Classic Bike Guide

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…

Continue reading »

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…

Continue reading »

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…

Continue reading »

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.…

Continue reading »

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…

Continue reading »

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…

Continue reading »

In this instalment, we reveal how fate played its hand not only in the career of ‘Mike the Bike’, but also in a much wider context – and with brutal irony – in the building of one motorcycle empire as another collapsed and crumbled. For now though, let’s rewind to 1967, and start at the…

Continue reading »

Words: Oli PHOTOGRAPHY: Gary Chapman IN THE EARLY 1950s BSA could claim the title of the largest producer of motorcycles in the world – “One in four” went the famous slogan “is a BSA”. The reason for this was partly down to the hard work of the German DKW company, not BSA’s design shop. Its…

Continue reading »