Innehållsförteckning för January - February 2016 från Motorcycle Classics

When the lightweight offroad bike craze hit the U.S. in the late 1960s, Harley-Davidson was perfectly positioned to compete. But H-D’s dirt diggers didn’t hail from Milwaukee — or anywhere else in the U.S. In 1960, Harley bought a 50 percent stake in the cash-strapped Italian motorcycle company Aermacchi. Parent Aeronautica Macchi had spun off its motorcycle division to focus on its core business: aircraft. Based in their old seaplane factory on Lake Varese north of Milan, Aermacchi produced a sturdy but rather staid overhead valve 4-stroke single that became the H-D Sprint in the U.S. Offroad bikes were quickly growing in popularity in the 1960s U.S. market, so when Yamaha turned the dirt bike world upside down in 1968 with the 250cc DT-1 (selling as many as 50,000 a…

Motorcycle Classics at the Isle of Man 2016 The Isle of Man. For motorcyclists, the name resonates like few others. For over 100 years, the Isle has drawn motorcycle racers and enthusiasts to one of the most thrilling circuits in the world to watch as racers hustle around its fabled 37.73-mile mountain course. You’ve read about it, you’ve watched videos from the TT, and some of your friends have gone. “Someday,” you’ve told yourself, “I’ll make it.” Well that “someday” is drawing near if you join Motorcycle Classics as we head to the U.K. for the 2016 Isle of Man Festival of Motorcycling and Classic TT races, hosting a very special tour Aug. 24 through Sept. 2, 2016. The 10-day tour will be led by seasoned tour planner and vintage…

An engineering marvel as well as an objet d’art, this New Zealand-built 1962 Manx Norton replica literally runs as good as it looks. And how good is that? In Bruce Anstey’s hands in 2014 it won the Classic TT GP1 class — and set the fastest lap ever for a Manx on the mountain course at the Isle of Man. That’s how good. In the 1950s, John Surtees rode a Manx on his way up the ladder to successive Grand Prix wins. So did the legendary Mike Hailwood, and Stirling Moss got his car racing start in a revolutionary rear-engine Cooper F3 powered by a Manx Norton engine. Remarkably, more than a half-century since the last Manx left the factory, the Manx Norton legend continues to grow. Last summer, nine-time…

In 2008, Englishman Mark Upham surprised the vintage motorcycle community when he purchased the rights and trademarks to Brough Superior. At first, Upham focused on building new replicas of the original SS100, but in 2013 he announced plans to build a new SS100. In 2015, production of the first all-new motorcycle to wear the Brough name in 75 years started ramping up. The new SS100 was designed by and is being built in collaboration with Frenchman Thierry Henriette of Boxere Design. Although the styling is decidedly retro, especially the vintage Broughinspired gas tank, there’s no mistaking this SS100 for an original. Echoing Broughs of the past, the new SS100’s engine is yet a V-twin, but built to modern standards. The double overhead cam, liquid-cooled 997cc 88-degree V-twin has four valves…

As a home run two-wheeled Trivial Pursuit question, it has few equals: Forty-one years ago, Harley-Davidson competed in the 1975 500cc World Championship against Suzuki and Yamaha with a race-winning 2-stroke Grand Prix motorcycle of its own design — true or false? Sorry to disillusion the Hog faithful, but however unlikely, it happens to be TRUE! Yet later that same year, the twin-cylinder 4-carburetor RR500 project died almost as mysteriously as it had been born, leaving Aermacchi, Harley’s Italian division, to focus on retaining its 250cc world crown. The RR500 was the work of a close-knit band of just four men who comprised the Harley-Davidson road racing team, working out of its Italian subsidiary’s lakeside factory at Varese. Aermacchi became a motorcycle manufacturer in postwar Italy, catering to the need…

Glimpsing even a single Parilla, with its shapely lines and graceful hound logo, is uncommon — gazing upon a pack of them is extraordinary. Ten years have passed since the last U.S. Parilla owners gathering. So when smoke signals went up confirming Parilla Days USA 2015, the faithful came, drawn together by their shared passion for a rare Italian motorcycle that’s been out of production for more than 50 years. Held Aug. 19-22 at Colorado National Speedway just north of Denver, the 2015 Parilla Days USA event was a chance for the Parilla clan to hang out, bench race and scrutinize one another’s bikes. They rode on the street and the track and they shared Parilla lore, listening to stories told by the very people who established Parilla’s presence in…

Always turning and pulling a load, the primary chain is yet another oft-ignored motorcycle maintenance item. Fortunately, they’re usually quite robust, and outside of regular tension adjustment they typically require little attention. Hidden from view as they are, it’s not surprising that many owners ignore them, yet they do need occasional replacement. True to its early-Fifties British roots, like many British motorcycles Royal Enfield’s familiar single-cylinder Bullet employs a separate engine and transmission with a chain-driven primary drive — as do even the newer “unit” engined Enfields; they may have fuel injection, but they still employ some old school technology. The primary chain plays an important role in your powertrain, transferring engine output from the crankshaft to the clutch, which then feeds the power to the transmission and finally the…

Riding through Arches National Park I saw the article on Arches National Park in the November/December 2015 issue of Motorcycle Classics, and I wanted to send a picture from my road trip this summer. I passed through there on my 1978 Ducati Darmah 900 on the homeward leg of a 6,000-mile trip from Georgia to the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped at Arches after finishing “The Loneliest Road” (US 50 in Nevada), and on our way to Pike’s Peak in Colorado. We saw lots of amazing scenery that looks nothing like Georgia. It was a fantastic trip that was all the more rewarding for doing it with a vintage bike. The bike ran great the whole time, too, except for the Lucas starter solenoid, which got fried after a couple…

A poor performer on the market when new, the SX250 seems to be experiencing something of an uptick in interest from would-be owners who view it as an interesting detour in Harley-Davidson’s history of mostly Americanmade V-twins. We found a half-dozen SX250s for sale online, with prices ranging from a low of $1,250 for a non-runner missing bits to $3,500 for the bike shown here, the nicest of the bunch. This SX250 was one of two traded in 2008 to a Maryland H-D dealer for a new Ultra Glide. It sat on the showroom floor until recently, when the dealership got it back into shape, borrowing needed parts from its sister bike. Both bikes run, although this one needs a new magneto and control cables to be right. It appears…

In 10 years, the Barber Festival has grown to become the largest vintage motorcycle event held anywhere in the U.S. Two sets of numbers tell it all: 6,000 — that’s how many people attended the first event in 2005; 69,264 — that’s how many people Bruno Event Team, the event management company charged with corralling the annual Barber Vintage Festival, says attended the annual three-day event in 2015 — a 1,054 percent increase. That growth is hardly surprising to the Barber faithful, and it’s likely largely thanks to them that it’s occurred. Simply put, once you’ve been, you’ll tell everyone you know that if there’s only one show they can attend, it has to be Barber — and as the event’s growth curve suggests, people are listening. Brittens on track…

Way back in the 1970s, the streets of Southern California fairly teemed with new Japanese bikes. In stark contrast to the chromeplate cache of these latest designs, in a neighbor’s garage sat an old Manx Norton, dusty and disheveled. It was clearly from another time and place, but did it ever have presence. I never even sat on that Featherbed, but its racy profile deeply and forever imprinted me with the exoticness that is the Manx Decades later, opportunity has allowed dozens of racing sessions on five different Manxes, from a 1937 500cc rigid rear suspension model (technically an International) up to the Anstey bike featured here. In between were races on a 1948 500cc Garden Gate, a 1951 500cc Featherbed long-stroke, and a 1961 500cc short-stroke of my own.…

The Apple computer I’m using as I write this story and its subject matter, a BMW R60/2, have something in common. In the early 1980s, long before Apple and its iProducts were household names, Steve Jobs, the enigmatic mind behind the company, rode around San Francisco on a 1966 BMW R60/2. When Jobs wasn’t riding it, the BMW was parked in Apple’s atrium lobby. Walter Isaacson, author of the 2011 biography/autobiography Steve Jobs, wrote, “Over time, the atrium attracted even more toys, most notably a Bösendorfer piano and a BMW motorcycle that Jobs felt would inspire an obsession with lapidary craftsmanship.” The word “lapidary” has a couple of definitions, one of them being “careful, elegant and dignified in style.” It’s clear that Jobs felt classic BMW motorcycles offered refined elegance…

In 2008, British businessman Stuart Garner announced the rebirth of Norton Motorcycles. Initial production was set to start in mid-2009, with delivery of U.S. bikes to follow in late 2009 or early 2010. U.K. market bikes began trickling out of the Norton factory in 2010, but critical EPA certification for the U.S. market didn’t come until late 2012, and it wasn’t until October 2013 that the firstbatch of Norton Commando 961s landed on our shores. Vintage motorcycle enthusiast Bob Jones wanted one of the new Nortons, so in February 2011 he put down a $3,000 deposit on a 961SE, hoping to take possession that year. 2011 stretched to 2012, then 2013 and 2014. In May 2015, 51 months after tendering his deposit, Bob finally got his new Norton Commando 961SE.…

Choke needed Q: I inherited a 1988 BMW R100RT. The bike has been sitting for 15 years. I rebuilt the carburetors, and it now starts and runs, but even once the engine is warm it shuts down when you turn off the choke and won’t restart without it. Where do I go from here? Aurelio Orlandini/via email A: Oddly enough, I just had this exact same problem presented to me at my shop on another BMW. The gas tank was rusty and flakes were finding their way into the idle jets about as fast as I could clean them. Inline fuel filters stopped the clogging. I’d pull the idle jets again and make sure they are open. I use a single wire from a discarded throttle cable (small enough to pass…

Back in the day, owners of touring bikes customized to stand out from the hum-drum world of stock motorcycles called their longdistance haulers “dressers.” The word was fitting, because touring bike owners “dressed” their big-rig two-wheelers with all sorts of gizmos and gadgets. Most dressers could be identified by their bundles of chromed bolt-on accessories, not to mention the endless strings of auxiliary running lamps and taillights often attached. Foxtail streamers, extended muffler tips and extra mirrors were optional (whitewall tires were all but mandatory), and some of the dressers from that era carried enough exterior illumination to light up Las Vegas, as these pics from the 1976 AMA Grand National flat track race in Oklahoma show. Clearly, the phrase black-out was not in the vocabulary. Eventually, though, the dresser…

• 1974-1976 • 16.9hp @ 6,500rpm/76mph • 248cc air-cooled 2-stroke single • 5-speed, chain final drive • 260lb (dry)/45mpg • Price then/now: $870 (1974)/ $400-$1,500 Named for the famous Lake Elsinore, California, race, the MT250 was both more — and less — than a street-legal version of the 1973 CR250M Elsinore from which it was derived. Gone were the chrome moly chassis, alloy wheel rims and magnesium castings; added were lights, a battery and turn signals. Those omissions and additions brought dry weight up from a very light 214 pounds to 260 pounds. However, both machines shared the same basic powertrain, a 250cc piston-port 2-stroke single. To make it a little more civilized, the MT got more relaxed porting in the iron-sleeved cylinder, heavier flywheels and a 28mm Keihin carburetor.…

BRRACK! The pleasant background murmur of an old bike swap meet is suddenly drowned in a haze of 2-stroke noise and exhaust. Someone’s just fired up their Kawasaki triple, and while some folks cover their ears and curse the machine and its owner, others step over to see the bike. Kawasaki 2-stroke triples seem to be polarizing machines, the object of intense hatred or intense love. Hans Agren loves them, noise, blue smoke and all. He was just 17 when he saw his first H1. When he was growing up in Sweden, a motorcycle was transportation, something you got to school or work on, weather permitting. The H1 was different. It was fast and antisocial, and just what a young man wanted. Hans had some savings, and he found someone…

As any rider can tell you, motorcycling is a pursuit that can cause chapped lips because your lips are regularly exposed to weather and wind, especially riding with an open-faced helmet. To protect one’s lips, many is the rider who leaves home with a stick of Carmex lip balm tucked into a pocket of his or her jeans or tank bag. Paul Woelbing of Franklin, Wisconsin, will certainly never be without a stick. That’s because he’s the grandson of Alfred Woelbing, who just happens to have invented Carmex medicated lip balm. In 1937, Woelbing developed a concoction to help alleviate cold sores. Working in his kitchen, he mixed and poured the remedy by hand. Twenty years later, he was turning out Carmex in volume in a new factory. Today, Paul…

Remember Trickle-Down? The theory of supply-side economics that became popular during President Ronald Reagan’s administration? That phrase could also be used to describe the development of Honda’s immensely popular range of sub-200cc twins from the 1960s and 1970s. When Honda first started importing motorcycles into the U.S. at the end of the 1950s, the bikes looked pretty weird alongside the British and American bikes of the day. Honda made extensive use of pressed steel in the construction of its frames, fenders and leading-link forks. The early Benlys and Dreams even used a single pressing as a combined backbone frame and rear fender. To Joe Biker, who was used to frames and forks made of steel tubes, the aesthetics of the early Hondas were … challenging. Those pressed steel frames also…

We’ve been pretty satisfied with the rate of progress on our project 1970 Honda CB350. It hasn’t been too hard squeezing the tear-down work in between our “real” work, and things were going really well until — you knew this was coming — we got hit by the unexpected: And it wasn’t a problem with the bike. The unexpected problem had nothing to do with our CB350, although, somewhat ironically, it did involve a Honda; just not this one. A few weeks after shipping the last issue, I was kickstarting my 1966 Honda CA95 when the kickstarter stopped, but my leg kept going. The resulting torn Achilles’ tendon, followed by surgery, took me out of commission for a few weeks. I’m starting to get back up to speed, but the…

After four seasons in AHRMA’s Production Lightweight class, Leasha Overturf has developed a keen appreciation for the interplay between her professional work and her life on the track. Overturf is a producer and photographer for Chicagobased Paul Elledge Photography, and while commercial work is the studio’s bread and butter, she and Elledge also teach their craft. “We teach our students it’s not about being technical, it’s about your passion and finding yourself within things; it’s about having a vision, and when you’re motorcycling, you have to have vision.” Overturf’s introduction to two wheels came at the age of 8, when her stepdad bought her a mini-bike. She rode a 125cc Yamaha enduro through high school, but sold it to buy a car for college. Motorcycling got left behind for years,…

Nestled high in western Wyoming, spanning the Continental Divide and spilling over into Montana and Idaho, Yellowstone National Park is the crown jewel of the U.S. National Park System. Declared the first national park in 1872, Yellowstone set in motion the national park concept for the U.S. and the rest of the world. I’ve been to many national parks in the U.S. and other countries; without question, 2.2-million-acre Yellowstone stands at the pinnacle. Yellowstone’s combination of beauty, geological oddities, wildlife and size makes it a magical place. Yellowstone remains geologically active to this day. Steam from deep in the earth punctuates forests, lakes, meadows and mountains. A deep sulfur aroma permeates much of the place. Mud ponds, hot springs and geysers add to the effect. Riding through Yellowstone is surreal.…