Old Bike Mart

Nine years that rocked the world: Part 1

by

Sam Hewitt

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3rd October 2019

This year marks the diamond jubilee of Honda’s first appearance at the Isle of Man TT in 1959, and there hasn’t been a single year since without the successful participation of racing machines built by the Japanese factory. Pete Kelly looks back over the first nine eventful years, from Honda’s first 125cc foray on to…
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Founders’ Day 2019

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd October 2019

Having an event at the same venue, on the same weekend each year, gives a temptation for folk to assume that the event will always be the same as the year before, yet Ian Kerr discovers that this isn’t always the case! The danger with any annual event is that, after a few years, people…
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Gearing up for a sidevalve

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd October 2019

So Arthur Pentney (OBM Letters July) likes his Norton sidevalve solos but not his BSA M20 which was “somewhat heavy and ponderous and lacking cornering ability” – could this be because he was talking of a rigid model with girder forks? Not so the postwar 600cc M21! My plunger one with teles and the wonderful…
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Stafford 2019: View Bonhams catalogue for free

by

Sam Hewitt

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1st October 2019

With the Carole Nash Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show only a few weeks away, Bonhams are showing their catalogue ahead of the show for free.
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Festival of 1000 Bikes

by

Sam Hewitt

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1st October 2019

Once a year isn’t anywhere near as often as anyone should be paying a visit to Leicestershire’s ‘friendly circuit’, but Dave Manning returned for his annual trip, to see this year’s VMCC showcase shindig… Despite the fact that the event has been running for a large number of years, last year had been my very…
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Triumph 350/500 unit construction twins bible 1957-1974

by

Sam Hewitt

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1st October 2019

Books about classic bikes tend to come in three forms – those about racing, those of a very general spread of content and those that are specific in their focus. It is the latter that most of us use as a reference tool and, coincidentally, just what this book is. By Peter Henshaw and Justin…
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Cadwell pics parte the seventh

by

Sam Hewitt

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1st October 2019

When Colin’s nephew gave me this batch when we worked for a Lincoln company in the 1980s, he had a huge pile of the card-backed prints. I just wonder what happened to them all if they are gems like these! Maybe they will surface sometime. In Part 7 we have a rigid framed Norton Inter,…
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Suzuki TM400

by

Sam Hewitt

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29th September 2019

Was Suzuki’s big TM the final frontier? Steve Cooper goes where no man has gone before to reveal the truth. In late 1969 or early 1970 someone at Suzuki’s Hamamatsu HQ came up with the bright idea of creating a big-bore scrambler that could beat the likes of Yamaha and Kawasaki on the dirt. Moto-X…
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Hello…

by

Sam Hewitt

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29th September 2019

What a great cover photo on your July 2019 issue: London’s Metropolitan police officers on the Noddy Course. When the Met put hundreds of officers on two wheels in the late 1950s, many of them had no motorcycling experience. The two-week Noddy Course at the police’s Hendon Driving School taught them the tips of motorcycling…
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Darlo dreams

by

Sam Hewitt

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28th September 2019

This picture (left) could have been taken in 1948 but was actually taken last month. It shows my 1951 BSA C11 next to Tornado, which was the first steam locomotive built in Britain for 50 years in 2008. Both machines have a connection with Darlington. Tornado, a Peppercorn class loco, was built by enthusiasts in…
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