Old Bike Mart

Festival of 1000 Bikes

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd August 2018

After a five-year hiatus, Leicestershire’s Mallory Park is once again playing host to the Festival of 1000 Bikes, and Dave Manning rode through the early July heat to see the result. With 2018’s incredible summer season bringing about much reminiscing of 1976, it seems rather apt that the layout of the Mallory Park circuit for…
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Anniversaries, sentiments and the Yamaha YR1

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd August 2018

With many anniversaries of significant Japanese motorcycles coming up, Steve Cooper looks at one we almost completely forgot last year – the golden anniversary of Yamaha’s ground-breaking YR1 350cc two-stroke twin. The marking of special occasions comes under the umbrella title of ‘anniversary’ or, to use the dictionary definition, the date on which an event…
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The Craven Collection

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd August 2018

Dave Manning heads to the Yorkshire Wolds for an eye-opening look at memorabilia and history While formal museums can display their exhibits in a brightly-lit blaze of formality, there is sometimes a cold feeling of detachment and a lack of soul and passion. Fortunately, motorcycle museums are rarely of this form, and more usually consist…
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Bikes and bits in every nook and cranny!

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd August 2018

While taking part in a French motorcycling event, Ian Kerr stumbles across a charming motorcycle museum in the historic town of Entrevaux. The annual five-day Drailles event, run by the Moto Club Senas Durance that’s based in the town of the same name in Provence in the South of France, celebrated its seventh birthday this…
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A coffee-bar cowboy’s tale of a Triton

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd August 2018

John Edwards tells the story of a Triton dream – with a Norton Dominator rolling chassis that cost £16 and an engine from a 1953 sprung-hub Triumph Tiger 100 whose owner parted with the whole bike for a fiver! As a coffee-bar cowboy in the early Sixties, I loved the look of the BSA Gold…
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Reliving the past – four times over!

by

Sam Hewitt

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2nd August 2018

Perran Newman hadn’t swung a leg over a motorcycle in more than 20 years when a friend invited him to try four of his vintage machines along with a modern BMW for comparison – and here he recounts the experience. As I enter my 72nd year, it’s 22 years since I last rode a bike…
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What’s happening to our pastime? A plea from the heart

by

Sam Hewitt

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31st July 2018

In the June OBM ‘Pete’s Prattle’ discussed an important matter – the decline of riding numbers. It’s a subject that is on everyone’s lips at present, and clubs, organisers, riders and the press all mention the ever-mounting problem. If we have too few riders, there can be no events, and that means the eventual atrophy…
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In or out – it’s the defining question!

by

Sam Hewitt

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31st July 2018

Mick Payne wonders whether it will ever be possible for anyone to produce a truly definitive list of every sidecar manufacturer in history. Who remembers the column NAIT? It stood for ‘Not Appearing in Tragatsch’ and was a regular piece on the marques that slipped beyond the radar of Erwin Tragatsch when compiling his Illustrated…
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Don’t fret, mother! How I learned to ride…

by

Sam Hewitt

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31st July 2018

We all remember our first solo motorcycle ride, and lifelong motorcyclist John Edwards recalls the excitement and euphoria of his own, on a side-valve 500cc 16H Norton that he bought for a heady £7 in 1958! Apart from some fun in a local park on my friend’s 32cc Cyclemaster-powered bicycle in 1957, I actually learned…
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Memories of 1953 with my Francis-Barnett trials Falcon

by

Sam Hewitt

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28th July 2018

Reading about how the Francis-Barnett pre-dated all trail bikes (OBM April) took me back to 1953, when the specification for the 197cc Falcon trials bike listed a ‘four-inch’ rear tyre and a four-speed gearbox. Before this, the general view was that two-stroke bikes of 122 and 197cc would have only the capability to pull a…
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