Old Bike Mart

Now living in Canada, Old Bike Mart reader Ralph Ridley recalls his baptism by fire in the Motor Cycle Club’s 1964 Land’s End Trial – an experience that set him firmly on to a lifetime of motorcycling. It might seem hard to believe, but with a bit of spit and polish the bike shown in…

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Steve Cooper recalls Honda’s SL350 trail bike of 1969 – an ill-thought-out adaptation of an existing road machine that was totally unsuitable for off-road riding – and the valuable lessons the Japanese giant quickly learned When Yamaha launched the ground-breaking DT250 in 1968, it totally wrong-footed its rivals – which was probably part of the…

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Colin Evans, who now lives in Buckingham, recalls buying a 650cc Triumph Thunderbird for £4 shortly after passing his motorcycle test at the age of 16 – and a memorable journey on it with his pal Ray Kindle on the pillion. It would have been in the early 1960s when I purchased my first 650cc…

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When Ady Warnes and his impoverished friends decided that the best way to get from Norwich to the 1967 Earls Court Motorcycle Show in London and back would be to cobble together a Panther sidecar outfit using a dumped chassis and a plywood body that had been a ‘Wendy house’, it had ‘farce’ written all…

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Road-tested by Motor Cycle in the October 6, 1966 issue, BSA’s 249cc C15 Star proved the perfect all-round mount. So finely tuned was the balance that it could be ridden to a standstill feet-up in heavy city traffic, yet out on the open road it was well capable of cruising at a sustained 60-65mph, with…

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When Motor Cycle’s Midland Editor Bob Currie found himself with an 85mph 250cc BSA C15 Sportsman to test in the late spring of 1966, the miles he doggedly piled on included a reporting trip to the Scottish Six Days’ Trial – and it was a pleasure all the way. “What was the name? Sportsman? A…

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