Innehållsförteckning för May 2025 från Real Classic

Thanks for the most interesting piece on the Triumph TRW, it brings back memories of my National Service. Our REME detachment operated a team of riders that took part in inter-service trials. We always admired and envied the RAF teams who had the dark blue Triumph TRW twins. Us cannon fodder had the Matchless G3L. One time, we were at a trial held on the tank testing grounds at Bovington. It was wet and muddy, up a long climb then down to a water-filled bomb hole. On the uphill climb the Brylcreem boys with their Triumph twins did not have the grip that our singles had. This is nothing new. John Deere two-cylinder tractors had a crankshaft layout that avoided even sequential firing. They fired POP POP [GAP GAP] POP…

This machine was a surprise visitor to my workshop, coming in at short notice when I happened to have some space free. it arrived with suspected gearbox issues, so I decided not to attempt a ‘before’ test ride. I normally like to assess a machine’s condition on the road before work begins, but seized gearboxes are very unpleasant. I found out through bitter experience that it’s a bit like having an engine seizure… except that when you pull the clutch in, you get a sudden sinking feeling when the rear wheel remains locked! You have to hope for as soft alanding as possible as you are most likely going to be thrown off imminently. Grinding along on all fours in the middle of the road as a Tiger Cub scraped…

An AJS model 31 was just the start. When they first see my bike, people point out that it is not very original. How unoriginal it is can only be judged if you know what it started out as… I bought it as a rod through the cases basket case and it has had four different engine sizes, with a 5th built but waiting to be installed. That would be 650, 350, 444, 500 and 392. Here’s more of the story. I bought a pair of basket cases in 1969 for £25, which was about two weeks wages for an apprentice. One of the baskets was a 50s 500 Matchless twin which was unexploded and quickly sold to cover the cost of both. The remaining bike was a 1960 AJS…

It’s been a while since the final part of the B60FT race bike build-up series, and while you’ve been reading about the Starfire TT project, you may have wondered how the B60 was doing. So, in the hope of telling a reasonably interesting tale, here’s a bit of an update… If you recall, we left the B60 having won a round of the National Championship vintage class first time out. I think that was as much a surprise to me as it was to everybody else. It was mid-season, and I’d already been doing well on the old A65, and the B60 hit the ground (or the track) running. So much so that I used it for the rest of the season and ended up winning the championship. It was…

Thanks for the Small Ad service - my Triumph T150 sold on the same day I received the magazine through the post! Keep up the brill work with the mag and ads. Ian Magson, member You’re welcome - and thank YOU for the amazingly generous donation to our ‘Keep TP Tubby’ campaign. We’d also like to thank the very generous folk who found us at the VMCC jumble and donated even more delicious things. I would say that the chocolates will be shared among the whole RC Crew, but we know that isn’t true! Rowena…

Three apposite words were used in the photos of Gorden Geskell’s Royal Enfield special last month: details, details, details. I would like to add three more: respect, respect, respect. Although not a fan of bobber styling, I can fully appreciate the time and thought that has gone into this build. It is truly amazing the detail that has been engineered into producing such a stunning product. I particularly liked the humour of the dummy oil tank with its tap. I bet that gets a few ignorant tongues wagging! On a separate subject, Frank’s wrestling match with the Firebird handlebars. Every time I read of these issues I despair of the British bike industry. What an earth was in the mind of the designer to build in a problem that was…

Approaching 60 years ago, my father was the local senior Scout leader. He recruited a younger assistant named Chris, who had just moved into the area. Chris was a life-long motorcyclist. I believe he started as a GPO telegram boy, then continued riding in the military. He had previously owned a square four Ariel but now, with a family, owned a distributor equipped Triumph 5TA and an ex-RAF TRW. His pride and joy was a 1926, clutchless, fore-and-aft flat-tank Douglas twin that he had rebuilt. Chris had rescued it many years earlier in a very dilapidated state from a hen coop. he was unusual at that time in specifically searching for an older, non-saddle-tank machine. Chris told me that he’d been contacted by a former colleague who had found some…

They don’t make products like they used to; this I know and (mostly) accept. We have owned this house in Florida for nearly eight years, and I am noticing that some things just do not perform as they once did. Well, many things I guess. The two most notably defective items are both located in the bathroom, the mirror and the scale. The scale has, over the past few years, continuously read too high and seems to continue creeping up. The mirror shows a fellow who is increasingly harder to recognise, with an incorrect amount of hair of the wrong colour, what appear to be wrinkles in the skin, and a wide variety of different shaped spots and markings. I have suggested to my wife that we replace these devices,…

Sometimes, appearances are deceptive. But only sometimes. When I first cast a traditionally weary eye upon this oddly green machine I was unimpressed. That’s just being honest about it. I’ve ridden a fair few specials based around the famous featherbed frame, but rarely one as unusual as the machine you can see before you. Why, I wondered, quietly to myself, would anyone take the engine from a Ducati – machines not usually famous for lousy handling – and transplant it into a 1950s Norton frame? I tried to picture a scenario in which I might even consider doing the same, but couldn’t. The notion of a Norton V-twin might be appealing, but there’ve been a few Harley-powered examples which have been pretty good and which look pretty good, but this?…

A hundred years ago, big twins were all the thing. The 1920s were – cliché alert! – a genuine golden age for motorcycling. After the awfulness of the Great War came an astonishing industrial expansion which catered to a new demand for personal mobility. Such was the enthusiasm for two-wheeled transport that some exhibitors at Olympia sold out on the opening day of the show. New manufacturers proliferated during the early 1920s until there were more than 120 different marques building motorcycles in the UK. With all this competition came increasing mechanical competency. Motorbikes became more reliable. Engines were easier to start: brakes stood half a chance of stopping the plot. Gears, tyres, suspension and a semblance of sophistication were available (although some of those were optional extras), and you…

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 TRIUMPHS & TRIBULATIONS I have been following Frank’s adventures with the 1972 Triumph T120V and 1971 BSA A65 Lightning / Firebird and have greatly enjoyed the stories. I’m surprised at how much nostalgia I feel for my 1971 OiF T120R despite only owning it for a limited period during 1974/75. The marketing departments at Small Heath and Meriden must have been doing something right in the early 1970s. As my friends and I moved up from 250/350s, we between us owned two Bonnies, three TR6s and a BSA Firebird, complete with a matt black exhaust system. All of these bikes were the OiF variety. They all started life with…

I must share with you an extraordinary 75 minutes. The key to this is remembering that I mentioned in a letter a couple of months ago the importance of having friends who know more about classic bikes than one does oneself. I have two such friends, Peter Sprot of Vincent fame, and John Hood, a most knowledgeable man on all things motorcycle-related. 11.30. Phone rings. It’s Peter saying he is coming over on his recently acquired Black Shadow, one of three Vincents has just bought from a 92 year-old friend. That will mean he has six in Vincents in total plus various other makes. 11.40. Post arrives, including RC252. Open it up pronto, and I’m really pleased how my letter looks. Think: perfect timing, I will show Peter as soon…

With the flash white leathers, mullet haircut and YMCA moustache of his youthful days as one of Britain’s speed kings later replaced by a three-piece suit and neatly trimmed naval beard worthy of King George V, Norman Hyde, who celebrated his 80th birthday on February 21st, needs no introduction to dedicated Triumph enthusiasts around the world. His eight years of service during the 60s and 70s as a development engineer in the Meriden factory’s Experimental Department, latterly working under the company’s legendary technical guru, Doug Hele, ensure that his name will forever be associated with Triumph’s fastest and finest. This was backed up by a parallel weekend career spent drag racing a succession of fearsome supercharged and / or twin-engined Triumph speed missiles of awesome performance and often unlikely cubic…

Legend tells us that a silver bullet is the weapon of choice against supernatural nasties; werewolves, witches, vampires and their ilk. So have you accidentally picked up a copy of RealGhoulish by mistake? Absolutely not. This is a story about a motorcycle… but one with a clear connection to the undead. In fact, this bike was assembled from parts sourced from deceased machines. So this silver bullet wasn’t used to kill anything at all – but rather to bring old bikes back to life! What do you do when you have spent a lifetime in engineering, run a successful manufacturing business and then retire and find that you have time on your hands? If you read Odgie’s article last month about the Bullet Bobber then you’ll already have an inkling.…

The Scottish Classic Motorcycle Club run an annual Scotia challenge. This comprises 45 checkpoints at points of interest scattered throughout Scotland and the islands, where you take a photo of your bike to prove you visited. Awards are given depending on the age of the motorcycle and the number of points visited. With no spare holidays and very limited ferry crossings, the challenge was only feasible if I used a May bank holiday. A significant number of Calmac’s ferries limped on in disarray with a restricted service so pre-booking was essential to ensure a place on my fifth and final ferry from Arran to Ardrossan. Thankfully the weather forecast looked surprisingly favourable. Having gnashed cheerfully down to Greenock to my first stop at the impressive Skelpies statue, I noticed a…

Faced with the need to make some tubular stays for mudguards and headlights on my 1930 Ariel and New Imperial, I needed to flatten the tube ends down to drill fixing holes. The simple way would’ve been to squeeze the tube flat in a vice. Yes, that works OK but it looks and is a bit of a bodge. When you look at a motorcycle with that type of fitting, especially if you were thinking of buying, you could be forgiven for thinking ‘what other horrors am I going to find?’ Commercially-made stays use a form tool in a press, not something most of us have. Happily a simple, homemade tool solves the problem. This tool was made entirely from odd metal I had laying about the workshop. I started…