Reviews

It rattles, it squeaks, it bounces, it’s uncomfortable, its electrics are iffy – but it’s loud, it’s red, it’s Italian, and it’s just what the doctor ordered. Martin Gelder exchanges real cash for a real classic… Key slipped into ignition and turned. Fuel tap solenoid clunks, oil pressure light comes on. Key removed from ignition…

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We know how much you like reading detailed, informed, in-depth road tests – but too much indulgence is bad for the soul so you’re not getting one today. Peruse instead, Andy C’s outpourings on the subject of… ahh… our mugs… I had heard of these fabled mugs on the RC website, and had often wondered…

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Ken Phelp is so keen on this unusual breed of vintage motorcycle that he wrote a book about them. So how did his fascination develop? The Ner-a-Car is a truly unusual motorcycle, built in the 1920s. It was an American design dating from 1918 or so which was produced under licence in England. The model…

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John Blades always dreamed of owning a Norton Featherbed twin. And now he does: the last of the Dominator line… Many of my generation will have lusted after the bike of their dreams since teenage years when for one reason or another it was out of reach. When presented with the opportunity to own such…

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Some time ago, we mentioned Quasar machines and managed to spell the name wrong. Here’s more on the subkject (spelling not necessarily correct)… Photos courtesy of Paul Blezard The feet-forward Quasar two-wheeler was designed during the 1970s by Ken Leaman and Malcolm Newell. Several were produced from 1976 onwards – there may be 20 in…

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This clever booklet covers the basics about spark plugs to help you choose the best type for your classic bike, and use it to diagnose what’s going on inside your engine… This 20-page A5 booklet is offers an easily accessible guide on how to read spark plugs to diagnose engine faults, and to select the…

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Four-pot Japanese classics are over-complicated, tricky to maintain and expensive to run, right? Not quite. Steve Bergman has clocked up over 120,000 miles on the cut-rate Katana and reckons it has real classic cred… The Suzuki GS650 Katana has been in the ‘cheap transport’ league for a while, but now — following the fashion of…

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If you’re talking about modern classically-styled twins, then which is actually better? Brady Davis rides both regularly, and so take us down some parallel lines… My motorcycling career kicked off in the 1970s with a schoolboy interest limited to buying copies of Bike and later Which Bike magazines. My first motorcycle was a Suzuki TS100ER…

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The Triumph Bonneville is probably the world’s most famous classic bike. RC writer Matt has produced a splendid book on the subject… There are a lot of books about Triumph twins, in case you’d not noticed, but Matthew Vale’s mighty work is a little different. It includes all of the historical material which you would…

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If you’re happy to mix your classic motorcycling with a little personal philosophy, then this book, subtitled ‘Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good’, could be just the job… I was looking out for a book to read on holiday so it was fortunate that I caught a program on…

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