Features

Mick Payne reflects on the late Ray Doran’s cleverly modified BMW/Watsonian GP Sport combination. Last month, our editor Pete gave a tantalising glimpse of the sadly deceased Ray Doran’s lovely BMW outfit, and this got me thinking. Many years ago, I wrote a regular sidecar feature for Motorcycle Sport magazine and was lucky enough to…

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In the last of his features about Japanese trail bikes, Steve Cooper takes a close look at Honda’s XL250 that was first revealed 46 years ago in 1972. By the end of the 1960s, Honda’s drive to be all-powerful on both two and four wheels had created some significant market sector gaps. As we’ve previously…

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Colin House brings more evocative images of the Sixties as he describes the accident that resulted in him rebuilding his Norton Dominator as a café racer, and some of the cafes, coffee bars and pie stalls he and his mates frequented. I thoroughly agree with Gerry Allen’s interesting letter headed ‘Café racers just aren’t what…

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Now in his seventies and still riding a Suzuki SV650, Leslie Wye looks back fondly at the magical motorcycling years of the 1960s. During the now-far-away 1960s, motorbikes played a much more important role in our society. They were our only affordable means of transport and were a respectable addiction, playing a major role in…

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Former local police motorcycle patrolman Derek Marrable recalls the night when he was launched into dark space on an LE Velocette Riding along the alleyway that runs between the back gardens of Haws Lane, the back of Haws Down School and the railway line, in the dead of night at around 25mph, headlamp just about…

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Nigel Stennett-Cox looks back over a life strewn with motorcycles of every shape and size, and his continuing passion for riding them – and fondly remembers the purple Triumph Trident he lusted over but was never allowed to buy We love our bikes, some of them more than others, and when we are young and…

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When Chas Moody read an OBM reader’s letter from Gerry Allen about today’s shiny restored bikes having little resemblance to those used back in the day, he found himself agreeing wholeheartedly with the sentiment, and couldn’t resist sending us these pictures of a Vinnie he used to see parked in a side road off Theobalds…

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When you’re 97 years old, the memories you retain are priceless, as long-term Old Bike Mart reader Frank Authers clearly demonstrates. We’ll bring the second part of his story next month. I have never been an ardent ‘biker’ as they are known these days, merely an enthusiast who has enjoyed the pleasures, trials and tribulations…

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When Les Siddle bought an AKD V-twin motorcycle for £12 10s more than 50 years ago, he intended to get it running again, but events overtook him and he passed it on to his friend Bob Clark. Between them, they tell the fascinating story. The recent OBM article about Abingdon King Dick Spanners and Motor…

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Pete Kelly takes our promised fuller look at Herbie Light’s scrapbook covering the progression of the Royal Enfield two-stroke racers of the 1960s. In the mid-1960s, squeezing 34bhp from a 250cc two-stroke ‘single’ was quite a feat, but after starting with a single-carburettor Villiers Starmaker, Royal Enfield rapidly progressed to one of the best-handling and…

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