Real Classic June 2022

As the weather warms, so my mileage increases – and I’ll assume that yours does, too. It is undeniable that dry roads and blue skies inspire the fair weather rider in me rather more successfully than dark clouds and lashing rain fire up my secret adventurer side. I was reminded of this only the other day, while ploughing home through a Maytime thunderstorm which drenched my gloves so effectively that they sort-of collapsed, forcing me to buy a new pair. The horror! The other side of this is that I’ve always been a stubborn, occasionally defiant and infrequently aggressive rider, and whenever my one-time regular riding pals announced that they were taking the car to one of our meets I would sneer internally, tog up, then head out aboard whichever…

‘The Royal Enfield “Big Twin” machine is generally recognised as the last word in luxurious motorcycling.’ So says the factory-supplied operator’s manual of 1937. At 1140cc the Model K was the largest capacity motorcycle produced in Britain prior to the war. The nearest challenger was the 11/50 sidevalve Brough Superior which has a capacity of 1096cc. This machine resides in Australia, where there are only a couple of running examples known. The KX was offered for sale in mid-2019 by well-known BSA guru Mike Reilly of Mike’s Classic Bikes. Mike had purchased the Enfield as a project some years previously but really didn’t have the time to carry out the complex restoration required so he kindly offered it to me. It was a motorcycle I had never heard of, so…

Summat to say? Send your comments, hints, tips, tales of woe and derring-don’t to: RCHQ@RealClassic.net ECONOMY DRIVE I’ve just read this month’s Members’ Enclosure about fuel consumption. As I’ve just got back from a longish VMCC run into the borders, I thought I’d check the fuel usage of my 1966 Triumph Thunderbird. I always try to fill up just before reaching home on the return journey. A look at the receipt told me I’d used 10.97 litres to do 180 miles, so that’s 16.682mpl which equates to 75mpg. Pretty good I would say, considering it included about forty miles at 70mph. The rest of the ride was mainly a mixture of B-roads and single-track roads where speeds were generally as fast as conditions allowed, without breaking the speed limit. As…

Arthritis is a considerably restricting ailment, and like many longtime handlebar grippers I suffer from it – if only to a small degree, fortunately. It makes joints stiff and painful, in case you are lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the effects. Physical ailments, while an uncomfortable subject for many of us, do have an influence on the types of motorcycles we choose to ride, and in my own case it makes a light clutch operation a good thing. Which is a slightly downbeat way of introducing a decently cheerful motorcycle. What I wanted to do here was deflect critics who will immediately exclaim ‘An automatic motorcycle! Why on earth…’ and so on and so forth. In case you’ve ever wondered about the appeal of big (or indeed smaller) scooters…

In the near as dammit 40 years that I’ve been meeting owners and writing about their motorcycles, I’ve been inspired to many thoughts and emotions. Some bikes intrigue me with their concept, some make me marvel at the engineering. Some fascinate me with their defiant survival, some are celebrations of long-term ownership, and some are proud testaments to motivation and dedication. Nearly all of them fill me with wonder about just what tales they could tell if only they could talk. But then sometimes a bike does something different. My heart soared when I first saw this little Bantam, with a feeling I can only describe as totally evocative. Why? Well, I’ll get to that later (plays the suspense card). First I’ll let current owner Mark Pace tell the tale,…

Sometimes you just get that ‘new bike’ tingle in your belly. A seductive mix of mischief and desire, irrational yet irresistible. All those thoughts of perfection that will be the new bike you’re now dreaming of are, of course, based entirely on an over-active imagination and a disconnect from reality. But there it was. I suddenly needed a woolly two-stroke twin. I blame lockdowns of course but it wasn’t a feeling that was going away, so there was only one sensible course of action – buy one! I had quite early on decided on a Jawa 350. Modern yet old, practical yet entirely charming and quirky. Easy then. Well, no. I had a thousand quid and it seems any ideas I had of prices for those splendid machines were about…