Old Bike Mart

In no particular order, the three nominees chosen for the Royal Automobile Club’s 2017 Torrens Trophy are three-times consecutive World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea; Sam Sutherland, who this year became the first Briton to win the Dakar Rally since its inception in 1979, and motorcycle racing hero Leon Haslam. The club took to the main…

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Estimated to sell at between £15,000 and £20,000, an unrestored 1960 350cc Manx Norton formerly ridden by Ben Noble from Driffield was sold for no less than £31,360 at a classic car and motorcycle auction conducted by Dee Atkinson & Harrison on November 4. The bike had everything going for it – a great race…

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Founded in 1924, the Sunbeam Motor Cycle Club inaugurated the Pioneer Run to Brighton just six years later in 1930 – and next year’s event, the 79th, will take place on Sunday, March 18. Since the Run’s inception the Second World War, the 1974 fuel crisis, the nationwide foot-and-mouth outbreak and adverse weather in 2013…

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Triumph has handed over a new Thruxton R motorcycle sporting a full racing fairing to one of the most dapper gents from this year’s running of the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride in the UK. The DGR was run around the world on September 24 to raise awareness of men’s mental health and prostate cancer, and Adam…

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The Sussex British Motorcycle Club has been raising money for local causes for many years, and this year’s beneficiary, the Worthing-based registered children’s charity Kamelia Kids, was recently handed a cheque for £4000 raised by participants in the club’s Engineerium and Bulldog charity runs. Read more News and Features in the December issue of OBM…

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It is with great sorrow that OBM reports the passing of popular and gifted road racer Dan Hegarty following an incident at the Macau Grand Prix. During his racing career Dan, who rode for Top Gun Racing and came from Bingham, Notts, became one of the elite group of racers to lap the 4.25 Southern…

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The Museum Legends online shop at the National Motorcycle Museum has been updated just in time for Christmas. The museum’s website www.thenmm.co.uk lists hundreds more items than could ever be showcased in a traditional printed version of a mail order catalogue, including lots of classic motorcycling-related items, NMM-branded clothing and a massive online motorcycling bookshop.…

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Fondly known as The Tinware Man at such events as the Stafford shows, the Founder’s Day Rally, Kempton Park and the Netley Marsh autojumbles, Alan Fergus Swainson passed away at the beginning of October with his family at his bedside. Born in 1937 and a talented craftsman, Alan was respected for his exceptional metalwork skills…

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John Newson of Oxney Motorcycles has sent us these first images of his just-finished NorLake Special. More than 20 years ago he bought a 1000cc methanol-burning Weslake V-twin engine from Jim Penfold, who’d raced it in sidecar grass track, and with a compression ratio of 14:1, it delivered 117bhp. When John’s old friend Knuckles died…

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Netherlands motorcyclist Bart Maatje became the lucky winner of the top prize in the National Motorcycle Museum’s Summer 2017 Raffle – a 1960 500cc DBD 34 BSA Gold Star – when his winning ticket No 9001753 was drawn by road racing superstars Freddie Spencer, Peter Hickman and Maria Costello at the Museum Live open day…

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