Classic Bike Hub UK

Have you ever found your ideal classic bike? Frank Westworth has… and more than once! Being Editor of the mighty organ which is RealClassic has many advantages, as I keep reminding RH when she’s spent the morning on the electric telephone listening to a member who posted his advert in on Tuesday, he’s almost sure…

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Numbed by the current obsession for producing shiny fake motorcycles where there was previously rust and ruin, Frank Westworth reveals a talent in the opposite direction… I was sat pondering the other evening. Don’t worry, there’s no law against a little gentle pondering – not yet, at any rate, although that could easily change, of…

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Jim Peace has taken his Top Box halfway around the world. It’s been close to the North Pole, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and been frozen solid in Cumbria. Is it time for retirement? Last year I decided that Top Box ought to retire. It was, after all, over twenty years old, cracked, split, covered…

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Have you ever ridden a real, genuine, internationally successful competition Matchless? Frank Westworth has ridden several, strangely… It is all true. Despite an entire lifetime spent studiously avoiding anything to do with ‘competition’ in most of its sweaty, athletic forms, from time to time I have been forced to ride about on pukka competition machinery.…

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Maligned by many, AJS and Matchless lightweights can be a lot of fun. Frank Westworth, no lightweight, tries to convince himself… My second bike was my first AJS. It was a 1948 Model 18 of fond memory, and although I have recaptured a Matchless G80 of similar scruffiness which has restored those fond memories to…

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Riding old bikes produces many wonderful moments. Frank Westworth dredges through his memory for some memorable AJS and Matchless rides… I accept at once that you ride your old motorcycle (perhaps it’s an AJS, or Matchless; no-one is entirely perfect) all over the place and at every available opportunity. In those distant days when the…

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How do we define ourselves? By our jobs, the way we dress, or the music we like? By the bikes we ride or lust after? Episode two from Trevor Oz Brooks… In my younger days (sigh) I had a clear picture of who I was. I was Big Twin man, not Step-Thru boy, despite cutting…

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There came a point when both Panther and Ariel stopped building their traditional four-stroke motorcycles and switched over to two-stroke production. David Bullivant has a theory which explains why… In recent issues of the magazine, we enjoyed looking at a nice Villiers-powered Panther (in RC36) but it was not said why Panther went over to…

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Do you prefer cappuccino, or is builder’s tea more your style? Rowena Hoseason wonders if there’s still room for all sorts in classic biking… Agent Orange, Frank’s foremost feline friend, doesn’t particularly appreciate me using this expression but I will risk catty wrath by saying it nonetheless: there are indeed many different ways to skin…

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There was once a time when folk rode their AJS and Matchless motorcycles all over the place! Frank Westworth reflects… For reasons which I have never been able to fathom, the AJS & Matchless OC presented me with an award last year. No no; it’s true. Stop tittering at the back. Someone, somewhere will presumably…

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