Features

The Laverda’s beefy motor was enlarged to 600, 650, 688 and finally 750cc. Classic motorcycles from Italy tend to polarise opinion perhaps more widely than just about any other country of origin. The oft-spouted negatives are that they are woefully unreliable, desperately uncomfortable, electrically cursed, have rock-hard suspension and are fragile beyond measure. The positives…

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The Continental’s dropped handlebars allowed for a more tucked-in riding style When Royal Enfield launched the unit-construction 250cc Crusader in 1956, followed by the tasty Crusader Sports a couple of years later, the Redditch concern was onto a winner. By 1963 a five-speed, close-ratio gearbox had become the icing on the cake as two very…

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Paul Goff with an HRD from his British bike collection. It can’t have escaped your notice that car lights are getting brighter. Not a bad thing, perhaps, but it does mean that the less efficient lighting systems of older motorcycles struggle to be seen in the sea of brightness. There’s not a lot you can…

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It’s all done with lights and mirrors, you know! Note the green rosette on this fabulously bedecked Lamby at last year’s event, attended by more than 600 riders. A little preserved steam railway in Bedfordshire, all 2ft gauge of it, researched its history by interviewing retired employees from the days when it was an industrial…

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The launch of Honda’s CB450 ‘Black Bomber’ sent shock waves through Britain’s big bike manufacturers, but its high price, curious engine capacity and unimpressive handling prevented it from being the absolute success it might have been. However its successor, the CB500T (sadly, we couldn’t find a photograph) was a whole lot worse. Someone once opined…

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With a Silver City Airways Bristol Freighter in the background, Edward Marshall of Horsham sets off on a journey to Australia When the internet was a far-distant dream (or nightmare, according to your point of view) and relatively few people had a telephone, the quickest way to send a message was by Post Office telegram.…

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Bryan Wade (No 6), seen in a tense battle for the lead with Fred Mayes (No 8) during an exciting 250cc Grandstand Trophy race many years ago, will be one of the special guests at the Telford show. Mortons Archive Photo. Despite its title, the Hagon Shocks-sponsored Classic Dirt Bike Show at Telford — which…

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This charming picture from days gone by shows the local postman’s mail delivery sidecar outfit at Wareham, Dorset, with Rex on guard in 1939. The following year the outfit was replaced by a van. We visited several local museums on our recent trip, and a seemingly recurring exhibit was the sidecar as a workhorse. At…

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With bikes sprinkled among the marquees and small tents, this is another overall view of the 1964 Dragon Rally site. During the evening there was a spectacular headlight parade down from the ‘castle’. After passing my riding test on a Royal Enfield Crusader in 1963, at last I was as free as a bird and…

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It had looks to kill, but Yamaha’s smooth-running and beautifully-styled TX750 harboured problematical technical issues. Those who believe that Yamaha was late to join the four-stroke party have probably, and understandably, missed some of the earlier machinery. For many classic enthusiasts, Yamaha’s all-time great, aka the XS650, is little more than a poppet-valved aberration sitting…

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