New & Features

These sleek and sporty single-cylinder machines should’ve been the stars of the 1980s, making the most of the cult of the café racer. Instead, people bought UJMs. Anarchy wonders if history is about to repeat itself… Once upon a time in a green and pleasant land, motorcycling had evolved from mostly British bikes to an…

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An 18 year old BMW. A trip across five continents, 31 countries and 26,000 miles. The first global circumnavigation by a blind person on a motorcycle. And a cracking read, says Dave Blendell… ‘Touching the World’ is the tale of a round the world trip by Cathy Birchall and her partner Bernard Smith. The byline,…

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You know how it goes: always wanted a classic bike, never could quite afford one. Dave (aka Molster96) risked domestic distress in order to fulfil his dream… Since my return to motorcycling five and a half years ago, I had been scouring the pages of various classic motorcycle magazines, longing to fulfil my ambition of…

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Even now, more untold tales of the original British bike industry still surface. This hardback book focuses on the efforts of Doug Hele and his Meriden development team in the late 1960s and early 70s… It’s difficult to believe that even now, decades after the ‘old’ UK bike industry rattled to a stop, there are…

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If you’re looking for a lightweight classic, you don’t have to be restricted to a two-stroke. Bill Wood has brought a little Italian back to life… While British lightweights of the 1960s tended to be utilitarian plodders (with an occasional sprinkling of excitement); their Italian counterparts were almost entirely the opposite. The Latin obsession with…

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Dave Blendell doesn’t like bike books. Great! We’ll get him to review this book by a RealClassic writer then… First off, a confession. I’m not actually a fan of motorcycle books. Books about people’s adventures on motorbikes: yes. Interesting travel books featuring a motorcycle as the means of transport: again, yes, and I’ve read many…

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Ever been given something you just can’t get rid of? If we’re talking about a pottery pig or another set of wind-chimes then that’s something of a tricky situation. But as there’s no such thing as ‘too many motorcycles’ then being given a C15 is hardly a trauma, now is it? Paul Russell’s C15 came…

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In the first episode, Stephen Dunne left the UK on his D14/4 to tackle a three-month tour of Europe. In Yugoslavia, the Bantam turns out to be good for business… Back in England I had been corresponding with well-known Italian BSA man, Giorgio Lanza of Genoa. He invited me to stay with him on my…

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Steve Wilson rides an ex-AA patrol Beesa, and finds terror and delight — at less than 40 miles an hour! Photos by Garry Stuart I’d never ridden a motorbike and sidecar before. ‘There’s nothing to it,’ grinned the cartoon artist Nick Ward cheerfully – but then he would, wouldn’t he, because a) he ran BSA…

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