Features

Steve Cooper unravels the complex history of Kawasaki’s trail bike models When it comes to trail bikes, Kawasaki never figured largely in the UK until the likes of the KDX and KMX 125/200s of the late 1980s and early 90s arrived. Sure, we’d had the KL250 in the late 1970s, but it was never Kawasaki’s…

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Continuing the debate about sidecar braking, Mick Payne looks at some oddities from the past and the unbraked BEARS racing sidecar chassis of ‘Slow’ Phil Jones. It’s often said that racing improves the breed. This rather depends, however, on those who compile the regulations when you consider that Freddie Dixon’s 1923 TT-winning sidecar had both…

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Octogenarian David Grainger, who still rides a 1977 MZ TS150 and a 2009 Triumph Bonneville, tells of his adventures with a fully equipped Ariel Leader that he bought from the fondly remembered Rouse family garage in Kettering during the spring of 1959. I purchased my Ariel Leader (TBD 712) in March 1959 from the Rouse…

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Colin Rider recalls a wet and wild week-long Highland tour – and the misery suffered by a fellow rider when water swamped the ignition system of his four-cylinder Honda. Reading Lindsey Norris’s account (OBM November) of the challenges he faced with his Honda 400/4 when travelling to Scotland from the south of England prompted me…

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Velocette Owners’ Club honorary president Ivan Rhodes, who has enjoyed several 100-mile-plus outings on Bob Higgs’ home-built Velocette Vulcan V-twin outfit, tells of the man and his immaculate creation, which many think must have been a factory prototype. The Velocette Vulcan V-twin mentioned in recent issues is the brainchild of Bob Higgs, a friend of…

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Now living in Canada, Old Bike Mart reader Ralph Ridley recalls his baptism by fire in the Motor Cycle Club’s 1964 Land’s End Trial – an experience that set him firmly on to a lifetime of motorcycling. It might seem hard to believe, but with a bit of spit and polish the bike shown in…

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Steve Cooper recalls Honda’s SL350 trail bike of 1969 – an ill-thought-out adaptation of an existing road machine that was totally unsuitable for off-road riding – and the valuable lessons the Japanese giant quickly learned When Yamaha launched the ground-breaking DT250 in 1968, it totally wrong-footed its rivals – which was probably part of the…

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Colin Evans, who now lives in Buckingham, recalls buying a 650cc Triumph Thunderbird for £4 shortly after passing his motorcycle test at the age of 16 – and a memorable journey on it with his pal Ray Kindle on the pillion. It would have been in the early 1960s when I purchased my first 650cc…

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When Ady Warnes and his impoverished friends decided that the best way to get from Norwich to the 1967 Earls Court Motorcycle Show in London and back would be to cobble together a Panther sidecar outfit using a dumped chassis and a plywood body that had been a ‘Wendy house’, it had ‘farce’ written all…

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Road-tested by Motor Cycle in the October 6, 1966 issue, BSA’s 249cc C15 Star proved the perfect all-round mount. So finely tuned was the balance that it could be ridden to a standstill feet-up in heavy city traffic, yet out on the open road it was well capable of cruising at a sustained 60-65mph, with…

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