Innehållsförteckning för April 2025 från Real Classic

John Jordan mentions in RC250 about his Honda CB400A and the difficulty he has getting it onto the main stand. He’s not the only one with this issue. As we age, we struggle with the weight of the bike. Often, the design of the main stand itself is less than ideal. Gone are the days of the centrestand which allowed the bike to balance nicely on either wheel – as with older BMWs, which can usually be put on the stand with little effort. There is, however, a simple and cheap solution to this problem when you’re at home in the garage. This makes maintenance tasks such as chain tensioning and lubrication, oil changes, etc, much easier. You just need a small ramp with a metal end stop. My good…

Being in my 80s, I have to accept that I probably have fewer years ahead of me than I have behind. Which leads me to think about the highlights of my life. In my case that is easy: it was appearing on the front cover of RC50, (a significant RC milestone in RC’s history), riding my beloved Commando with madam riding pillion, and having within its august pages a seven-page piece on my Commando. I hope this entitles me to offer some comments on Commandos as a follow-up to letters and on youngster FW’s musings about his own Commando. I just want to cover two subjects, tickover and ignition, and handling characteristics. I have owned my 750 Mk 2A for thirty years. It is a Suffolk bike, bought new by…

I hadn’t really been aware of this rather rare V-twin until one visited my workshop last year. It was another of those ’It’s been standing unused for years. See if you can get it going and attend to anything you feel might need looking at’ jobs. Often the bikes you see from this era can be very shiny but mechanically horrible; one which came in recently was very ’well used’ and rather tired-looking. This BSA Model E from 1930 somehow managed to look presentable but still actually used. A couple of swings on the kickstart revealed little by way of compression, but the 770cc V-twin engine was free so that was a good starting point. Peering in through the two filler holes in the saddle tank revealed there was no…

As a lustful teenager in the 1960s, my dream bike was a Dunstall Dominator, a tricked out Norton 650SS. But in the late 1960s I sold my RGS and turned to cars. In 1974 I longed for a bike again and bought a Suzuki TS250 two-stoke trail bike, new… and that was how I found I couldn’t get on with twostrokes! In 1979 I decided to build something similar to the Dunstall Dommi. The first thing I did was to join the Norton Owners Club (recommended) and searched for parts. I found Les Emery and Fair Spares, now Norvil, extremely helpful with info readily given and I bought many bits from him. Armours helped with swept-back exhaust pipes and Gold Star silencers. Gradually I assembled the major parts of a…

PART THE LAST Building up the 350 bike began with attaching items to the frame. This included the wiring harness, repairing and replacing wires and connectors where required. In the workshop manual, it says little about removing and replacing the engine other than ’this exercise is best achieved from the left-hand side of the motorcycle after all other components including the wiring have been removed.’ No great help there then. To make the job easier, I fabricated a lifting jig so the engine could be slid in sideways. To locate the engine correctly it is easier if the studs are unscrewed from the offside exhaust, as these get in the way of the front downtube. To protect the frame, I used old inner tubes cut into 50mm wide strips held…

It is very likely indeed that many RealClassic readers have long and excellently entertaining histories of rebuilds, restorations and rescues, hopefully applied to elderly motorcycles rather than to ourselves. And a feature of every single rebuild, rescue, whatever, I’ve indulged myself with over the last lots of years is that every time I think they’re finished, they never are. I’ve been thinking about this, and I do believe that I have never actually finished a procedure involving a motorcycle project. I may be wrong, of course, but I doubt it. At some point I generally scream Enough! and either ride the bike, park it in a dank spot at the back of The Shed… or sell it. And so, having mostly successfully fitted a smart black scrambler exhaust system to…

Winning any race is always a big thrill, and winning a championship run over several rounds is deeply satisfying. But winning races and a major title by defeating the factory team run by the company which built your motorcycle – especially if they’ve gone out of their way NOT to help you do so – must be the ultimate dream of any privateer team, even if so very rarely achieved. One of the handful of privateer equipes which pulled off this feat in the upper echelons of British National road racing down the years was the London-based Gus Kuhn Norton team, whose riders Dave Potter, Charlie Sanby and before them Mick Andrew several times defeated the works Nortons at both National and International level in Production and Formula 750 events…

I’m most interested in the excellent Laverda story by Stu Thomson. The only issue I have is Stu’s contention that the 750 twins vibrated badly. I covered thousands of most enjoyable miles on these twins, and have found that the 750 twins are my favourite. Their most endearing traits are the most robust nature, excellent handling, superb brakes and lack of vibration. Every time we had one in the workshop that did vibrate, in most cases it was caused by the bolt that secures the third silencer below the engine being lose or missing. On the earlier models, sans the third silencer, the causes would be insufficiently torqued engine bolts, head stock play and faulty silencer mounting rubbers. Vibrating machines would not last in 24 hour races. Laverda twins dominated…

Low-bot-a-mee: My good buddy Google defines a lobotomy thusly: ’a surgical procedure that severs connections in the brain’s frontal lobe. It was a common treatment for mental illness in the mid-20th century but is now considered a discredited procedure.’ I remember this procedure from the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and thought it might be a perfect solution to my unending predilection for buying and restoring nasty old British motorcycles. However, that whole ’discredited procedure’ part means my search for a solution continues. Here is yet another symptom of the disease. Each year, Daytona in Florida hosts a 10-day bike event, where tens of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts gather to ride, party, race and sell motorcycle stuff to people who probably already have too much motorcycle stuff.…

If you’ve ever wandered through a motorcycle museum and found yourself daydreaming about taking one of the vintage beauties home, the Mecum auction in Las Vegas might be your kind of event—provided, of course, that your bank balance is up to the challenge. This year, the world’s largest vintage and antique motorcycle auction took place at the end of January at South Point Casino. Over the course of four days, more than 2000 motorcycles crossed the auction block, making it an event of staggering scale. For context, the largest motorcycle museum in the world, the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Alabama, holds over 1800 motorcycles. In other words, for a few days, this auction was effectively the biggest single congregation of rare and historic motorcycles anywhere. One of the event’s…

RC readers write, rant and rattle on… Summat to say? Send your comments, hints, tips, tales of woe and derring-don’t to RCHQ@RealClassic.net PO BOX 66 BUDE EX23 9ZX TRIXIE MIX I’m relatively new to the Yamaha TRX850 motorcycle world but, like many other TRX owners, I’m hooked and will keep mine for as long as possible. The Yamaha TRX850 has a healthy following around the world with an almost cult-like appeal. Currently, there is no UK TRX Owners Club per se, but one is fast approaching – look for ’Yamaha TRX Owners Group UK’ on Facebook. Originally built in 1995 as a sports bike mainly for the Japan and east Asia market, the TRX was promoted in Europe after a decision was made by Lin Jarvis to ask Alan Cathcart…

Not everyone rides through winter, but I try to as long as the roads are not icy. There are some really nice riding days to be had through winter when the temperature drops and the sun is out but when the air temp is still very chilly. Like a lot of riders, I suffer from cold feet and cold hands. I have had bikes with heated grips, but I find they do not always keep my hands warm in the correct places. Also, 6V electrics and old bike wiring don’t always agree with the increased electrical loads! Keeping my feet warm is another challenge; at least it was, until I discovered heatperformance.co.uk This company is based in the Netherlands and supply heated socks, gloves and other items of clothing, all…

I don’t get to see my mate Gordon Geskell anything like as often as I should. But when I do it’s always interesting. We’re both, er, old now, so we can sit and compare notes about all sorts of old blokes’ topics, but inevitably the conversation turns to motorcycles. And then Gordon will unearth yet another of his fabulous creations, bless him. So first off, to answer the leading questions, no, it’s not a factory prototype for any sort of new model. And it’s not an old rigid frame. In fact, it’s not a rigid frame at all. Read on… Gordon does build fabulous bikes. We’ve featured them before, and this one is no exception to his remarkable standard of finish. It does look factory – ’If Royal Enfield made…

Open minds, so they say, are the best kind. OK, I can understand that. For far too many years I’ve lacked any great enthusiasm for 1971-on Triumph twins; those with the oil-bearing frames, spindly forks and sometimes dubious brakes. I must have ridden at least fifty of them – probably more – and have owned several since the machine which was responsible for my lack of enthusiasm. That bike was a 1975 T140V – one of the last of the right-foot shifters, complete with a drum brake at the back to match the single disc up front. It wasn’t a great ownership experience, to be honest, and jaundiced my view of the bikes for decades. Which is simply silly, viewed in retrospect. After all, Triumph sold gazillions of them and…