Features

“There’ll always be someone who wants a pair of good boots,” was the best advice Alt-Berg founder Mike Sheehan ever received. During our recent Team Katy charity trip, after I’d left my boots outside the tent to air a bit, some light-fingered Herbert decided he’d like a pair without having to go to the trouble…

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The spirit of the Moidart Run is encapsulated by this scene aboard the Corran Ferry – and the gloves are definitely not coming off yet! A cold, wet, sleety, drizzle was falling as around 80 hardy and determined enthusiasts (nutters?) assembled in the viaduct car park in Kinlochleven for a 120-mile round trip taking in…

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A Japanese single – and an excellent one at that. Yamaha took the world by storm when it launched its XTs. Without exception, every motorcycle we’ve looked at in Old Bike Mart’s middleweight series has run a multi-cylinder engine because, in the period we tend to cover, single-cylinder machines were generally the preserve of tiddlers,…

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In 1931 Ariel won the Maudes Trophy with an ingenious ‘Sevens’ test devised by the firm’s sales and marketing manager Victor Mole. This involved seven different Ariel models, and in one of the tests, seven schoolboys were each invited to kick-start a Square Four seven times. It started first kick on 48 out of the…

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A group of likely lads ogle the selection of new Yamahas during an open day at the former St Neots Yamaha Centre. In 1978 the Marshall Group handed me a car showroom with a petrol forecourt and workshop in Huntingdon Road, St Neots, and invited me to turn it into a motorcycle dealership befitting the…

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Jack Piper explains the technicalities to seated Motor Cycle staffman Peter Fraser. There’s been quite a bit about BSA/Ariel two-stroke specials in Old Bike Mart lately, but one of the best-looking of them all was a Zundapp/Arrow special put together by Hampshire farmer Jack Piper and tried out by Motor Cycle staffman Peter Fraser in…

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The refined (by comparison) Suzuki GT550 poses with its much more berserk rival, Kawasaki’s H1 Mach III. In recent discussion with one of this column’s readers, I was asked why on earth we hadn’t done a feature on probably the most overlooked Japanese classic of the 1970s – and the guy had a point, for…

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There wasn’t much wrong with the handling, as a Motor Cycle staffman in more appropriate riding gear demonstrates. By the time Associated Motor Cycles launched its apparently unit-construction 250cc overhead-valve Matchless G2 and AJS 14 models in May 1958, Ducati was already marketing a range of brilliant overhead-camshaft singles in capacities ranging from 100 to…

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David Angel works on a sidecar chassis. Last month I tried to give an insight into the various alignments necessary to keep a sidecar outfit handling as well as possible. This month the experts have their say, and what experts they are – Watsonian Squire, Jim D’Arcy and Velorex/Ural expert, David Angel, all have their…

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After vowing never to ride a bike again, Tony took part in off-road competition on a 325cc Bultaco Sherpa, and soon found himself managing the Yamaha centre at St Neot’s. More about this in the second part of his story next month. Emulating the scrambling we watched on TV, my friends and I built ‘dirt…

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