classic japanese motorcycle Archives Page 2 of 2

See Sheene’s machines at Stafford

1st October 2017 RowenaH Events

The Carole Nash Classic Mechanics Show is so mightily immense that you could easily spend all day at the showground and still not see everything. So here’s our handy-dandy guide of what to see at Stafford this October… The Suzuki Village is a special feature, displaying a stack of rare racing machines of the marque. These include the two RG500s…

Honda CL350

19th September 2017 RowenaH Features

Here’s another contender for our ‘compact classic’ competition. Honda’s street scrambler from the late 1960s comes with 100mph potential, electric starting and a not too scary purchase price. Richard Jones examines its credentials… So here’s the problem. You like the look of those trail / adventure bikes that seem to be ridden by everyone yet you don’t want the cost,…

Suzuki GT750

9th September 2017 RowenaH Features

Now that it’s an acknowledged cult classic, this iconic 1970s water-cooled 750 triple doesn’t come cheap. But if you spend one single quid to enter the VMCC’s raffle, there’s a chance you could win this very bike. So what’s it like to ride? Remember the ‘Universal Japanese Motorcycle’, that faintly derogatory term from the 1970s and 80s? Its point was…

Shepton Snapshots

26th March 2017 RowenaH Events, Features

Once upon a time, every weekend witnessed an autojumble as good as this one. Real barn-find British bikes for sale; stacks of spares, genuinely surplus to requirement; an eye-catching avenue of motorcycles old and new which carried their owners to the event, and an entry fee equivalent to a single cup of frothy coffee. Few traditional autojumbles still exist in…

Yamaha XS650

2nd March 2017 RowenaH Features

A few months back, Editor Westworth risked life and limb by suggesting that Yamaha’s air-cooled parallel twin was the first and potentially the best ‘Japanese Bonneville’. It’s stood the test of time, too, as this 40 year old example ably demonstrates. So we were delighted to hear from the man who modified this particular XS – previous owner DaveP,…