Around The World On A Motorcycle

Ready for another armchair adventure? This travellers’ tale goes back 90 years to the era between the world wars, when the urge for international exploration led two young men to ride more than 100,000 miles aboard a flat-tank Harley and sidecar. Roger Slater has been reading of their exploits… I have one bedroom in the house converted to a library.…

Lone Rider: around the world by BMW

Back in the early 1980s, Elspeth Beard took her broken heart, packed up her BMW airhead boxer, and rode it the ‘wrong way’ around the world. The entire astonishing story has recently been published, and it’s wowing RC readers… I love travelogues, ‘round the world’ trip even more. Was Elspeth Beard truly the first British woman to ride around the…

Honda Valkyrie

Honda’s six-cylinder ‘power cruiser’ certainly turned heads when it arrived two decades ago. It turned out to be an inspired innovation, removing all the touring equipment from the gargantuan Gold Wing to create a mighty musclebike, and the Valkyrie (or Flat 6 Custom) has built itself a solid following. The first book to be published on the subject gets a…

Vincent Black Shadow

When the Vincent Black Shadow was announced in 1948 it wowed the world with a top speed of 125mph. Since then it’s become accepted as an icon of the old British bike industry. A new book explains how the Black Shadow was originally conceived, developed and produced – with in-depth chapters looking in detail at its specification and later modifications.…

Torrens: the classic motorcyclist

Back in the days of black and white, when the Green ’Un and Blue ’Un ruled the motorcycling roost, journalist, editor and publisher Torrens was one of the world’s foremost riding writers. We review his memoir, Behind The Scenes In The Vintage Years… Torrens himself, taking part in a Land’s End to John O’Groats trial The pen-name of Arthur Bourne,…

Ride Of My Life

In Ride of My Life, racer and writer Frank Melling tells of a few of the bikes and experiences, bad and good, that he has encountered during a lifetime of motorcycling. Frank always tells it as he sees it in his own honest, fascinating and often humorous manner, and in a way that every motorcyclist can relate to. The subjects…