News

  • D’you know how to make toffee apples, love?

    D’you know how to make toffee apples, love?

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    After seeing the Dot utility tricycle pictured at the Manchester factory’s open day in last month’s Old Bike Mart, Paul Weeks of Sittingbourne, Kent, couldn’t resist telling us about his own two rare commercial three-wheelers which, in restoration, have been carrying out the tasks for which they were designed. I’ve always enjoyed restoring motorcycles as…

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  • Series-A Rapide falls just short of world record bid

    Series-A Rapide falls just short of world record bid

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    A 1938 Vincent-HRD Series-A Rapide, CUP 660, was sold for £267,696 at H&H Classics’ Donington Park Sale on November 15, just £7304 short of the existing world record price bid for such a machine. As a non-runner in need of restoration in 1988, it was purchased by long-term Vincent enthusiast and former Series-A Meteor owner…

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  • First prize for David as he joins the Rotary club

    First prize for David as he joins the Rotary club

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    David Schofield from County Durham became the lucky owner of the 1990 588cc Norton F1 Rotary motorcycle that was first prize in the National Motorcycle Museum’s 2016 summer raffle when the winning ticket was drawn by road racing legends Carl Fogarty, John McGuinness and Ian Hutchinson at the NMM’s ‘Museum Live’ open day on Saturday,…

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  • Bonneville family covers every lifestyle choice

    Bonneville family covers every lifestyle choice

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    Triumph has launched a comprehensive new range of 900cc liquid-cooled eight-valve Bonneville variants to suit every preference, from the straight T100 and T100 Black to the Bobber, Street Cup and Scrambler, each designed to suit the customers’ particular lifestyle choices yet all sharing the same sound basic engineering principles. Styled on café racer lines, the…

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  • The ‘Flying Vicar’ is at it again!

    The ‘Flying Vicar’ is at it again!

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    In the June issue of OBM, we published a letter from Malcolm Walter telling of a bright yellow off-road BSA Bantam built by a clubmate of his called Richard. Well, Richard has been at it again, this time trying three wheels for a change, and regulars at the Goodwood Revival might well have encountered him,…

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  • Tritons, TriBSAs and much more besides…

    Tritons, TriBSAs and much more besides…

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    Mention the words ‘café racer’ and many of us will go all bleary-eyed as we remember the Tritons and TriBSAs of old, gleaming in the sunshine with their race-style alloy tanks, clip-ons and rear-sets, alloy rims, swept-back pipes, humped seats et al, and packed into the gardens of hotels and guest houses all the way up…

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  • Claude Mackenzie – an unsung Highland hero

    Claude Mackenzie – an unsung Highland hero

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    I was delighted to see the photo and article from Arran Marshall about his Ariel ‘racer’. During the 1980s the bike was owned by a good friend of mine, Claude Mackenzie, who lived at Tornagrain, near Inverness and sadly died about 10 years ago. He was a brilliant self-taught engineer with a penchant for challenging…

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  • A ‘dogfight’ with a difference!

    A ‘dogfight’ with a difference!

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    One of the finest descriptions of fast riding ever written was T E Lawrence’s essay, ‘The Road’, describing an impromptu ‘race’ between Boanerges, his beloved Brough Superior 100SS, and a Bristol Fighter in Lincolnshire. It appeared in the December 27, 1962 issue of The Motor Cycle after first being published in a book entitled The…

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  • Triumph GP best in show at top American event

    Triumph GP best in show at top American event

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    Ian Kerr visits an up-and-coming motorcycle concours event in Tacoma, USA, to prove the point that beautifully-restored classics are equally impressive no matter where in the world they are shown. Each year America’s Car Museum at Tacoma, just south of the port of Seattle, in Washington State, hosts a motorcycle concours event that’s fast becoming…

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  • Downsized to perfection – Suzuki’s punchy T200 twin

    Downsized to perfection – Suzuki’s punchy T200 twin

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    Steve Cooper appraises a significant two-stroke twin from Suzuki’s Hamamatsu factory that lifted customers’ expectations in the sub 250cc category onto a completely different plane. Anyone who’s familiar with the earlier Japanese motorcycles will know just how significant the Suzuki T20 was. In one package, here was the bike that pretty much cemented the blueprint…

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