Classic Bike Guide September 2016 preview

Z

BS SA TR ROPHY

LIK KE THEY NEVER BUILT

COMMAN NDO FASTBACK K ORIGINAL AND BEST??

BRAWN

TWENTY ONE

Metisse for the café

BATHTUB IN BLUE

EUROPEAN BIKE GUIDE

R RED&ZED KAWASAKI Z1000 RIDES AGAIN

ARIEL SINGLES GUIDE || PANTHER MODEL 100 || FORK SEAL FIX

CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE || CONTENTS

056

006

NEWS Big new banger from Royal Enfield, as well as sparky stuff

036

LETTERS

040 042 044 046 056

PAUL D’ORLÉANS

and news from Norvil

008

SUBSCRIBE! Save money, get the magazine early. Thrills undiluted.

Excitement derestricted

010

ONE HONDA MUSEUM

016

VELOCETTE VENOM

020 026 030 034

David Silver has finally opened a museum, and it is fine indeed

Despite the remarkable colour, this was a seriously good start

BSA TROPHY? BSA never built one, of course

APRILIA MOTÓ 6.5 The accent’s on Style here

CLOTHING REPORT Mister Editor’s jackets, ancient and modern

this month, maybe

Going your own way

Custom? Classic? There’s a difference?

PAUL MILES Spares included … please

MÉTISSE CAFÉ RACER British and big and brilliant

NORTON COMMANDO FASTBACK When coming first is best

064 074

EURO CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

Bathtub in bathroom blue; handsome stuff

With a strange selection of the prices real bikes were sold for

INFO ARCHIVE Great knowledge here. Somewhere

ARIEL SINGLES PROFILED Under-appreciated postwar beauties. Mostly

MARK WILLIAMS

TRIUMPH TWENTY-ONE

PANTHER M100 More bang than most

084 086

So we made more room

094 096

CLASSIC CLUBS Something of a list

FIXING FORKS Rebuilt, repaired, restored. An everyday tale of sprucing and fettling

104

KAWASAKI Z1000

112

READER ADS

129 130

INK WHEELS

Raising a Zed from the dead, apparently

Send us bargains. We need many more bargains. We do, we really do…

Infinity, by Talana Gamah

FRANK WESTWORTH Noted collector speaks, softly

CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE || SEPTEMBER 2016 3

RIDINGLIFE || 650 BSA

Beezer’’s ‘Troph hy’’ BSA of course never built their own Trophies. But, what if they had?

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY JIM REYNOLDS Above: One long established Triumph classic and one BSA custom intruder. Which has the most class, or the appeal of exclusivity?

1: Did BSA ever make alloy barrels for their export models?

A simple coat of silver could confuse the issue no end 2: The Triumph exhaust bend never did accommodate the pillion passenger’s left leg properly, but modern technology and an abbreviated toolbox managed it for the 21st century 3: The BSA carries a Catalina tank sticker to confuse those who don’t know. Those who do will know that a beezer twin never did win that American classic event

WE SHOULD TREAD carefully with this story, because it’s all about a man renowned for some stunning restorations who also enjoys taking a gentle rise out of folks who would have you believe they possess great knowledge. If you called such a chap an expert, he’d probably blush slightly and bow his head in false modesty, glad to know that his huge fund of knowledge has been recognised at last. According to my 1956 copy of ‘Comprehensive Advice In Avoiding Social Faux Pas’, any man or woman who accepts the title ‘expert’ without argument should be avoided; the more blunt wisdom of the 1970s explained it in one sentence: ‘Ex means a has-been, and a spurt is drip under pressure.’ With that sundry collection of wisdom, let’s take a look at this very fine motorcycle and the modest chap whose creation it is.

Graham Horne is a professional restorer; has

20 SEPTEMBER 2016 || CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

been for many years and never seems to have time to spare as he struggles to cope with demand for his handiwork. But he does love to occasionally produce something a little out of the ordinary and two years ago was considering a sundry collection of BSA bits – ‘Just a load of garage debris’ is his description – and wondering what to do with them in his spare time.

He’ll admit that in his youth his heart’s desire was Triumph’s 1957 650cc Trophy in Ivory and Aztec Red, but he couldn’t afford it; instead he moved on to buy a Norton 650SS and went racing, including the Thruxton 500 Mile Production Race on a couple of occasions. He had a useful reputation as a Midlands scratcher, taking the Midland Motorcycle Racing Club’s 250cc championship on a DMW Hornet, but through all this the mental picture of the Trophy in that dazzling colour combination stayed with him.

RIDINGLIFE || PANTHER 100

Above: Once creatively described as ‘the biggest aspidistra in the world’, all Panthers are remarkable, characterful machines 1: Dowty’s Oleomatic air forks were way ahead of their time and are hard to seal today. Canny owners like David fit conventional springs instead. There’s not a great deal anyone can do about the feeble front brake, however 2: The 1948 Model 100 advert claimed that the 600cc Panther had been ‘developed over a longer period than other motorcycles’ which is a nice way of saying its predecessor had been knocking around for almost a quarter century. It was ‘perfected in every detail and will remain in production indefinitely’.

Or almost another two decades…

3: In modern parlance, the engine acts as a ‘stressed member’ of the frame. However, there truly is nothing stressed about it at all. The engine carries its oil in the finned triangular casting at the front, but is still dry sump, remarkably 4: Standard 1940s Brit bike fare. Nothing complicated, nothing to worry about

Phelon’s feline In the fullness of time the Cleckheaton cat grew to 650cc and sported full suspension. But for some classic fans, the earlier incarnation is the cat’s whiskers…

PHOTOS BY KAY ELDRIDGE OF FOCUSEDIMAGE.COM.AU

PHELON & MOORE introduced their first ‘sloper’ in 1901, and the postwar Panther is very definitely a distant descendant of that pioneer motorcycle.

Both feature the P&M four-stroke’s distinctive single cylinder, canted forward, doing double duty as the frame’s front downtube. Not that the bikes built in 1901 and 1947 would have shared any components, although the postwar Model 100 does owe a lot to the ohv 500 built in 1924. It grew to 598cc in 1927, then adopted an enclosed top end and Dowty’s innovative Oleomatic front forks, and was offered to the buying public after the Second World War pretty much as you see it here.

Owner David Dickie picked up his Panther habit as a schoolboy back in 1968 when he found a scrap Model 100 on a rubbish dump. David blew all his pocket money on getting the Panther fixed up. He learned to ride, passed his test, rode it for a year or so and then… sold the 100 to buy a car. “As soon as I saw the new owner ride the Panther out of our gate I knew I had made a terrible mistake.”

So for years thereafter, David did his utmost to buy

30 SEPTEMBER 2016 || CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

back that old bike or a similar Panther. It had to be built between 1948 and 1950 with the air-assisted front end and rigid rear. “I prefer the appearance of the Dowty forked models, and in particular the separate dynamo models with automatic ignition advance.” In 1954 P&M adopted swinging arm suspension and more conventional forks, bigger brakes arrived in 1956, and in 1958 they pushed the Panther’s capacity up to 650cc but David wasn’t keen on the later Model 120. “The larger engine was notorious as an oil burner, and the clutch often gave trouble,” he reckons.

The tall, twin-port all-iron engine is famous for providing a thoroughly relaxed ride, firing perhaps once or twice a century (or lamp-post, you choose) thanks to a mighty flywheel reputed to weigh the better part of an imperial stone. It’s equally infamous for being a bit of a beast to start, not due to its compression which is only 6.5:1, nor really down to the 100mm stroke. Nope, it’s the inertia of that thumping great big flywheel which takes considerable turning over. The trick is to get the motor spinning

RIDINGLIFE || GET GEARED

Bering jacket

WORDS & PHOTOS BY FRANK WESTWORTH

CLOTHING REVIEWS, HUH? Far too many of them are written for all the wrong reasons, and you can work out what they are without my telling you. A few, however, are written in the light of considerable experience, by guys who’ve ridden tens of thousands of miles, over many, many years, through all kinds of weather, and have emerged… mostly dry, warm and comfortable. Let me tell you a tale of a jacket.

Two decades ago, give or take, I was casting about for a good riding jacket. I was a big bloke, much bigger than I am today, and heavy, hot and often bothered, too. I also commuted mostly by motorcycle, and my commute was 80-85 miles, depending on the route I chose – except when it was 90+ miles as recorded by some Italian odometers, or anything north of 125 miles if I had an interesting bike on loan. It rained a lot – still does, they say. I was obsessed with arriving at the old CBG offices in a fit state to pretend to work, and clean enough to not cause olfactory offence. And I wore out jackets.

Not riding pants. I had two pairs of Rukka overtrousers which were excellent. They still are, though the elastic and poppers are feeling their age. Gloves were great for a single winter only. No problem, because they’re not a vast expense, gloves.

Jackets, though? Hmmm. They varied from the okay behind a fairing, via okay in a shower to … I might as well just wear a bin liner.

Then, in one of those moments peculiar to magazine staffers, a very nice man – a Frenchman in fact – plied me with champagne and invited me to have a free jacket. Days like those are simply not common enough. He handed me a jacket. I slipped most of one arm into it… then handed it back. I was a big lad. We reached XXXL, and although it would nearly fit and nearly zip up, I would have asphyxiated while wearing it. More champagne. Much mirth. My new friend announced that he would send me an XXXXXL jacket if I promised to wear it and let him know what I thought. The champagne bottle was empty, the day was closing, we all laughed more and I agreed. It is a hard life. We agreed on that, too.

METISSE 8V MARK 5 CAFÉ RACER

If it’s character, charm and café racer performance you’re after, go ride a Rickman

NORTON COMMANDO 750

First, the Commando’s bloodline. Following the end of the Second World War, every British manufacturer looked at Edward Turner’s Triumph Speed Twin with unbridled envy. Turner’s 498cc parallel twin ticked every box in the whole motorcycle manufacturing spectrum. It was light, smooth, fast accelerating and drop-dead gorgeous from every angle. That was one side of the coin. On the obverse, there was nothing complicated or difficult to manufacture or design. The Triumph Speed Twin was a simple, pushrod, parallel twin perfectly suited to the limited manufacturing capabilities of the austere postwar years – and every motorcycle company wanted one.

BSA hit the market with its A7. Matchless weighed in with the G9 Super Clubman and Norton

ABOVE:

Riding Norton’s Commando came as a considerable surprise when the bike was launched

commissioned Bert Hopwood to design its take on the parallel twin. To be fair to Hopwood, he was operating in the tightest of straitjackets. In his book, Whatever Happened to the British Motorcycle Industry? Hopwood described his first day at Norton: “Not even during the war time blitzes did I have to work under such difficult circumstances; the whole Norton building was such a slummy shambles sandwiched with machines and parts, and men and vermin, in a noisy conglomeration.”

Hopwood began work as Norton’s chief designer on April 1, 1947 – All Fools Day – and was immediately tasked with producing a new twin. He had worked with Turner at Triumph and so he knew the Speed Twin’s strengths and weaknesses very well. In fact, although Hopwood was not a particularly adventurous designer, he did draw a neat, single overhead cam, twin cylinder engine which would have

EVOLUTION & OFFSHOOTS FASTBACK, 1967-73, 745cc

When the Commando range expanded, the original model adopted the Fastback moniker. Early frame problems were resolved with a bracing tube to the headstock. Mk2 arrived in 1970 with upswept exhausts replacing the Atlas-style pipes. Mk3 followed swiftly thereafter with fatter front tyre and modified stands. The final edition from 1972 gained disc brake and indicators

FASTBACK LR, 1971-72, 745cc

Around 400 ‘long range’ models were exported to Australia fitted with the high capacity Atlas-style petrol tank.

The saddle lost its ‘ears’ which fit around the standard tank

58 SEPTEMBER 2016 || CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

R TYPE, 1969, 745cc

An American streetscrambler version of the Fastback, with full dualseat, high bars and a small petrol tank

TRADING

||

86 SEPTEMBER 2016 || CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

MODEL HISTORY

TRADINGPOST || HOW TO

Fork seal replacement Unsightly, an MoT failure and potentially life limiting, leaking fork seals need to be fixed and it’s not too difficult when armed with the right tools and some basic rules…

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY STEVE COOPER Above: Ostensibly tidy, in fact the Yamaha RD350 needs some deep level TLC

ALL THAT STANDS between a reasonably effective front suspension system and a badly handling motorcycle is a set of what used to be called garter seals. A pair of these seals – with their minuscule surface areas – amazingly holds in the fork oil that damps out the vagaries of Her Majesty’s highways. If you’ve ever ridden a bike that was designed to rely on springs alone then you’ll appreciate why engineers opted for oil damping. Bouncy front ends are not conducive to anything approaching decent handling.

The relatively small quantity of oil retained inside the forks by the seals controls the excesses of both the compression and rebound actions of the fork

96 SEPTEMBER 2016 || CLASSIC BIKE GUIDE

springs. If one seal fails and loses its oil the stability of a motorcycle quickly gets out of kilter, making for a potentially dangerous ride. Should you choose to ride with two defective seals, the chances are you won’t be riding for very long.

Old seals often fail simply from lack of use, old age and sometimes drying out. Assuming that your fork tubes are in good shape, straight and without any chips, flakes or grooves, if there’s supposed to be oil in the lower legs you need new seals. Always change both seals unless there’s a good reason not to as the so-called ‘good one’ will inevitably fail in short order. This is how the job runs.