Classic Bike Guide

  • Showing off

    Showing off

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    I’ve just rattled back from a show. Any excuse to slope out of the office while the magazine’s in the final few days of production. Rode up to Shropshire from Cornwall on the Saturday. It rained a lot. I can reveal that my new Bering jacket and less new Held overpants do not leak. Yet.…

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  • ARTS & CRAFTS

    ARTS & CRAFTS

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    THE ART OF THE MOTORCYCLE returns to London Olympia on October 29/30 in the form of the Kickback Motorcycle Show, an exhibition dedicated to the promotion of motorcycling engineering excellence. Kickback is the definitive platform for professional and enthusiast designers, builders and customisers to show off their two-wheeled meisterwerks alongside some of the UK’s most…

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  • Best of British

    Best of British

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    REMEMBER, REMEMBER the fifth of November – but don’t bother blowing up the Houses of Parliament. Instead, head for the National Motorcycles Museum in Birmingham to make the most of the NMM’s massive ‘Live’ open day. The NMM’s extensive collection of British bikes – the biggest in the world – has been extensively reconfigured so…

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  • Stars at Stafford

    Stars at Stafford

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    FOUR OF THE racing celebrities who starred in the iconic film On Any Sunday will be reunited at the Carole Nash Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show on October 15-16. Nominated for an Oscar, the documentary portrayed the riding lives of hotshot motorcycle racers of the early 1970s. Directed by Bruce Brown, it was produced by Steve…

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  • Vincent Motorcycles:  The Untold Story since 1946

    Vincent Motorcycles: The Untold Story since 1946

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    GIVEN THE VINCENT’S reputation as one of the most remarkable motorcycles ever manufactured, any book which attempts to cover the subject needs to be similarly accomplished. This massive hardback, which runs to 400 fact-packed, full-colour pages, is the most comprehensive volume currently available. It discusses why and how the brand declined into bankruptcy, and why…

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  • Good vibrations

    Good vibrations

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    STROLLING THROUGH the magazine section at ASDA, I was stopped in my tracks. I must have stepped through a black hole because I was suddenly 17 years old again. That’s some feat for a magazine. Some motorbikes thoroughly deserve to be reborn and the Métisse is certainly one of them. I doubt I’m representative of…

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  • It is a star

    It is a star

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    WORDS BY ROB DAVIES PHOTOS BY BARRY TAYLOR (OLD PRINTS), MODERN PICS FROM BARRY, ROB, AND ROBIN HORTON Fifty-one years and still going strong. The story of one man and his A65… BSA had the canny – you might even say crafty – knack of making many bikes out of one product. Oh, they changed…

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  • Dominating decades

    Dominating decades

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    Cliff Rees, born into a motorcycle family in 1938, Norton Dominator 88 purchased in 1959. He’s riding the same bike in 2016…you do the numbers!

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  • Hot 100: The Bonnie which blitzed the 1969 Production TT

    Hot 100: The Bonnie which blitzed the 1969 Production TT

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    Words by Frank Melling; Photos by Carol Melling/Mortons Archive IN 1958, MIKE HAILWOOD and Dan Shorey won the Thruxton long distance race and a year later the Thruxton Bonnevilles were born. Strictly speaking, the name Thruxton only applies to the 49 machines made for homologation purposes in 1964/65. However, it was Triumph practice to put a…

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  • The real deal: Triumph’s best new Bonnie

    The real deal: Triumph’s best new Bonnie

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    WORDS & PHOTOS BY Frank Melling YOU’RE IN A rush, right? You want to go out for a ride, not read a magazine. I’ll come straight to the point. The Triumph Thruxton R is not only the best-ever retro bike made, it’s one of the greatest motorcycles of all time. If you love classics, you’ll…

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