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Little girls beware; Barry Granger’s Norton Commando is out to get you… Apart from the front brake, Barry Granger has very little to complain about when he thinks about his 1974 Norton Commando Interstate. Bought in 1982 for around £700, Barry sees his Commando as; ‘the last of the hairy-chested bikes. Large, heavy and grunty…

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Two new books about classic bikes are on the way; one for fans of world-class sidecar racing and the other about Panthers… Panther Publishing produce a selection of books for the classic motorcyclist. As the company’s name suggests they started out producing a book in conjunction with the Panther Owners’ Club (‘The Panther Story’) but…

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In 1933, two students were the first people to ride a motorcycle overland from Europe to India. Their epic adventure aboard a 250cc two-stroke has finally been published in English… Max Reisch and his companion Herbert Tichy were determined to travel overland to India through the Middle East in the early 1930s, despite an array…

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He bought it, he broke it (OK; maybe it was broke already…) and now he’s nearly fixed it. Steve The Toaster finally gets his Sunbeam going again. Was it easy? Was it ‘eck as like… One of the major pitfalls of disassembling engines is they refuse to self-reassemble. A nightmare, ’tis true. Also, the cheapest…

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Was there really anything special about the T140D apart from its name? Steve Wilson rode one, and reports… On summer weekends throughout the early 1980s you would still see quite a few Triumphs on the road, before they became classic, often in the company of two or three big Japs, because (while working) they could…

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After 14 months of hard labour, Dave has turned a miscellany of motorcycle spares into a real live classic bike. But now he has to make it legal… The bike ran and rode well, so my attention now turned to the MoT. I rang my local motorcycle tester to arrange an appointment. But unfortunately they…

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Jacqueline Bickerstaff, acknowledged expert on HRD-Vincent and an author on the subject herself, finds plenty to fascinate in this new hardback… Another book about Vincents? Surely there are enough already, and everything has been covered, is a thought that easily comes to mind. It was even a worry when I was persuaded to produce my…

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The Ariel VB is a plodding old sidevalve single, with plenty of torque but with no power and no brakes. Right? ‘Borrow mine…’ suggested Tony Page. Frank Westworth took up his offer… Everyone knows all about bikes. This is a Great Truth. Somehow and mysteriously, we all know everything there is to know about bikes,…

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Replacing a Triumph Bonneville clutch shouldn’t be too ghastly an enterprise. Yet, as NVNL discovered, there are always some questions to which the answers are not immediately apparent… ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; ……… The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.’ William Butler Yeats With all the…

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There are over 50 vintage motorcycle marques detailed in this book, and the book itself was very nearly lost too… There’s a story behind this book, and I happen to be acquainted with some of the details, so… The author, Jack Bacon, spent many years throughout his life gathering information about the motorcycles he loved…

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