Triumph Speed Twin

You never know what you’ll find at your local bike show. Roy Workman discovered an award-winning pre-war Triumph twin at Sleaford, which reminded him of his own time with a Tiger… At last year’s Sleaford Classic Car and Motorcycle Show, I spotted the immaculate 1938 Triumph Speed Twin you can see here. It had been rebuilt from a pile of…

Prester Autocycle

Did we detect a distinctive Gallic air at the VMCC Banbury Run® this year? Not that the riders were being sent on their way with croissants and a glass of vin rouge, but rather there seemed to be more marques from la belle France than usual. Maybe, muses Richard Jones, machines from across La Manche are more affordable? Here’s one…

Frera 500

Richard Jones made a New Year’s resolution to take more photos of rarer bikes. Right on cue he tripped over something truly unusual on his arrival at January’s Vintage Stony event. Look quickly and you might imagine that this single-cylinder vintage motorcycle is something like a British-built Sunbeam – but in fact it comes from Continental Europe… The first bike…

Sunbeam Model 95

Sunbeam motorcycles, built in Wolverhampton, were some of the sporting superstars of the pre-war period and they clocked up a series of wins in TT and GP races during the 1920s. Although times were tough during the Depression years, the company’s continued commitment to quality means that bikes from the 1930s are still going strong today, over 80 years later……

Ariel Red Hunter

The Ariel singles which came to be known as Red Hunters can be traced back to Val Page’s creations of 1926. Originally they were kitted out in black, and those Black Ariels have cultivated a cult following all of their own. The equine connection wasn’t established until Edward Turner flexed his influence in the 1930s. From 1931, the top of…