Classic Bike Guide - April 2020

Guy Martin British tiddle ers!

Will he Triumph Having fun on 125s over McQueen?

APRIL 2020

BUY  SELL  RIDE  RESTORE

Duc cati tii Scrrambllers

INDIIAN American, British and Italian beauty taken before its time

NEW RETRO

A brace of yellow beauties

Enfield Bullet speccial

Project Norton E Engine i work k gets underway

Tailored to suit its owner

Welcome

This month’s witterings

U

nlike most, I like Mondays. I get to read the various club mags that have come through, I may even peek through a rival mag or two, and then start on my chores. This week was the turn of ‘Horizontal View’, the mag of the Cossack Owners’ Club, and it had some fantastic stories inside. I don’t understand some, it has to be said, but the enthusiasm and amusement I get from the mag is brilliant – and I don’t even have a Cossack!

I also like the reason behind why people have Cossacks. One journalist I know, and it has to be said, normally respect, wouldn’t be seen dead on any bike unless it was perfectly restored, well-revered and usually costly (he drives a Range Rover – get the picture?). No idea why, as all I see is that he’s missing out – but his loss.

The Cossack owners, and Bantams, CZ/ Jawas, and so on don’t ride their bikes for others to see and judge them – they ride their chosen steeds because they want to.

And heavens above, they enjoy it! Whether it cost a million pounds or just looks a million dollars to you, no matter. Ride what you want to – old bikes are about fun, not social status.

A friend recently decided he wanted a change of bike, so swapped a Seventies Italian bike for a Sixties British. He just fancied a change, and the TriBSA caught

his eye. I can’t wait to see how he feels the swap has gone, what his new bike is better at and what he misses from the old. A different bike can open up a whole group of people and different types of rides, and possibly bring a few issues as well.

Recently a chap collared me to ‘tell’ how I was wrong not to have my Norton tank chromed, because ‘that’s how they should be’. When I asked if he worked at the Norton factory in 1954, he said no – I then asked how he knew how the tanks were finished; to which he replied ‘because they were’. Such nonsense has always been around; Steve Cooper warns of misinformation in internet forums; well Steve, it’s been around for years – it’s down to us to decipher the truth from the rubbish. Personally, that’s why I like crash helmets – you can put them over your head to silence such cretins. And now, you can use them to protect you from the latest virus doing the rounds – at last, riding a bike is good for you!

Back in Norfolk, Neville has started a new project. The heart is a gorgeous 500cc Tiger motor, with a special frame and a BSA A65 gearbox – read more about it on page 100. Not quite sure what his plans are, but it’s bound to be good fun. I’ve been trying to focus on the Norton in between breaking cars, getting the Beeza woken up, sorting boy’s trials bike and Maria has

been tweeking the Benelli. I’m thinking that just having the one bike (and one or two cars) would help get things done more easily – think of how many tools you wouldn’t need! And with some good riding weather just around the corner, we’re running out of time to get ‘stuff’ finished.

Having said that, I’m off to look at a James trials bike later this week. I give up…

Quick notices – regular contributor, Stuart Urquhart, is looking for an inner primary chaincase for a 1948 Norton ES2.

Anyone help? Just contact me and I’ll put you in touch.

Oh, and on a visit to one of this county’s superb motorcycle engineers, BDK, I saw a rebuild of a Kawasaki KR1, which was my first big bike. The owner managed to find a brand-new crankcase from Brazil – so if you’re looking for that elusive part, keep looking!

Hope the mag brings some light reading and entertainment to you; enjoy what you have, take people’s ‘advice’ with a pinch of salt and get those bikes ready for riding.

Be good,

Matt Hull editor@classicbikeguide.com CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE || APRIL 2020

3

Contents

#010

008 From the archive

had a tragically short life. With American backing, Italian frame and British twin power, the Clymer Indian was a real head-turner

We celebrate the Bantam in its many forms

010 Guy Martin’s jump

The road racing hero and TV star tries to finish what Steve McQueen started

018

Subscribe!

020

News

024

050 Les Williams CHARACTERS

Les was a stalwart of Triumph and managed Slippery Sam – but did you know he also had a habit of stealing people’s food?

We look back at the man

Get Classic Bike Guide delivered every month, save money and keep us in a job…

This month’s goings-on in our world, so you may feel enlightened

What we liked at the Bristol Bike Show Our pick of the machines from Shepton Mallet

054

Ducati Scramblers

250 and 450 versions in road and off-road guise – they’re so beautiful, yet struggled to sell when new

061 Illustration: Honda Cub Martin Squires wows us yet again with his wonderful sketches of this amazing machine

026 Products

066 Steve Cooper

032 Letters

Some new shiny things to buy!

This month, honey and blasting Let us know what you think and win with our competition

034 British tiddlers BUYING GUIDE

We look at the British 125s in the third part of our tiddler series

042 Clymer Indian Enfield BUYING GUIDE

One of the best looking bikes

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APRIL 2020 || CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

Who do you believe? Or was pub banter and club talk better than the internet?

076 Enfield project

Our Stuart has seen many beautiful old bikes, so he decides to make his Bullet just as he would like it

084 Norton to save a church A lovely story of one man who is selling his CS1 to help save a church building

086 Repair your fuel tap Many Japanese and Italian fuel taps were similar; we look at how to rebuild them

093 Project Norton

It’s back on track! We start the bottom end, vapour blast the carb and find what’s next

Triumph Flat 101 Project track

Neville starts a new project, starting with a Tiger 100 engine and a BSA A10 gearbox

068

Paul Miles

105 Reader ads

070

Paul D’Orleans

121 Next Month

Paul finds out that some enthusiasts don’t think the way we do…

How has the portrayal of bikes affected motorcycling?

072 What’s on

Get your diary out and get out there; see bikes, eat burgers and buy stuff

I was tempted quite a lot this month – hope you are too

Douglas Dragonfly, Yamaha DT250 and Triumph’s 3TA get the spotlight

122 Frank Westworth

Men and their projects – never try to judge, guess or criticise another rider's project…

Great Escape Steve McQueen, Guy Martin and Triumph – all in one story?

WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY: PHILLIP TOOTH (JUMP PIC JULIAN CLEMENTS)

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APRIL 2020 || CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

S

teve McQueen made a big impression on bike riders all over the world when he jumped a Triumph over a barbed wire fence in The Great Escape. His air force leather jacket, chinos and blue sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves added to the ‘King of Cool’ legend.

But McQueen didn’t make the jump. That was his close mate, Bud Ekins.

So North One Television, who make Guy Martin’s programmes, along with Triumph Motorcycles and Dick Shepherd came about the idea to not only recreate the famous jump, but to clear both barbed wire fences – a feat not managed in the film.

As with many things in TV, it’s big business.

Working with North One Television, Guy’s TV programmes typically attract four million viewers in the UK and another 20 million in about 50 other countries. He set a world record for the fastest speed inside a wall of death when he lapped at 78mph on a Rob North-framed T160 Trident; made the fastest speed in a soapbox down Mont Ventoux; and lapped the Nürburgring in 9.28mins – in his Ford Transit.

And a couple of months ago he clocked 153.76mph in a JCB on the way to a 135.18mph world speed record forr a tractor. tractor p The original jum

by Bud Ekins

CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE || JULY 2019

11

Buying guide

British tiddlers!

In the ďŹ nal instalment of our look at classic 125s, we turn to home

U

NLIKE THE JAPANESE and European manufacturers we’ve looked at over the last couple of months, the British motorcycle industry didn’t embrace the small capacity motorcycle enthusiastically.

Big bikes were where it was at and the industrial m might of the nation was engaged in ‘export or die’ prractices, desperately trying to make enough money to o pay off the war debt, something that didn’t finally ha appen until 2006. US buyers were the biggest market an nd they wanted big bikes. One British manufacturer sttated that they were happy to let the Japanese make sm mall bikes as it saved them the trouble, and those ne ew riders on 125s would buy British later. What they diidn’t appreciate was that the Japanese would start m making big bikes too.

Not everyone ignored the threat from the Far East.

One managing director admitted to being scared by th he sophistication displayed by foreign manufacturers affter buying a small Honda to study. He said: “When w stripped the machine it was so good it frightened we us s. It was made like a watch and was not a copy off anything.”

Edward Turner of Triumph went on a fact-finding to our of Japan and also came back astonished by the prowess of the manufacturers. But by the time the realisation had struck, it was too late.

That’s not to say that the British ignored the tiddler market. The success of the BSA Bantam and the many manufacturers who used proprietary Villiers two-stroke engines in 98cc and 147cc capacities proved that not everybody needed a big bike. But there was no real reason to buy a small motorcycle when you could ride anything you wanted on L-plates until the early Sixties, unless your primary concern was fuel economy. The wartime imposition of Purchase Tax had put a big strain on the sale of new bikes, and even in 1946 you needed a special licence to be allowed to buy one. In the meantime, there was a flood of cheap ex-WD bikes for those looking for budget transport.

“When we stripped the machine it was so good it frightened us.

It was made like a watch and was not a copy of anything.”

The Villiers-engined two-stroke motorcycle was the thing to have for the budget conscious. Powered by engines that often had prewar origins and using extremely basic cycle parts, they might have been plagued with niggling little faults, but they were hard to beat in the hack-it-to-work-everyday stakes. British tiddlers were often larger than their Japanese and Italian rivals, partly because they meant manufacturers could use bits from their bigger ranges.

Today, commonality of parts helps, and Villiers Services have a substantial range of bits for Villiers and AMC engines, as well as DMW, Francis Barnett and James spares.

Despite the shortcomings of many, a well sorted example, such as a Francis Barnett or DMW, can be a delight to ride, with a healthy whiff of good-natured nostalgia about them. They are also a reasonably cheap way of getting into Brit bike ownership and you’ll have to try hard to pay more than £2500. There are still a few stashed away rotting in coal sheds too, though owners often have an inflated idea of CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE || APRIL 2020 35

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