new benchmarks. And that also opened a potential new market. Yamaha started with a blank CAD screen. First, for a serious stab at the U.S. cruiser market, it had to be a V-twin. The included cylinder angle settled at…

There’s certainly no company more entitled to produce a retro model using current MV Agusta hardware than Moto Magni, whose founder the late Arturo Magni was the architect of the historic Italian trophy marque’s remarkable haul of 75 road racing World Championships in 26 years. And that’s what Magni’s youngest son Giovanni, 61, has indeed successfully done over the past eight years in going back to the future by creating Moto Magni’s array of MV Agusta-powered tribute models, combining today’s engineering and performance with the styling cues and spirit of yesteryear. First came the Storia (“history” in Italian), a classically-styled but super-striking 4-cylinder streetfighter which debuted in 2013, and continues in production today with more than 30 such bikes built to date in the Magni factory at Samarate, north of…

If there’s a perfect embodiment of the decline, collapse and demise of the British motorcycle industry, the AJS Model 16 could be it. That’s not to say it was a bad motorcycle. Based on sound technology and refined over decades, this classic British 350cc single represents everything that was both good and bad about British bikes of the 1960s. It was solid, strong and reliable with a storied heritage steeped in motocross and trials victories. But it was also a 30-year-old design in a market that was turning over every couple of years. For example: in 1965, for pretty much the same money as the 18 horsepower AJS, you could buy a 28 horsepower 305cc Honda CB77 that would top out at over “the ton,” where the A-jay was all…

Some of the greatest motorcycle companies started with a simple dream. Soichiro Honda began making piston rings after World War II. The Ducati brothers offered an auxiliary engine, the Cucciolo, to power bicycles. And William Harley and the Davidson brothers developed a single-cylinder motorbike in a wooden shed. While these companies flourished to become global leaders, far more made a similar start, found a toehold for a while, and then misstepped, ran short of ideas, capital or leverage, and faded away. This latter scenario describes Noguchi, a Japanese company that made racing parts for various Yamahas during the 1970s. Credit company founder Taneharu Noguchi, Yamaha’s first factory rider and later team manager, with great timing in building go-fast parts for the company’s growing lineup of dirt bikes. Using chrome-plated aluminum…

MOTORCYCLE JOURNEYS THROUGH NORTH AMERICA Whether considering an ocean-to-ocean cross-country journey, a vacation ride through the Canadian Rockies, a full-length tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway, or an ambitious Four-Corners ride, Motorcycle Journeys Through North America provides the “bigidea” guidance every rider needs to plan fun-filled motorcycle tours throughout the continental United States and Canada. #10368 $32.99 Members: $29.69 New! THE BOOK OF DUCATI 750 SS: ‘ROUND CASE’ 1974 Although manufactured for only one year, 1974, the Ducati 750 Super Sport was immediately touted as a future classic. It was a pioneer motorcycle – expensive and rare, and produced by Ducati’s race department to celebrate victory in the 1972 Imola 200 Formula 750 race. Learn all about this magnificent bike from author, Ian Falloon in The Book of the Ducati…