Classic Bike Guide

  • Royal Enfield Constellation: big hearted & ready to trample

    Royal Enfield Constellation: big hearted & ready to trample

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    Royal Enfield’s constellation is a beefy beast with the personality and aggression of a Pontypool rugby prop forward from the Sixties – big hearted and ready to trample the opposition.

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  • Motorcycles that matter: Honda Dax

    Motorcycles that matter: Honda Dax

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    Does the little Honda deserve classic status?

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  • RebuildingTriumph forks

    RebuildingTriumph forks

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    To make life fun, Oli rebuilt his T140 forks at the Bristol show! WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY By Oli REPLACING THE STANCHIONS/FORK TUBES or fitting new seals to Triumph/BSA ‘Ceriani’ type front forks isn’t complicated or beyond the skills of an average home mechanic, but it is quite possible to muck it up. At least one…

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  • How’s that work: Tyres

    How’s that work: Tyres

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    As long as they’re not flat at the bottom, eh? Back in the old days Before the 1930s, motorcycles often had beaded edge rims to hold the tyres on, as the tyre had no reinforced inner edge. These tyres had to have pressures of between 50-70psi to keep them from falling off the rim when…

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  • Project Norton ES2: Part 5

    Project Norton ES2: Part 5

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    Off with her head! How bad is the cylinder head of our ES2? We delve inside the head of a 62-year-old… After last month’s highs with the first part of Project Norton finished, I could look at the shiny frame and swing arm and finally see through the last few months of searching through the…

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  • New Retro Jawa 350 Classic

    New Retro Jawa 350 Classic

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    Ring-ding-ding – a taste (and smell) of new two-stroke Words by Matt Photography Gary Chapman Many thanks to David at F2 Motorcycles Ltd for letting us ride his demo 350 Classic. ‘It’s a shame you can’t buy a new two-stroke’ I heard recently at a show. Well, for those that need to, you can, thanks…

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  • Seeley-Honda: The Seventies Superbike

    Seeley-Honda: The Seventies Superbike

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    One specialist bike manufacturer stood head and shoulders above all others in the 1970s. His name was Colin Seeley. Here’s how he transformed the Honda CB750… Words: Phillip Tooth PHOTOGRAPHY: Tooth, Greening Archive As Colin Seeley gazes at the bike that carries his name on the fuel tank his face breaks into a huge smile.…

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  • The Honda CB750

    The Honda CB750

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    After this bike, nothing would ever be the same again. Words and emotional jabbering by Steve Cooper photography by Gary Chapman It’s genuinely hard to believe that the bike in camera dates from early 1970 and is from the first batch of 30 CB750/4s to be sold in the UK. And amazingly it’s also the…

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  • A pair of Matchless G3s

    A pair of Matchless G3s

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    Hello from New Zealand and thanks for producing the Classic Bike Guide mag. I enjoy reading the articles and find them very interesting. I started riding British bikes at an early age, but as usual, marriage and mortgages meant selling them (reluctantly) for household items. Now I have reached retirement age, I don’t own one,…

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  • Then and Now: Red Hunter

    Then and Now: Red Hunter

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    Then and Now sees Rachael Clegg test an Ariel 347cc Red Hunter as part of the Davolls motorcycle collection. Here, she compares her notes with those of a contemporary report from 1946. Culture has given Essex its fair share of bad press over the years. In the 1990s there was Birds of a Feather and…

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