Reviews

In 1954, an adventurer set off on an overland ride from Britain to Australia, aboard a Norton Dominator. These are his diaries, which we asked Dave Blendell to read… The Hard Way Round is more of a thick pamphlet than a book, taking 44 pages of A4 to tell the tale. There is also a…

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This book aims to give advice to cure leaks, reduce vibes and boost performance. So who better to review it than a professional motorcycle engineer? ‘Improving Classic Motorcycle Engines’ is the third in a series of books by Graham Blighe, and it follows the same format as ‘Improving Classic Motorcycles’ and ‘Magnetic Speedometer Repair.’ It’s…

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Dave Minton has been riding Laverda triples for over 30 years. Meet his favourite and be surprised: it’s no Jota (but it does make all the right sounds)… At between 2500 and 4000 revs in the higher gears, 180-degree Breganze triples make wonderful noises — a sort of basso profundo gargle, not unlike a narrow…

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Gerry Atric’s restoration of his 500cc twin continues, and we’ve discovered some other info about these bikes, too… While all the previously described work was going on, I had been regularly visiting autojumbles in an effort to find the missing pieces of the jigsaw, which might one day make up a complete bike (one with…

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It runs! Quick, take it to bits again! With a deadline in sight, Martin Gelder’s 1982 Moto Morini 350 Sport finally receives some much needed attention after sitting in the shed for two years… Progress! Well, progress of a sort, at least. Two years ago, I fried my Morini’s alternator windings by trying to fit…

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Lots of bits have come back, ready for assembly on Phil Speakman’s MZ rebuild. So he ventures into the Devil’s Kitchen and proves that you should never leave a man alone with a tube of strong adhesive… The first parts to return to me were the lovely gloss black powder coated frame components and to…

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Jim Algar’s Dominator Diary start here: the first (and hopefully not the last) of a sporadic, irregular series of reports, updates, musings, questions, tirades, victories and defeats as an American neophyte takes on his first classic British bike… Chapter One Wherein I immerse myself in all things Norton, and my newly-acquired Dominator suddenly reveals feet…

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If at first you don’t succeed (and indeed your Bantam conks out before it even leaves Europe), try, try, try again. And then write a book about the experience… When it comes to adventuring – and I don’t just mean motorcycle adventuring – there is an unspoken compact between the few-who-do, and the many. The…

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When we put together a feature for the magazine about the Seeley Honda 750 of the late 1970s, there were some photos which we didn’t have space for. And then, even more info arrived… The January 2006 issue of RealClassic magazine features two (count ’em!) examples of the Seeley breed – and one of them…

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After falling in love with the dream of a Beam, Steve The Toast finally bought an S8. The reality turned out to be just a little… leaky! Madness is said to run in families. It is thought to be genetic, but many other things can also bring it on; diets lacking in certain vitamins, over…

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