Innehållsförteckning för June 2022 från Real Classic

As the weather warms, so my mileage increases – and I’ll assume that yours does, too. It is undeniable that dry roads and blue skies inspire the fair weather rider in me rather more successfully than dark clouds and lashing rain fire up my secret adventurer side. I was reminded of this only the other day, while ploughing home through a Maytime thunderstorm which drenched my gloves so effectively that they sort-of collapsed, forcing me to buy a new pair. The horror! The other side of this is that I’ve always been a stubborn, occasionally defiant and infrequently aggressive rider, and whenever my one-time regular riding pals announced that they were taking the car to one of our meets I would sneer internally, tog up, then head out aboard whichever…

Arthritis is a considerably restricting ailment, and like many longtime handlebar grippers I suffer from it – if only to a small degree, fortunately. It makes joints stiff and painful, in case you are lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the effects. Physical ailments, while an uncomfortable subject for many of us, do have an influence on the types of motorcycles we choose to ride, and in my own case it makes a light clutch operation a good thing. Which is a slightly downbeat way of introducing a decently cheerful motorcycle. What I wanted to do here was deflect critics who will immediately exclaim ‘An automatic motorcycle! Why on earth…’ and so on and so forth. In case you’ve ever wondered about the appeal of big (or indeed smaller) scooters…

Legend has it that the 1971 oil-in-frame Bonnie with conical hub brakes is radically different to its immediate predecessor from 1970. And you’d imagine the riding experience on a single-carb TR6 to be quite different to a twin-carb T120. Only a year separates these two machines and, in theory, they differ vastly in their design and specifications. So how does this translate in practice? I found myself in the interesting position of working on and riding both types of 650 twin within days of each other. This T120R has been seen before in RC, a few years back when I recommissioned it. The owner then sold it to my brother-in-law. If I’d known it was going to change hands for such a reasonable sum, then it may well have just…

I have said this before, and I will say it again – in fact I intend to repeat it until the bike explodes, which is certainly inevitable. I really really like our Triumph, the Blazer SS, not the modern monsters. That said, as I type this I’ve just returned from a 500 mile excursion with the modern Triumph, which was great, but they’re twins, nowhere near as singular as the Blazer, which is a single, in case you’ve been asleep for the last decade and have managed to avoid reading about it. After decades of neglect, false hopes and false starts, the Blazer is running reliably. This is so remarkable that I find myself wondering whether it will still be true by the time you read this. Who can tell?…

‘The Royal Enfield “Big Twin” machine is generally recognised as the last word in luxurious motorcycling.’ So says the factory-supplied operator’s manual of 1937. At 1140cc the Model K was the largest capacity motorcycle produced in Britain prior to the war. The nearest challenger was the 11/50 sidevalve Brough Superior which has a capacity of 1096cc. This machine resides in Australia, where there are only a couple of running examples known. The KX was offered for sale in mid-2019 by well-known BSA guru Mike Reilly of Mike’s Classic Bikes. Mike had purchased the Enfield as a project some years previously but really didn’t have the time to carry out the complex restoration required so he kindly offered it to me. It was a motorcycle I had never heard of, so…

In the near as dammit 40 years that I’ve been meeting owners and writing about their motorcycles, I’ve been inspired to many thoughts and emotions. Some bikes intrigue me with their concept, some make me marvel at the engineering. Some fascinate me with their defiant survival, some are celebrations of long-term ownership, and some are proud testaments to motivation and dedication. Nearly all of them fill me with wonder about just what tales they could tell if only they could talk. But then sometimes a bike does something different. My heart soared when I first saw this little Bantam, with a feeling I can only describe as totally evocative. Why? Well, I’ll get to that later (plays the suspense card). First I’ll let current owner Mark Pace tell the tale,…

Before I bought mine, post-war Francis-Barnetts all looked the same to me. Mainly green, mainly small, mainly Villiers-powered and mainly named after birds. In fact they are more diverse than they first look. Post-war Cruisers have pressed steel frames with bolted on tubular steel loops and, apart from the engines, are very much the same. Personally, I prefer the twin. Much more perky and different to the single cylinder 2-strokes I have enjoyed until now, in my opinion. The pressed frames can be prone to cracking around the engine mounts and any rust will need dealing with. It handles well and is nicely balanced with the performance of the chassis. Later 89s had 4T engines but otherwise they’re much the same. Villiers twins are a truly curious design and a…

Many years ago, we moved away from the London area and began our life in Gloucestershire. Here I learned about and rode on green lanes. My first ventures out were on machines I owned at the time such, as an Ariel WD machine. This 1942 W/NG 350 was fairly heavy but the seat was low, so that too much sliding about could be corrected by sticking out one or both legs. The local VMCC Cotswold section included sections of green lanes to be ridden in their road trials and I began to discover new places to ride. After a while, I got the urge to ride more suitable machines, so a 1950 Ariel 500 VH was acquired with more suitable tyres. This proved to be a mistake since the machine…

I have two classic Hondas, a CB160 and a CB72, both imported to the UK from Japan in October 1965. Both use 12V coil ignition, with an electric starter and a crankshaft-mounted alternator. The CB160 can be ridden all day with the headlight switched on, both on the open road and in the town, without the battery voltage depleting. In fact, after a long run the battery voltage will be 12.8V-13.2V. On the other hand, if I try and ride the CB72 with the headlight on, it will always deplete the battery voltage. After a long run it’s down to 11.4V. With the headlight off at 3000rpm, my digital multimeter attached to the CB72 battery showed 12.2V, whereas the CB160 at 3000rpm would be showing 13.5V. Strange. To improve the…

Sometimes you just get that ‘new bike’ tingle in your belly. A seductive mix of mischief and desire, irrational yet irresistible. All those thoughts of perfection that will be the new bike you’re now dreaming of are, of course, based entirely on an over-active imagination and a disconnect from reality. But there it was. I suddenly needed a woolly two-stroke twin. I blame lockdowns of course but it wasn’t a feeling that was going away, so there was only one sensible course of action – buy one! I had quite early on decided on a Jawa 350. Modern yet old, practical yet entirely charming and quirky. Easy then. Well, no. I had a thousand quid and it seems any ideas I had of prices for those splendid machines were about…

During the Classic era of Grand Prix road racing in the 1950s and 60s, Czechoslovakia was the only Eastern Bloc country to mount a sustained challenge in the more prestigious larger capacity classes to first Western European, then, later on, Japanese supremacy. Sure, East Germany’s MZ revolutionised Grand Prix racing’s 125cc and 250cc technology with the aid of chief engineer Walter Kaaden’s two-stroke genius, and the USSR made an abortive attempt to make its mark with the four-stroke Vostok fours – but it was only the Czech Jawa concern which really flew the Eastern bloc flag in the 350cc and 500cc categories, in an endeavour (as their rulers saw it) to prove that Communism could be clever, as well as correct. Jawa’s finest hour came in 1961, when the firm’s…

There I was, strolling through the halls at the Stafford Show, which was either a ‘massively successful return to form’ or ‘not as good as it used to be’, depending on your point of view. I appreciated the workmanship on some restored 1960s and 70s Ducatis and on a flat-tank replica Royal Enfield Model G. There was a 1922 Levis that was the spit of the one my granny used to have in the, erm, 1920s. There were lots of nice bikes and so forth, many of which I’d not seen before, the lockdown having benefited the builders and the restoration industry generally. It took a while to get as far as the balcony and a refreshing cuppa, and that was where I spotted something that tickled me no end.…