June 2019

Classic Bike Guide

The only way to enjoy classics!

Classic Bike Guide3 min read
Old Meets New
I still love the Stafford show, there’s always something different and it makes you feel like you’re part of a much larger classic world. This month I had one of those lucky ‘pinch me’ moments, being fortunate enough to spend a little time with some
Classic Bike Guide5 min readAutomotive
Honda Dax
THE YEAR of 1969 was, on the whole, a good one. It witnessed the release of Led Zeppelin’s second album, the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed, Easy Rider, the Woodstock Festival, man on the moon, the list goes on… Hell, even Sesame Street made its debut
Classic Bike Guide2 min read
Racers Return To Oliver’s Mount
ROAD RACING IS to return to Scarborough’s Oliver’s Mount road circuit. Racing was cancelled when 12 people were injured in two crashes in September 2017 when competitors crashed through fencing and hit spectators. The venue attracts thousands of spec
Classic Bike Guide2 min read
Stafford Sparkles Despite The Showers
THERE WERE TWO main topics of conversation at the Stafford International Classic MotorCycle Show during the first day. One was “Who on earth would pay nearly £85,000 for a 650cc Triumph twin” and the other was “Do you suppose it will stop raining?” B
Classic Bike Guide4 min readAutomotive
Letters
In the 1960s I was the general secretary of the Honda Owners’ Club (GB). In 1969, four club members, including me, were invited to assist at the Brighton motorcycle show where the Honda CB750/4 was to debut. On the stand was a turquoise specimen moun
Classic Bike Guide6 min read
Products
EMERGENCY CONTROL CABLE repair kits are a useful thing to have in your toolbox or on your bike and usually they are available for clutches and carbs. A new product from Slinky Glide is this handy repair kit suitable for mechanical speedometers. While
Classic Bike Guide6 min readAutomotive
Royal Enfield Constellation
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. The 692cc engine is squeezed into a frame derived from the 350 Bu
Classic Bike Guide9 min readAutomotive
THE 77TH GOODWOOD MEMBERS’ MEETING: Hunting, shooting and – racing
Hosting both the Goodwood Revival and Festival of Speed in 2014, the Duke of Richmond decided to stage a more low-key season-opening two-day historic race meeting at the Motor Circuit in March each year, with a cap of ‘just’ 33,000 paying spectators,
Classic Bike Guide3 min readAutomotive
On The Road
THE CONSTELLATION IS more than a little intimidating. It was all power and grunt and had little in the way of fripperies and fancies and was all the more handsome for it. Although it’s compact it feels big, which is a bit of a contradiction, but if y
Classic Bike Guide7 min readAutomotive
Honda Cb250k
THE BRITISH L-PLATED rider in the late 1960s was not particularly well-served by the world’s motorcycle manufacturers. If you were 17 you wanted a 250 but you were stuck with ageing designs from the Brits like the BSA Starfire or the Triumph 250 Trop
Classic Bike Guide5 min readAutomotive
Ariel 650 Huntmaster
ARIEL’S 650CC HUNTMASTER. It’s just a BSA Flash A10 in sensible shoes, right? That’s a common opinion... and it could not be more wrong. Certainly, the engine can use some of the parts from the A10 power plant under its Ariel cases, but the rest of t
Classic Bike Guide3 min readAutomotive
‘A Motorcycle With Top Hat And Tails On’
LESTER GRANT IS vice-president of the Ariel Owners’ Club, and rode a Huntmaster for a decade. Ten years on a bike gives the rider a pretty good idea of what it’s like. “The Huntmaster is a lazy, relaxed ride, with a reasonable amount of power, easy t
Classic Bike Guide7 min readAutomotive
Fancy A Day Out?
30 Park it in the Market: One for the Londoners. On the last Thursday of every month Greenwich Market is home to an evening of classic cars and bikes, great music and street food. Park It in The Market starts after the regular Thursday Market has tid
Classic Bike Guide3 min readAutomotive
Steve Cooper
A quick calculation reveals I’ve been messing around with motorcycles for 45 years now and I’m not planning on packing up anytime soon. Over that rather worryingly long time frame, I’ve owned a fair number and ridden infinitely more. The latter is pr
Classic Bike Guide4 min read
Paul Miles
It’s Spring! The clocks have moved forward, something we do every year to assist munitions workers and help them win the Crimean war, or something equally relevant. Spring has finally sprung up and down the land and sheds are being flung open after m
Classic Bike Guide4 min read
Paul D’orléans
Paul looks at the café racer, its origins and asks – where did it come from? W hen my publisher asked for – another - book on café racers, because the last one (cleverly titled ‘Cafe Racers’) sold well, it required considerable meditation before I c
Classic Bike Guide9 min read
Mike Hailwood's Machines
IT’S SATURDAY, June 3, 1978 and a young man is dispatched to buy a tennis ball and a sponge. It’s an unusual shopping list for a mechanic clad in racing team gear but, nonetheless, he runs to Douglas high street on the Isle of Man as if his life depe
Classic Bike Guide10 min readAutomotive
Timely Tribute
Moto Magni celebrated its 40th birthday in 2017, but it’s only in the past six years that its small but well equipped factory, run by Giovanni Magni, 59, has started using the products of the modern MV Agusta firm as the basis for creating and refini
Classic Bike Guide8 min readAutomotive
Special Brew
Café racers, rock ’n’ roll and the resulting counter culture are all steeped in a long and fascinating heritage. It’s a vital and charismatic part of British motorcycling and social history and in fact I count that in the last year there have been at
Classic Bike Guide3 min read
Finding The Right Fred
We talk about our old nails in terms of aesthetics and ergonomics, power and torque, character and looking like it’s doing 100mph standing still; but when it comes down to fixing and keeping the things running it’s more tolerances, limits and fits, b
Classic Bike Guide5 min readAutomotive
1967 Yamaha YDS3 250cc Twin, five-speed
Who can deny the usefulness of a fitting workshop manual in the restoration of a classic motorcycle? And yet – in the early days of the Japanese invasion, the manuals were somewhere between useless and extremely funny, due to being transliterated fro
Classic Bike Guide4 min read
Rebuilding Our Matchless Run In A New Engine
After much more time, effort and money than we thought, our G3L rolls on its wheels; if slowly. From an oil leak from the pushrod tubes to a complete top-end rebuild, the 350cc single just needed the carb cleaned, checked and put back on, starting fi
Classic Bike Guide5 min read
Project Norton ES2 This Is Getting Complicated…
Among the boxes of bits our 1956 Norton ES2 came in the form of, the bottom end basics seemed in one piece. I got knowledgeable friends, Neville and Hutch, to feel the con rod for big end play and mains bearing noises and they declared it fit, with j
Classic Bike Guide3 min read
Frank Westworth
Discussion is always healthy; argument less so. Possibly. Making suggestions is generally welcome; offering advice less so. And why? Consider this: I was recently involved in a time-old conversation about sidecars. Well, not about the contraptions th

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