News

After arriving in Belfast towards the end of their charity fundraising tour of Northern Ireland, the National Autocycle & Cyclemotor Club’s Wirral Wobblers got a nasty surprise in the shape of 17 parking tickets placed on the seats of their small machines. Ted Bemand, whose account of the tour has been appearing in recent issues…

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The letter in OBM (June) about bike shop tours of Liverpool rekindled memories of 1958-59 and my first bikes as a 16-year-old apprentice mechanic on £3 per week. All the big car dealers, Watson’s (Morris/Jaguar), Garlick Burrell and Edwards (Vauxhall) as well as Blake’s (Ford) were intermingled with the bike dealers, so while running for…

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The East Sussex section of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club presented a fine selection of machinery at a Roaring Twenties Day in Bexhill-on-Sea recently, with motorcycles around the VMCC stand including a period 1925 James, 1926 Scott Flyer, 1935 Brough 11.50 and immaculate 1947 Norton ES2. The best crowd-puller, however, was a 1947 BSA M20…

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Les Orme tells how, many years after the event, he managed to return the favour to a Norton Navigator that had rescued him from a breakdown crisis in France. My motorcycling days started in 1959, at the age of 15, when friends Keith Pitcher, Pete Evans and I bought an old non-running rigid rear-end BSA…

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Records were broken during the Girder Fork & Classic Motorcycle Club’s 20th anniversary year when 1300 visitors – a big increase over last year’s 850 – supported the club’s Big Bike Sunday charity event at Skipton Auction Mart on June 26. In sweltering sunshine, 175 machines were entered in seven classes – vintage, pre-1965, post-1965,…

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Riding a 1903 Quadrant Banking Tricycle, Geoff Wheeler took the Len Wills Trophy for the best performance on a veteran machine at this year’s Vintage Motor Cycle Club Banbury Run on Sunday, June 19. Awards: Bill Moore Trophy (rider nearest allotted time schedule at one or more checks, having gained a gold award): Christopher Brown…

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This year’s Norton Owners’ Club Festival included a 30-mile ride around the New Forest area before converging on the Sammy Miller Museum, where more than 200 bikes had gathered by noon on Saturday, July 2. Making a fabulous display, members’ machines were joined by Norton Rotary legend Brian Crighton with his CR 700P race bikes,…

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Almost 600 bikes visited the Sammy Miller Museum on Sunday, July 26 when Bike Life Classic, a non-profit group for the preservation of classic bikes organised by Anthony and Heidi Andrews, held its second annual meet there. The Stars Appeal for Salisbury District Hospital will benefit from the £2000 raised on the day. Read more…

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