Blog

The BHR classic racing season started last month. Roy Maddox reckons there was a missed opportunity at Mallory… British Historic Racing is part of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club and organises a series of race meetings during the year. In 2012 it will visit Mallory Park, Cadwell (twice), Snetterton, Lydden and Darley Moor. Austen Kear…

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What bike would make the perfect introduction to real classic motorcycling? Vague familiarity or character-building oddness? Paul Miles conducts a scientific experiment on a man called Simon… I have a friend called Simon. Simon is a nice guy in his early forties and has been around bikes, like many of us, for most of his…

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You might not want to rebuild your classic bike to standard spec, but sometimes it helps if someone else has. Karl Bentley’s BSA A50 may have been modified. Or not. Who knows? Okay, I’ll admit it straight away, I was wrong. There you are, I’ve apologised and I will never say mean and nasty things…

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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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Restoration, Renovation, Recreation? Frank Westworth has been listening to folk at classic bike shows again. He’ll never learn… ‘Look at that A7.’ A nice man had collared me at a show. It appears to be an occupational hazard. Time was, the occupational hazard was more like getting collared by a handsome lady and dragged into…

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Time for a little nostalgic indulgence. Take a trip back in time to the 1960s as GeofS pays homage to the bikes which could ‘Stop Anything In No Time’… It was summer, sometime in the late 1960s, on a by-pass that led to the coast, somewhere in England’s green and pleasant land. Jimmy ‘The Triton’…

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Jim Peace remembers when the warnings on cigarette packets had nothing at all to do with smoking… Many years ago, when almost everybody smoked, cigarette manufacturers would try to encourage brand loyalty by enclosing one or two picture cards in the packs. These came in sets of fifty so you had to smoke a lot…

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Frank Westworth muses upon the meaning of magical metal lurgy… I love a good joke. And before you jump in and shout ‘LE Velocette!’ or ‘rotary Norton!’ I should say that I like my jokes to make me smile, not induce a sudden need to crawl away and hide in a damp corner. Down here…

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You’re reading a website about old bikes, so presumably you like old bikes. But do you ride one? Frank Westworth is dazed and confused… ‘All Velocette dealers are rubbish! Know what I mean?’ An angry man was being angry at me. I am a kindly soul and gazed at him in wonder. Life on a…

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Did you know that lots and lots of the very best, British-built AJS and Matchless motorcycles were exported to the USA? It came as a surprise to Frank Westworth… Well? Did you? Did you know that AMC transported a vast proportion of their bikes to the colonies? For years and years and years, I had…

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