Innehållsförteckning för January 2017 från Real Classic

I had a friend who was vaguely looking for a trials bike, so I was vaguely goozing about on eBay for her, like you do. The brief was relatively simple. She’s ridden bikes in the past, including hefty road bikes and slightly hefty trials bikes, but not for the last 15 years or so while she’d been working abroad. At a skinny five-foot-not-very-much, and of advancing years, the bike had to be lightweight, since her days of kickstarting her 850 Commando – yes really, her only transport for many years, including while working mixed shifts at all hours of the day and night in intensive care – were probably best left behind her. The first choice would be a four-stroke, simply because she prefers them. But she’d owned a trials…

I have been repairing, rebuilding and occasionally even riding motorcycles as a hobby since 1970. While there was a short BMW interlude, and more recently a Nimbus aberration which I may write about in the future, during that 46 year stretch all of my motorcycles were either Yamahas, Hondas or Suzukis. I can explain the Nimbus: I was looking for something older than I am, and it had to be metric, ‘interesting, and with the shift lever on the correct (left) side. The BMW is harder to explain, but I came into used R75/5 ownership with the insurance settlement after my brand new 1974 GT750 was stolen. So I blame the lapse in common sense on grief due to my then-recent loss, youth and inexperience! The Suzuki GT750 Water Buffalo…

There’s a scene in the movie Mad Max where two guys discuss the eponymous hero’s car, one of the few still working in this post-apocalyptic world. ‘The last of the V8s,’ says one road warrior in awed tones. In many ways the Laverda you see here is motorcycling’s equivalent of the Max mobile, a lusty, noisy, mechanically raw air-cooled three-cylinder massive dinosaur still roaming the roads in a world that had turned to sophisticated water-cooled fours. But why? By 1988 it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect Laverda to have replaced their venerable three banger, whose roots were firmly placed in the early years of the previous decade. Indeed, the factory itself had announced plans several years earlier to produce a new triple, one with water cooling. The SFC1000, a…

Kay and Conor hail originally from Cork in Ireland, and 29 years ago moved to Melbourne in Australia. At the 2016 Krusty Rally, organised by the Indian Motorcycle Club of Australia IMCA in new South Wales, Kay participated in three days of organised rides on country roads at the controls of this lovely original-paint 1928 Scout Model 101. She rides the bike with such style, poise and panache that it’s clear this particular example of fellow Irish-person Charles B Franklin’s design masterpiece is her pride and joy. What is it about these early Scouts? Does the reality live up to the hype? I caught up with Kay during the barbecue lunch stop to quiz her about the bike of her affections. TimP: Why do you ride an Indian? Kay: Conor…

Hot summer days, sixteen years of age. Full throttle in every gear, flat down on the tank, carving up West Cumbria on my mate’s Triumph 350 Twenty One. While we rode, in the garden shed languished his dad’s 1949 Tiger 100, in bits for at least half of its life. It would take me the next 27 years to persuade him to accept that he was never going to get it back together himself, and that I was dead keen to do that. After tarns of time had flowed under many granite lakeland bridges, it came to pass that on a hot June day in 1997, having struck a cast-iron deal, the dismembered and heavily decayed remains of the creature were exhumed from its tomb. Here the Tiger had lain…

Before you say anything, of course I know that it is verging on the stupidly suicidal to ride a motorcycle without a crash helmet, and I would dismiss anyone who did so as being an idiot. Likewise lightweight gloves rather than leather ones. But, like many other people I am imperfect, prone to excitement at inopportune moments and just wanted to see whether the engine would run for long enough to get me down the lane apiece and whether the gearbox retained all four ratios. It did … and it did. The first ride on a freshly reassembled motorcycle is always something of an event – for me, at least. I’m certain that everyone else is unmoved at times like these. Not me. I get excited as a teenager, and…

Like most of us, as a teenager John had a passion for motorcycles, and he owned a few. Also like most of us, as he matured his horizons broadened and his interests developed in other directions. One of these was towards stationary engines, which he enjoyed collecting and restoring. (Most of my stationary engines have been positioned between an equally stationary pair of wheels by a frame, but that’s another story). The legendary ‘pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’ always beckons the collector or restorer and, with this in mind, John went to view a ‘barn find’ stationary engine he had been told about. Perhaps ‘barn find’ is the wrong term as the engine was housed in a chicken shed. Disappointingly, it didn’t turn out to be…

We all dream, do we not? Not just the sort of dreams which are fun while asleep but which become seriously weird when we wake up, only to vanish in a haze as consciousness takes a hold. No, the dreams I’m thinking of here are those where we remark to anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby how ‘I wish I’d never sold that bike and I dream of finding it again,’ while the other one goes along the lines of ‘I dream of finding a bike in that condition.’ Well, dream on, because sometimes dreams come true. My own dreams? Finding unrestored bikes I somehow know I’d like. The more unrestored … the better. It’s reaching a point at which the only bikes which get me excited are the unmolested…

With the wheels in and the mudguards on, the BSA was beginning to look like a real bike. It was still propped up on its temporary wooden frame. The original rear stand was missing and I had no luck finding another. So this demanded another journey down the ‘make one’ route. Fortunately I’d seen a genuine stand on a similar machine at a vintage rally so I at least had some idea what it should look like. First the ends of the stand, where it attaches to the frame using the previously re-taped holes, were turned and milled up from solid bar. These were brazed into the tubes that formed the stand legs. These tubes are of a tapered D-section, not the sort of thing you are going to find…

ALF IS AWESOME For sheer dedication and determination, Alf Taylor-Smith gets an award. Age (he’s 85) and adversity (an awkward AJS) did not deter him from sallying forth (or should that be ‘sallying north’?). Applause, please! POETRY IN MOTION We always enjoy the exploits of Arfur the XBR, not least because rider Roy tends to send them in verse. Roy, you are the official RC Compass Challenge poet. Take a bow! THE HALL’S HAUL For sheer inventiveness, John and Carol Hall would’ve won a prize as they scoured the countryside for any sign with a sniff of a direction about it. But they also bagged the highest total of cardinal points: 109 altogether, on 12 separate trips, clocking up 1389 miles. Great effort, guys! OVERSEAS AWARD You’ll have seen elsewhere…