Innehållsförteckning för June 2017 från Real Classic

First things first. I’m really not keen on letting people down, and am sorry about being unable to make it to the Stafford Showback in April. The two big shows there are among the event highlights of my year (really!) and we’d planned to have the usual blizzard of conversations, trade tips, exchange insults and do a lot of coffee and laughter – as usual. However, instead of all that I can confirm that the NHS emergency services are excellent, that the staff at Barnstaple hospital are outstanding. All good stuff … if not exactly what I’d expected to be doing. So…sorry to all those who turned up to find the RC stripy tableclothmissing. The next piece of bad news follows on from that. I’m not sure whether I’ll be…

My relationship with Ariels has been long, and it has been contradictory and occasionally strained. I’ve ridden loads of themdown the years, and enjoyed riding every single one – apart from an Arrow which had even less brakes than they usually do.Mind you, it ran so badly that it would only need brakes if pointing down a steep hill. The first – a ride I’ll never forget – was on a Huntmaster, which was the most awesome, terrifyingly fast and raucous machine I could imagine. The only other bikes I’d ridden at that point were a 2-stroke Panther, a C15 and a Vespa scooter. Times change. For quite a while, back in the pre-classic days of the 1970s, I gradually – only twenty years too late – began to understand…

One of the main aspects of the Harris plan for the re-introduction of the Matchless marque was to establish a number of models. The G80 was to be the volumeselling road tourer, and then a sportster was to be released with the emotive model identification G50, named after the legendary 500 racer of the 1960s. This would have been based on the G80 but with twin front discs as standard, a longer thinner tank and single sports seat, rear-set footrests and clip-on handlebars, skinnier mudguards, alloy rims and a 42bhp engine. The higher output was to be achieved withmore compression, bigger carb, wilder cam and a shorter louder exhaust. Additionally, the bike’s styling was to be a 1980s version of the café racer theme, using more compact fittings like tucked-in turn…

I’m Italian. Nobody is perfect, so I have accepted this limitation. Anyway, as amitigating circumstance, I affirm that I have always lovedmotorbikes. One day when I was around 40 years old, I realised firstly that I was around 40 years old, and secondly that the motorbikes I always lovedwere the motorbikes of my youth, and thirdly that those bikes had become as old as I had. Thus I began loving OLD bikes. After some study, I discovered that ‘old’ bikes are classified in classic, vintage and other groups which I quickly forgot. My passion turned from motorbikes to classic motorbikes, and I have started collecting classic motorbikes, beginning with Ducatis (nobody’s perfect, remember) of the 1980s and then going on to other decades and nationalities: Honda of the 1970s, Guzzi…

INVESTIGATING THE FRONT END Regarding Odgie’s BSA feature in RC156; the girder forks look identical to those fitted to my 1932W6 (see RC95), BSA part number 15-5210. Two other clues: the second eyes in the top mounting plate for the headlamp bracket and the double lug where the front brake cable outer locates. This lugwould also have located a cable from the foot brake, suggesting these forks came from an early 1930s linked-brake model, probably one with hand change. The cables originally operated a plunger screwed to the top of a rod which pulled the brake arm. The correct top yoke for this fork has two tapped holes to carry a speedometer mounting plate and long‘ears’ to the rear to clamp the handlebars. As the speedo mounting on Odgie’s feature…

BEFORE THEWAR therewere several sports 350s on the market. Their engines thrived on revs and could withstand full-throttle driving all day. The performance approached that available from a 500ccmachine. Theywere ‘enthusiast’s mounts’ which paid dividends when handled by an expert rider. The 346cc Bullet revives the spirit of this type… WITH ITS excellent telescopic front fork and pivot-action rear suspension, the machine is endowedwith handling qualities that are second to none. No praise is too high for the steering and road-holding THE EXHAUST was loud when the engine was revved in the higher ranges and, though having a note that was stirring to the enthusiast, was probably objectionable to non-motorcyclists THE ENGINE will pull uncommonly well, with a degree of smoothness surpassing that of many a modern parallel twin. It…

PART THE LAST Some trad classic fans became instant critics of the Devon-built Euro/Brit bike when it was first introduced. They were quick to point out how the last of what they described as the ‘real’Matchless G80CS bikes had produced the same quoted power output two decades earlier, and it was easier to start. Such claims aside, there are a number of tweaks which raise the performance of the Rotax-engined Harris Matchless. irstly the stock exhaust is restrictive and makes the motor sound toomuch like a whimper. You can either replace the muffler in total or cut off the rear part (where it gets restrictive) and weld on a freer flowing end section. Secondly, Rotax make a series of cam options and the one fitted to the stock G80 is…

SEND YOUR SMALL AD by post to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX, or email words and a pic to TP@realclassic.net SEND YOUR SMALL BY EMAIL TO TP@REALCLASSIC.NET SEND YOUR SMALL AD by post to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX, or email words and a pic to TP@realclassic.net SEND YOUR SMALL AD by post to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX, or email words and a pic to TP@realclassic.net BIKES FRANCIS BARNETT 150. 1966. No spark. SORN. Good condition. £1000. 01560 673109, Ayrshire WANTS WANTED! Norton rigid frame or other in which to fit a 500ohv engine. Haveupright Nortonbox and/or 1946 Model 18 tank to trade. Lloyd, 01209 213368, Cornwall (And another hugeTHANKS, too! TP) ASHOT INTHE DARK but heregoes! I have aVilliers MK2FAutocycle motor and box looking for…

W The Paso sets newdetailing standards for Ducati. The Cagiva buyout has brought updated quality standards. This motorcycle was almost titled the ‘Cagiva Paso’until Cagiva’s president decided to use the Ducati name. The company is serious about making motorcycles that compete head-on with Japanese bikes. The Paso is one more big step in that direction ▸ Thewell-thought-out suspension units are top-rate and highly adjustable; each end has approximately 5.5 inches of wheel travel. From the company that brought us the buckboard ride of the F1 comes one of the smoothest-riding sport bikes we’ve tried ▸ The Paso isn’t a snap-steerer like the FZ600. The longish wheelbase that comes with Ducati’s engine layout keeps the steering in the human realm. It responds sharply and crisply to steering inputs but not with…

It may have been ancient and obscure history, but apparently the Pennington articles did tickle some readers. Reader Howard Branch was prompted by the Pennington ignition to send in a copy of a February 1957 ‘Motor Cycle’ article by Alan Baker on the Gilbert-Hobbs ignition system. This was aimed at foiling the two-stroke habit of whiskering plugs, by the expedient of placing the earthed electrode on the piston instead of the spark plug itself. Any such whisker would quickly be broken as the piston receded, the only problem being that a tricky adjustment job was required to set the plug gap (and the consequences of getting it wrong do not bear thinking about)! Thanks also to Mal Burgess, whose recent feedback to HQ included a compliment for the column, also…

Iwas intending to start this episodic epistle with the traditional rhetorical question: ‘Where were we?’But there would be no point. Where we were is exactly where we are still. At least I have a decent excuse for a change. It all sound very dramatic, but last month’s tale fromThe Shed was actually written on a laptop computer in a hospital, where I was parked up for some remedial action following that paramedics, ambulances, flashing lights and powerful opiates experience. The last mentioned was in fact the only fun involved, and although the unexpected emergency has passed – thanks for asking – it has put a serious crimp into my increasinglyweary attempts at fixing the world’smost recalcitrant BSA. Actually, that’s only partly true. There has been progress. Of a sort. The…