News

In the search for a ‘modern classic’, there’s one marque which inspires roughly equal amounts of devotion and detestation. Jim Peace didn’t think too much of Harleys. And then he bought one… It was a complete impulse buy. I’d called in at my favourite local dealer, looking for something to replace my Honda GL1000, when…

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‘Complete 1957 Thunderbird but in pieces’ read the advert. Roy Stockham wouldn’t usually reply to adverts that don’t give a price but the phone number indicated that the bike was only 20 miles away… A call revealed that the ex-sidecar machine was indeed complete. The seller had bought it some eight years before, had started…

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1950’s Britain was very different to today. So what was it like to run a classic bike then, a Triumph Thunderbird, when it was brand new? David Gambie remembers… On reading the first issue of the RealClassic magazine, I was particularly taken with the article on the Thunderbird as it brought back many happy memories.…

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A true enthusiast’s book, this one; packed with technical information and racing recollections. Dave Minton discovers how the competition Triumph Daytona 500s performed so well in the late 1960s… Journalists do not usually make the best authors, not where make or model histories are concerned. For these you need the sort of rivet-counting fanatics that…

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Honda and Kawasaki fours tend to grab all the glory, but Steve The Toaster reckons there’s a very strong Yamaha contender for Best Japanese Classic Bike… Some things are just right. Design parameters can be spot on from the word go: the engineers who build up a first prototype can be on a high that…

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Inspired by the world’s fastest Indian, Woodie explains that you don’t need a big bike to go fast. In fact, he knows of some really fast Bantams… In no way discrediting Burt Munro, the New Zealander of the world’s fastest Indian fame, I wonder now if the film industry will travel to that other Antipodean…

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Just in time to celebrate Brooklands’ centenary, Jonathan Hill has found a splendid hardback book packed with rare images of racing from the 1920s… Published in 1968, Dr Joseph Bayley’s renowned book ‘The Vintage Years at Brooklands’ is a photographic record of motorcycle racing there in the 1920s. It reflected his years of observing and…

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They used to say that the ultimate cure for a B25 was a quick trip to a canal — how cruel! Arthur Langman proved them wrong. He bought his 1971 B25SS from a breaker, after it had been retrieved from such a waterway — and dried out, of course. Well, mostly… As you’d expect, the…

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We’ve heard Shaun’s story about his Beesa’s rebuild, but now Mike The (Geordie) Mechanic tells the tale of the engine’s internals…… I thought I’d fill in some of the gaps in Shaun’s A10 engine rebuild story… of course, this is only my side of the story and so all of the events are true and…

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Jonathan Hoare meets three BSA twins (and a Bantam) and revels in that old Miller magic at the Manor I never realised that the supposedly humble BSA could be quite so glamorous. Just look at that glorious gold on their Golden Flash and the pearlescent green on the A7 Shooting Star (the term ‘metallic’ came…

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