Classic Scrambles

Back in the late 1950s, Mike Estall was a keen spectator at moto-cross and scrambles events. He was also a dab hand with a camera, and has unearthed this selection of classic scramblers in action – beefy British bikes being ridden with what we might call ‘vigour’! All the photos were taken with Mike’s 35mm Paxette 1 camera – back…

Show-Stoppers: Winter Classic

It’s brave to hold a bike show in the middle of winter but, as Roy Workman reports, most of this event is tucked away indoors. Held over the first weekend in January, the CBG Winter Classic effectively kickstarts the new motorcycling year. For the more hardy autojumblers there is a large marquee, while other traders with outdoor stands on the…

Frera 500

Richard Jones made a New Year’s resolution to take more photos of rarer bikes. Right on cue he tripped over something truly unusual on his arrival at January’s Vintage Stony event. Look quickly and you might imagine that this single-cylinder vintage motorcycle is something like a British-built Sunbeam – but in fact it comes from Continental Europe… The first bike…

Around The World On A Motorcycle

Ready for another armchair adventure? This travellers’ tale goes back 90 years to the era between the world wars, when the urge for international exploration led two young men to ride more than 100,000 miles aboard a flat-tank Harley and sidecar. Roger Slater has been reading of their exploits… I have one bedroom in the house converted to a library.…

AJS and Matchless lightweights

Not all old British bikes have to cost a fortune. In fact, the AJS and Matchless 250 and 350 lightweight singles are still enticingly affordable. ‘But aren’t they also actually awful?’ you may ask, and Rowena Hoseason has some answers… There is one segment of classic society which remains stalwartly sensible when it comes to cost. That’s because the Associated…

Sunbeam Model 95

Sunbeam motorcycles, built in Wolverhampton, were some of the sporting superstars of the pre-war period and they clocked up a series of wins in TT and GP races during the 1920s. Although times were tough during the Depression years, the company’s continued commitment to quality means that bikes from the 1930s are still going strong today, over 80 years later……