Classic Bike August 2019

Welcome SINGLED OUT FOR PRAISE STUART COLLINS AFTER A VERY brief tenure with an annoyingly temperamental Bantam when I first started riding on the road at 16 years old, I swapped it for a C15 SS80 Sportsman. It turned out to be a delightfully reliable machine that not only looked way too cool back then, but also had a real bark to it that sounded like I’d always imagined a real motorcycle should sound. It was a ride-every-day bike that stoked a passion for motorcycling that still burns as strongly in me today – so it’s great to be able to feature not only the C15, but also some of the other unit-construction singles that highlight BSA’s development from that early 250. CB’s regular test rider, Gez Kane, has ridden…

AFTER A VERY brief tenure with an annoyingly temperamental Bantam when I first started riding on the road at 16 years old, I swapped it for a C15 SS80 Sportsman. It turned out to be a delightfully reliable machine that not only looked way too cool back then, but also had a real bark to it that sounded like I’d always imagined a real motorcycle should sound. It was a ride-every-day bike that stoked a passion for motorcycling that still burns as strongly in me today – so it’s great to be able to feature not only the C15, but also some of the other unit-construction singles that highlight BSA’s development from that early 250. CB’s regular test rider, Gez Kane, has ridden five different models that encompass the story from…

GIVEN A FACELIFT in 2018, the Piaggio Museum at Pontedera in north-west Tuscany is roomy and colourful. While it has a huge display dedicated to the Vespa scooter that made the long-established Italian company famous on two wheels, there is also a large area filled by motorcycles of brands acquired by the company as it grew into today’s Piaggio Group. Best represented is Gilera, acquired by Piaggio in 1969, with a superb collection of historic road, racing, record-breaking and military machines inherited when Gilera’s Arcore factory closed in 1993. They include fabulous pre-war Rondine (Swallow) supercharged fours, racers from 1950s dohc fours to 2000s two-strokes, plus road singles from the first 317cc overhead-valve Gilera of 1909 to the 560cc Nordwest supermotard of the ’90s. Also here are numerous Gilera off-road two-strokes…

PIAGGIO MUSEUM A fine group effort Bikes from Gilera and Moto Guzzi are amongst the stars of the Piaggio Group’s museum WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY: MICK DUCKWORTH GIVEN A FACELIFT in 2018, the Piaggio Museum at Pontedera in north-west Tuscany is roomy and colourful. While it has a huge display dedicated to the Vespa scooter that made the long-established Italian company famous on two wheels, there is also a large area filled by motorcycles of brands acquired by the company as it grew into today’s Piaggio Group. Best represented is Gilera, acquired by Piaggio in 1969, with a superb collection of historic road, racing, record-breaking and military machines inherited when Gilera’s Arcore factory closed in 1993. They include fabulous pre-war Rondine (Swallow) supercharged fours, racers from 1950s dohc fours to 2000s…

MITSUO ITOH, who has died at the age of 82, was the man behind some of Suzuki’s greatest racing successes. He was at the vanguard of the company’s push into world championship racing, when he was part of the team that travelled to the Isle of Man in 1960. Suzuki’s first efforts at following Honda’s TT lead with its two-strokes were an embarrassment. Itoh rode an RT60 in the 1960 125cc Ultra-Lightweight TT. The bike had a top speed of 86mph, against the Honda twin’s 110mph. It was also notoriously unreliable and prone to seizing. To add injury to insult, that year Itoh crashed during practice at Bungalow, damaging his right knee and suffering facial injuries. Only after Suzuki gained MZ’s two-stroke knowhow in late 1961 did Suzuki and therefore Itoh…

THE LEGENDARY hill-climb track at Prescott Hill, owned by the Bugatti Owners Club and nestled amongst the rolling hills of Gloucestershire, has been running hill sprints since the 1930s – and this year’s Bike Fest was an event not to be missed. Attracting a mixture of bikers from all backgrounds, the atmosphere around the hill was buzzing, and in between the (thankfully) brief bouts of rain, a constant stream of classics, customs, supermotos and race bikes fired their way up the hill. The day’s sprinting brought out some stunning machines from cracking eras of racing, like Neil Armstrong’s gorgeous pair of American Triumphs (a 750 and a 250) and oval-track racers from the early ’70s – not best suited to the twists and turns, as they’re still set up for left…