Classic Dirt Bike Issue 40 Autumn 2016 preview

THE BEST SPORTING ACTION SEE WHERE WE’VE BEEN

Dirtbike NOYCE CLASSIC

#40

ISSUE Forty

Autumn 2016

Bultaco 325/340 / Teething Troubles / ESO Metisse / Imola

RESULT! L That championship year – 1979 We profile his factory Honda

PROJECT IT

Assembly begins

TRIUMPH OVER ADVERSITY Pre-65 winner 2016 SOMETHING E SPECIAL

NSU’s ISDT 250

#40

PLUS

BULTACO 325/340 // TEETHING TROUBLE // ESO METISSE // IMOLA

Contents 03 In Balance

It seems hardly no time at all since CDB was launched onto the off-road world, yet here we are at issue 40… A lot’s gone on in that time.

07 News, views and reviews

Our regular look at what’s happening in the off-road world, events to go to, series updates, perhaps a book or DVD or two.

16 You need…

Our take on what we reckon ought to be in your shed, feel free to disagree with us as this is only our opinion and we'd love your thoughts.

22 Something Special

A factory machine has always been regarded as something special, so equally a replica of an NSU ISDT machine from the 1950s can be described as ‘special’.

41 Subscribe! Subscribe! Subscribe!

As CDB is subscription-only in the UK you’ve either subscribed, nicked a mate’s copy or seen us at a show. If it’s one of the latter two… subscribe here.

52 Dicko’s view

The Dickinson mind wanders a little this issue as he starts on one subject and finishes on another… It’s called old age.

61 Smith Tales

It had to happen, our man has decided to wind down a little. In his final regular column for us he reflects on the past 30 or so gems of wisdom.

72 Dirt Talk

What’re you talking about in the CDB world? All sorts of things as it happens, bring it on we say as it fills a couple of pages and makes a nice spread.

82 Moto memories

Sadly for the MX world Sten Lundin passed away recently. Our Moto Memories feature is a tribute to the Swede, pictured in action by Nick Nicholls.

Events 54 Sporting world

Just a taster of action from the sporting world as there are many more events happening than we can fit in a quarterly magazine.

62 Show Time!

A snippet of time from the Carole Nash Classic Motorcycle Show, or the off-road action at least and Ian Berry went to the Dave Bickers Scramble.

How to 43 King of the IT crowd

A tale of cranks and cogs as bits of the engine are inspected, forks are tweaked, barrels are bored and the project progresses.

48 Dirt Products

Features 10 The winner

There’s not a competitor in the world who doesn’t want to find out about the opposition and what makes it tick. We inspect a 500 Triumph that’s a winner.

27 That was the year…

…that Graham Noyce was world champion. Focus of our archive piece this issue is 1979, the year Graham Noyce took the Blue Riband of the MX world.

68 Italian hospitality

Imola reunion: Ian Berry soaks up the atmosphere at this prestigious motocross event.

76 Extra Special One

Alan Arnott saw Bill Nilsson racing an ESO engined-Metisse in the 1960s – he thought it looked a stunning machine then and convinced the engineer/racer to build his own… 50 years on.

34 A champion’s machine

On his way to becoming world MX champion in 1979, Graham Noyce had two 500cc Hondas. This is the one he crossed the line on at Namur to lift the crown.

Got something to help the off-road world go faster, keep their feet up longer or remain more on time in an enduro? Tell us, we’ll put it in this bit.

50 Tech Talk

It seems such a simple idea, find a topic of interest to off-roaders and write about it… this issue is about gears.

On the cover By lifting the 1979 world 500cc MX crown, Graham Noyce gave British fans something to cheer about and ended the 15-year drought since Jeff Smith’s 1965 win. Nick Haskell caught Noyce in action throughout that year.

On the contents page Testing the winning bike in the annual Pre-65 Scottish Two Day Trial has become a tradition for CDB. In our artfully posed image somewhere in Yorkshire is the engineer Paul Jackson (left), the owner Graham Wilkinson and on the bike the winning rider Dan Clark.

DirtNews

7

Classic Mechanics 2016 How many CDB readers haven’t seen, On Any Sunday? Not many I bet, this seminal work on motorcycle sport showed the outside world how we spent our Sundays. Produced by surfer/indie film maker Bruce Brown On Any Sunday did feature superstars – with Malcolm Smith, Mert Lawwill and the late Steve McQueen being central to the film – with other notables from motorcycle sport such as Gene Romero, Dave Aldana and Don Emde also having roles in the film but it was in the main, about the ordinary enthusiast who went out on any Sunday and rode for pleasure. This rollercoaster ride of ‘our’ sport covered everything from record breaking to ISDT, flattrack to MX and the oddball stuff such as hill-climbing American style. It remains the benchmark for such

European oil and lubricant specialist Motul is to be the official partner of the 2016 International Dirt Bike Show. Motul is taking the dirt bike world by storm and has launched 13 new lubricants for the dirt bike market.

Motul brand manager, Richard Barrett, said: “The International Dirt Bike Show has gone from strength to strength in recent years and Motul is proud to partner with

documentaries.

Four of the featured sportsmen – Lawwill, Romero, Aldana and Emde will be at the Carole Nash Classic Motorcycle Mechanics Show at the Stafford County Showground on October 15-16. Mert Lawwill’s appearance at the show will be his first visit to the UK since he was part of the TransAtlantic Match races in the Seventies.

The rest of the event – the biggest of its kind in the world – will feature its traditional blend of hundreds of trade stands, a massive autojumble, firing up of race bikes in the Classic Racer GP Paddock, solo and sidecar trials demonstrations in the Classic Dirt the biggest and best off-road event on the calendar. We have a great range of MX specific products that will be showcased to thousands of visitors by some of our top riders. I can’t wait for October 27.”

The event runs for four days at Warwickshire’s Stoneleigh Park from October 27-October 30, welcoming thousands of riders and enthusiasts looking to stock up on care and maintenance products, riding kit,

CDB at the International Dirt Bike Show

Subscription manager: Paul Deacon

Columnists: Jeff Smith, John Dickinson

Marketing manager: Charlotte Park

Contributors: Dave Gittins, Alan Arnott, Ian Berry, John Dickinson

Commercial director: Nigel Hole

Circulation manager: Steve O’Hara

Publishing director: Dan Savage

Production editors: Sarah Wilkinson, Sarah Palmer

Associate director: Malcolm Wheeler

Senior designer: Kelvin Clements

Archive enquiries: Jane Skayman jskayman@mortons.co.uk 01507 529423

Publisher: Tim Hartley Photographers: Nick Haskell, Fiona Watson, Nick Nicholls Archive, Chris Carter, Peter Cutts Picture desk: Jonathan Schofield, Paul Fincham Advertising representative: Chris Heaton cheaton@mortons.co.uk 01507 529354

accessories and more.

Major marques will be showcasing their ranges, including 2017 models for motocross, trials and enduro and there’ll be a host of live action and entertainment for all the family either on stage or in the live-action halls.

For more information on the show, trade and tickets, plus visitor and exhibitor news, add www.dirtbikeshow.co.uk to your favourites.

Though a prestigious modern event there’s still a bit of interest for the classic scene at the show and CDB has a display area with some tasty bikes being formalised as we write.

Come along and see what we’ve got going on.

Editor: Tim Britton tbritton@mortons.co.uk 01507 529404

Designer: Libby Fincham

Bike Experience, the Stafford Autumn Sale from Bonhams, a live restoration theatre and more.

Advance tickets are now on sale and offer superb discounts against gate price. To buy yours go to classicbikeshows.com and follow the links or call 01507 529529.

Editorial address PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ. General queries and back issues 01507 529529 24hr answerphone help@classicmagazines.co.uk www.classicmagazines.co.uk

Subscription Full subscription rates (but see page 16 for offer): (12 months four issues, inc post and packing) – UK £20. Export rates are also available – see page 16 for more details. UK subscriptions are zero-rated for the purposes of Value Added Tax. Website www.classicdirtbike.co.uk Overseas distribution COMAG 01895 433600 Printed William Gibbons & Sons, Wolverhampton.

Issue 40, 2016

ISBN 978-1-909128-87-3

SUBSCRIBE TODAY P89

CLASSIC DIRT BIKE (ISBN:978-1-909128-87-3) is published quarterly by Mortons Media Group Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ UK . USA subscriptions are $50 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. Periodical Postage is paid at Wisconsin Rapids, WI. Postmaster: Send address changes to CLASSIC DIRT BIKE, c/o Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI 54921. 715-572-4595 chris@classicbikebooks.com

That was the year…

Graham Noyce was MX King of the World

…that

“It’s Noyce and his mechanic against the world!” screamed the headline in MotorCycle of March 24, 1979. How did that year pan out? Read on…

Words Tim Britton Pics Nick Haskell

Factory Honda 34

Star man’s Works bikes are built to win; it’s their function in life, an if they look good too that’s a plus point. CDB has a look at a stunning winner – ex-Graham Noyce 1979 500RC Honda.

Words and pics Tim Britton

rocketship

43

Project

IT

Put two off-roaders together and the first question from either is generally “what’ve you got on the go at the moment?” This is often followed by “you’re doing a WHAT!?”

Occasionally it is “oh, one of those…” but more often it’s “you must be mad.” You choose which of those statements is applicable to us as we head into Act Five of the ‘King of the IT crowd’.

Words: Tim Britton Pics: Fiona Watson

story so far.... … is a complicated one, stripping the IT to component parts was the easy bit, putting it back together is slightly harder, not because the IT is a particularly complex motorcycle, it’s not and there’s a wealth of information out there. However things are coming together.

Technical Feature 50

Oh dear, missing teeth… not good.

Why do it?

Teething

troubles

Some gearboxes are strong, while some are not, but what do you do when one breaks?

Words and pics Tim Britton

O

ur IT465 – sometimes the engine would turn over, sometimes not, and the problem became clear when a look in the casing showed a lack of teeth on the kick-start gear and its idler pinion. A word or two with spares sources brought the comment “465 kick-start gears… best of luck finding new ones”.

As it happens a friend turned up a good used main gear and we found probably the last new idler pinion on the CMS website in Holland, but if we’d been unable to source these the project would have been sunk… or would it? Not if Nova Racing Transmissions can help it. Its top lad Sean Whittaker took a look at the gears I presented, thought for a moment and said, “Yes, we can sort these”.

To backtrack a little I’d been photographing an ex-works development Suzuki MXer that had arrived at its owners with little in the way of gears in the box and they were told that Nova Racing designed and made the cluster from the scant information given to them.

Talking to Nova it became clear that there were few gear problems they couldn’t sort and they stressed that if you have a problem,

you should pick the phone up or send an email and talk to them. Undoubtedly, the cheapest option would always be to find new or good used gears, but if they are unobtainium then Nova are your people. My guide for the day, Mick Dearlove, talked me through what Nova does and how to get the best possible service. Put simply, Nova designs and manufactures gearboxes for classic and modern, off-road, road and race motorcycles. There’s generally a full spares back-up with their products, but some things sell faster than others. It isn’t always a good idea to just send in one gear, as it has to work in a pair and in a cluster, so Nova often asks for the shafts and adjacent gears too, sometimes even the cases they go into as its manufacturing process is slightly different to mass production. Mick tells me the deciding factor is often costs – a one-off is dear but a batch brings the costs down: “We’ll do one-offs, but if the customer can assemble a batch of, say five, then the costs drop dramatically. We do keep a note of requests and if sometimes a batch will emerge. In any case, pick the phone up and talk to us.”

In our case the gears were way beyond any use other than to hang on the workshop wall as an interesting talking point and if we hadn’t been able to source spares then there would have been no other option.

Difficulty Resources

All you need for this is the tools to strip the gears out, then send the wreckage to Nova. If you can cut gears yourself you won’t need to read this.

Supplier

Nova Racing Transmissions Ltd Unit 12, Star Road Industrial Estate, Star Road, Partridge Green, West Sussex RH13 8RA United Kingdom Tel: 01403 711312 Fax: 01403 713207 Email: sales@novaracing.co.uk Web: www.novaracing.co.uk

Who’s who

Martin Ford-Dunn – Principle Jeff Clarridge – Principle Sean Whittaker – Head of design and control Mick Dearlove – First contact, sales, advertising Michael Payne – Designer programmer Dan Vaughan – Programmer designer Reece Bowyer – Machine shop Bob Masters – Machine shop Kyle Berry – Machine shop Elliot Ferguson – Machine shop Dan Hepburn – Machine shop

Sporting action 54

Hot Trod Vinduro 2015 Chatton, Northumberland

Words: Tim Britton Pics: Fiona Watson

H

istorical note – Hot Trod, the legal pursuit into England of Border Reivers and their ill-gotten gains

by Scotsmen. To impede a Hot Trod was punishable by death well into the 16th century.

Hot Trod Vinduro weekend, September 19-20 and the only pursuit in view was of the

fastest time in the Hare and Hounds or the ideal lap in the time card enduro. This whole Vinduro lark is great fun and there are a number of events around the country and the world for that matter. There’s likely to be one near you somewhere, meanwhile have a look at a selection of pictures from last year and see if that’s what you should be doing.

TCM Show 62 The Carole Nash

International Classic 2016 Motorcycle Show After 36 years, the Carole Nash International Classic Motorcycle Show is certainly the best known and probably the biggest classic event in the world.

Words Tim Britton Pics Tim Britton, Gary Chapman

T

here’s the official title of the show and then there’s what everyone calls it… naturally we’d like it to always be The Carole Nash International Classic Motorcycle Show but it’s often colloquially termed April Stafford or even just Stafford and everyone knows where you mean and what event you’re talking about.

There are a number of special events which happen throughout the weekend – the paddock area where race bikes are fired up, the cavalcade in the arena where classics are paraded and then our bit in the Classic Dirt Bike Experience where the delights of solo and sidecar trials riding are demonstrated. Started as bit of a gimmick when the editor of CDB was challenged to ride a trials bike over a car, it has grown to encompass what we reckon to be a reasonable portrayal of trials riding given the area and time we have available.

Once the action is over there’s the static exhibits in the hall to see…

Giacomo Agostini, Jo in the chair, now Steve Parrish joins the elite line-up.

Dirt Bike Results Best Best Best Best g that AMC had to do something to catch up. Theiir answer was the G85 with a traditional motor in a frame inspired by the Rickman creation. Vic Eastwood had some excellent rides on his factory version, Peter Lockwood who owns this one loans it to AMC star Mick Andrews for scrambling.

This Triumph would make a nice project for trail riding, seemed clean and tidy to us. Did you buy it?

Comp MX Trials Enduro

250 Greeves Griffon Ian Hodge 250 Honda CR250R Elsinore Steve Harkins hock and Evo machinery Honda TLR 200 Danny Littlehale e Twinsh es more than the coming NSU 250 Ferry Brouwer thin ng, they’re already here and being raced. This Cheney 600 Yamaha looks like it’s a prime candidate for track action.

Fo by you ung Yorkshire lad did his own international winning up in Scotland, yes it’s 50 years since Alan Lampkin lifted the JR Alexander Trophy and won the SSDT. Alan’s bike was a bit more special than this production version up for offer in the Bonhams’ auction.

Yamaha’s TY Y80? Got to be one or two… for years it was the starter bike for serious action in the D class.

Letters 72

The winner of Star Letter will receive a prize from the Bel Ray catalogue

DirtTalk

Write to us at: ClassicDIRTbike, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ. tbritton@mortons.co.uk

CZ lore It is great to see you have had a few CZ articles lately. I thought that I would share a few things... which may or may not be right.

Probably if Stewart Riddell's bike doesn't have magnesium cases then the tank it came with would be the correct one, as the last 250/360 twin ports had that tank and they could be as late as early 1967. Stewart's front brake also suggests this. I think they were still available when the sidepipes came out.

More trivia, CZ also sold 250

sidepipers (980) painted in their blue because I had one back then and a friend has an original and unmolested blue bike in his shed.

On the subject of CZ gearboxes – up until about 1972 we had hand on hat starts (West Australia) and because most starters were wise to the boot heel on the clutch arm we stomped them into gear at full throttle, which you couldn't do on a Husky. No one had gearbox problems then and most of the bikes used now have their original gearboxes.

I have a pair of side pipes (250 and 360) and the gears are almost as good as the day they were made.

I also have a pair of BSA Victors and I think it’s a shame

Canned Ham’s new ‘can’ You will be pleased to know that Canned-Ham has moved from its old dark precast concrete garage to a new spacious, well lit and fully insulated workshop.

It was supplied and built, including the foundations, by one of your advertisers, Pro Workshops. I well recommend them to any of your readers. They have a great website design tool that I used to make an initial configuration of the shop I wanted, then it was confirmed with an onsite visit by one of their surveyors. Great contact from their team meant I was always assured of delivery. Even when work commitments resulted in me being unable to do the foundations, they quickly took on the work.

As you can see from the photos, I still haven't completed the fit out.

This will be done, but I must get my bike prepped for the Chatelus French enduro. In the coming weeks I will be moving more of the Can-Ams out of storage and displaying more of the collected memorabilia.

Chris Marsh www.canned-ham.com That's some workshop Chris.

There's a lot of potential in a new workshop, the potential to do it right, have the benches where they should be and not where they ended up.

CDB letters pages, sponsored by Bel Ray

they didn't get their gears made

by CZ. Mike Lawrie, email I can just hear the Husky and Victor enthusiasts hammering their keyboards right now Mike...