Features

RE is big on tradition, and its stock models are styled accordingly. Interesting to see how well they make a traditional cafe racer, too ONCE UPON A TIME, this sparkling solo sportster was something of a lumpen duckling. The standard Royal Enfield EFI Bullet is a worthy motorcycle in the traditional mould, but it’s no…

Continue reading »

Despite having just the one camshaft, the BSA engine always appears larger than its Triumph equivalents. Fine frame, and considerable comfort available here There are two equally valid ways of looking at the BSA Golden Flash. One, and it’s the view you will most often hear being offered by Triumph enthusiasts, is that despite its…

Continue reading »

Look closely. Observe the falling bubble. The story’s in the story… Classic, Vintage, Old-timer, call it what you will – ‘Historic’ racing is an ever-more globally popular branch of two-wheeled sport, one which frequently attracts improbable participants mounted on unlikely bikes. Yet few come more unlikely than Japanese Yamaha tuning guru and Over Racing boss,…

Continue reading »

John Anstey: Shelves full of trophies “My dad had motorcycles, so I had a head start over a lot of lads. When I was 11 or 12 years old I used to `hang around with some older boys who rode a couple of cyclemotors on the heath. It was great fun and I asked my…

Continue reading »

‘Big Sid’ Biberman – a lifelong love affair with Vincent motorcycles. Both engines were the result of redesigning an existing single-cylinder engine into a twin, both companies began their motorcycle production using someone else’s engines, both companies enjoyed success on the racetrack and both Vincent and Ducati produced motorcycles that are viewed by their fanatical…

Continue reading »

Geoff Duke on the grid for the 1959 Ulster GP. He rode a 500 Manx Norton Six-time world champion and six-time TT winner Geoff Duke OBE passed away peacefully on Friday, May 1 at his home in the Isle of Man, at the age of 92. Duke was the first global superstar of Grand Prix…

Continue reading »

BSA Spitfire Scrambler In this old motorcycle game of ours, fate can sometimes play a decent hand by laying in front of us a certain path, which eventually results in a machine that originally was not quite what we had planned. Take Dave Dawson’s Spitfire Scrambler, for example; it actually began life courtesy of a…

Continue reading »

The first televised scramble took place at Beenham, near Reading in December 1954 and, as one might expect with off-road racing at that time of year, the muddy conditions made life extremely difficult and the meeting took place over a shorter course than normally used by the South Reading club. The BBC had previously successfully…

Continue reading »

Peter Howells’ Panther-Norton special In the privileged life of working for Classic Bike Guide and riding other enthusiasts’ machines, the emphasis naturally leans toward the immaculate, the beautiful, the elegant, the award winners. Just as newspapers give pages and pages to the catwalk shows of leading designers and the latest fashion trends, in the classic…

Continue reading »

Motorcycle Show at Earls Court, 1954 Geoff Duke opened his piece bemoaning the fact that there were ‘no drastic developments’ and most people might look back on the show as ‘average’. But he countered this gambit by discussing some of the more detailed elements at the show. For example, how the tidier front and rear…

Continue reading »