Road Tests

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…

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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…

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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 magazine…

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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 magazine…

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BSA B40 Derek’s riding goes back a long way, to before 1953 and emerging racing ambitions with a Mark Five 350 Douglas twin: “Not a proper racer like the 90 Plus, which was faster, but it handled beautifully, with all the weight of that flat twin low down,” he remembers. In those days you raced…

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BSA B40 Derek’s riding goes back a long way, to before 1953 and emerging racing ambitions with a Mark Five 350 Douglas twin: “Not a proper racer like the 90 Plus, which was faster, but it handled beautifully, with all the weight of that flat twin low down,” he remembers. In those days you raced…

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1952 Triumph Speed Twin In the 68 years since the new parallel twin set the fashion for decades to come, the world has been reminded to the point of complete boredom that Edward Turner designed it and that it went through a series of changes in its long life. So, let’s not go there yet…

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1952 Triumph Speed Twin In the 68 years since the new parallel twin set the fashion for decades to come, the world has been reminded to the point of complete boredom that Edward Turner designed it and that it went through a series of changes in its long life. So, let’s not go there yet…

Continue reading »

BSA Super Rocket Bob Hall’s Super Rocket came from an impeccable source – a CBG Small Ad. “I saw the ad, called the chap and he said it was a really good one,” he remembers. “It was expensive though, but I went down to see it and took cash – got it for £500 less…

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