Classic Bike Guide

  • Japanese retro with style and character

    Japanese retro with style and character

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    Kawasaki’s all-new W800 Street and Café deliver bags of character and soul, something regularly missed by Japanese manufacturers. Adam Child travels all the way to Japan to test Kawasaki’s new heritage range, which can trace its routes back to the W1 650 of 1965. Words: Adam Child photographs: Kawasaki Japan The burble from the twin…

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  • Malcolm Uphill

    Malcolm Uphill

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    This quiet, thoughtful Welsh rider gave Triumph some great victories and was the first to break the 100mph barrier at the TT on a production bike, leading Dunlop to name a tyre after his achievement. Words: Jim Reynolds Photography: Mortons archive Malcolm Uphill stumbled into biking almost out of curiosity. At just 15 he borrowed…

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  • Ten times World Champion to take star role at Stafford

    Ten times World Champion to take star role at Stafford

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    The most successful sidecar racer of all time, Steve Webster, will be Guest of Honour at the Carole Nash Motorcycle Mechanics Show this October.

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  • Ducati 250 Desmo

    Ducati 250 Desmo

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    Words by OliPhotography by Chippy (Mrs Doubtfire) Wood DESMO IS A word that means everything to Ducati aficionados. It’s the thing that makes Ducati’s engines special. Born out of their racing programme, Ducati’s Desmodromic valve actuation system, has valves that are both opened and closed by cam followers, rather than relying on coiled springs. The…

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  • Yamaha XT500

    Yamaha XT500

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    The bike that started the adventure bike trend is still a great bike Words by Oli Hulme Photography by Chippy Wood BY 1973, WHEN the last BSA B50 and Triumph Adventurer off-roaders had rolled off the production line, the big four-stroke off-roader was thought to be dead. To seriously take to the dirt, if you…

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  • Five things you didn’t know about Apollo 11’s return

    Five things you didn’t know about Apollo 11’s return

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    Fifty years on, the programme to take the first humans to the moon is arguably our single greatest achievement.

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  • BSA Rocket Gold Star

    BSA Rocket Gold Star

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    Words by Oli Photography by Gary Chapman I SAW MY first BSA Rocket Gold Star in the early 1980s. It was lurking in the back of a barn, covered in dust and bird poop, propped up between a Vincent Comet and a Rapide. Even in such inauspicious surroundings and auspicious company the class of the…

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  • The Road – A Motorcycling Anthology

    The Road – A Motorcycling Anthology

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    What’s this? an advert for another bike magazine? Are you mad? I had to share this with you, as it is brilliant, just brilliant. Greg Pullen, Italian classic bike expert wanted to share features that were longer than those in a magazine, but shorter than warranting a book, hence an anthology. Pullen’s previously edited Benzina,…

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  • British motorcycles 1945-1965, from Aberdale to Wooler

    British motorcycles 1945-1965, from Aberdale to Wooler

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    With 600 pages this is a big beast of a book! It makes it too long to read from cover to cover and is best used as a reference, and good at that it is. To have so many bikes featured from just a 20 year period is quite something, but it includes great artwork…

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  • Beezumph triples head to Cadwell

    Beezumph triples head to Cadwell

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    CADWELL PARK WILL echo to the howl of 120° triples at this year’s Beezumph rally on July 25/26. Organisers at the Trident and Rocket 3 Owners’ Club are celebrating their 40th birthday and are pulling out all the stops. There will be a Doug Hele Centennial area with the prototype P1 Trident on display. Other…

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