RealClassic September 2019

ISSUE 185  SEPTEMBER 2019  £3.70

BMW R75/5 

NORTON NOSTALGIA!

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VELOCETTE MAC 

WHAT LIES WITHIN

VELOCETTE MAC 

ISSUE 185  SEPTEMBER 2019  £3.70

BMW R75/5 

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DUCATI STROKER! HOLY SMOKE…

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TRIUMPH 350

REALCLASSIC 185: PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2019

RC REGULARS

62

TRIUMPH 350 TWIN......................................6

Fond memories of a lightweight Triumph twin from the distant past encouraged Stuart Urquhart to borrow a pal’s 3TA. It looked great, started swiftly and… made a terrible racket from the top end. What’s the haps, chaps?

DUCATI REGOLARITÀ ................................ 26

A Ducati stroker? Excuse me? Are you serious? Alan Cathcart explains a little-known endure Ducati…

MATCHLESS G9.......................................... 38

We regularly recommend AMC twins as cheap’n’cheerful classics for people seeking a traditional British heavyweight. Perhaps, we mused, it’s possible that all the affordable ones have been snapped up? Henry Gregson says not!

BMW R75/5 ................................................ 46

When BMW introduced their /5 range at the end of the 1960s they laid the groundwork for all the big twins which followed. Nolan Woodbury celebrates a classic airhead which never gets old VELOCETTE MAC........................................ 56

Ace Tester Miles has been infatuated with

ISSU E 182

SCOT T SQUIR REL  BSA FLATT RACK ER  MEGO LA! 

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ER 2019  £3.70

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CAKETR!I URO DST

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TRIUMPH 350

Rebuild ing Rea lClassic

WE’VE GOT MAIL! ...................................... 16 Some really entertaining letters here. It’s impossible to receive too many letters. We want more letters. Be kind to us…

MZ 250 ....................................................... 62

Odgie finds an MZ (and an owner) with a difference. But aren’t all MZ owners just a little bit out of the ordinary?

EVENTS ...................................................... 76 It’s summer… although by the time this issue hits the doormats maybe it’ll be autumn. It’s not easy to tell, sometimes

NORTON NOSTALGIA ................................ 72

Ever endured one of those rides which goes from bad to worse to nearly unbelievable… and yet you never quite admit defeat? Paul Phillips recalls a winter excursion which almost froze the feathers off an Artic Fulmar

READERS’FREE ADS .................................. 78 Another fine selection of machinery. We left out a pile of exotica from the USA because it looked dodgy, sadly…

GUZZI ELDORADO REBUILD ..................... 82

OLLIE’S ODDJOBS...................................... 98 Continuing his quest to confound your expectations with peculiar perambulators, Ollie Hulme brings you a modern motorcycle from an iconic marque which lacks a certain something…

Ever find yourself in the garage at 2am, wielding spanners in a semi-somnolent state of desperation? That’s what happened to Nick Adams with the supposedly straightforward stage of his Guzzi V-twin engine overhaul…

MAGNETO TECH......................................... 90

PUB TALK ................................................. 102 Founder’s Day 2019 provided a rare opportunity for selling junk instead of buying it, and in the workshop a Pilgrim oil-pump has been serviced…

If a magneto-equipped machine is hard to start when it’s hot, you probably have electrical issues. Neil Cairns experiments with a quick-fit condenser / capacitor replacement

Motorc ycles

Enfield enthusiast Stephen Herbert had an inclination to build a trials special and, rather than start from scratch, he purchased a partcompleted pre-unit 250 project. And then the fun began…

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TALES FROM THE SHED ........................... 108 Frank’s been away on holiday. Which means of course that he’s actually done more work than he usually does while actually working…

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vintage vehicles of late. If anything can tempt him back to a post-war Britbike, it might just be Velocette’s most user-friendly machine…

ROYAL ENFIELD CLIPPER PROJECT ........... 92

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THE CONTENTS PAGE .................................. 3 Is it possible to have too much variety in a magazine? How’s about a brace of classic 2-strokes, one an MZ and the other a Ducati?

A Velocette MAC and a Benelli Leoncino? Who could ask for more?

You won’t find RealClassic on the shelves in UK newsagents – but you can save the cost and

hassle of mail-ordering each issue with a straightforward subscription. Here’s how!

WHO’S DONE WHAT REALCLASSIC is compiled and collated (and other things beginning with C) by Rowena Hoseason and Frank Westworth of The Cosmic Bike Company. Chris Abrams of AT Graphics designs the editorial pages, while Mortons Media Group Ltd at Horncastle are in charge of trade advertising, subscriptions, back issues and all the corporate fandango We’re online at www.Real-Classic.co.uk TRADE ADVERTISERS for the magazine or website should call Helen Martin on 01507 529574, email hrmartin@mortons.co.uk EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES should be sent to Frank@ RealClassic.net or to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX. Please include an SAE if you want something returned or a personal reply SUBSCRIPTION INFO is on pg114. Call 01507 529529 to subscribe or renew or buy back issues SUBS QUERIES, late deliveries, or changes of address should be directed to 01507 529529, or email subscriptions@realclassic.net ALL MATERIAL in RealClassic is copyright its authors, so please contact us before reproducing anything. RealClassic is printed by William Gibbons & Sons of Wolverhampton. Our ISSN is 1742-2345.

THIS MONTH we’ve been reading ALTERED CARBON by Richard Morgan (getting ready to watch the TV series); OBSCURA by Joe Hart (a sci-fi sorta medical thriller); CIMARRON ROSE by James Lee Burke (not a Dave Robicheaux story but remarkably similar), THE POSSESSION by Michael Rutger (not his real name), which is a sort-of scary story. Not scary at all. WHEN YOU RUN WITH WOLVES by Robert White (a really gripping and murderous noir crime story), and THE GREAT BETRAYAL by Rod Liddle (an unsuccessful attempt to explain the UK’s current political situation…)

MEANWHILE AT THE MOVIES… Hobbs & Shaw was ludicrous amounts of fun; In Fabric was wonderfully weird; McCannick was really quite depressing, and Excursion was just, well, bad.

And we finished The Expanse, and now have to wait until the autumn! But Goliath, with Billy-Bob Thornton, is truly gripping

FROM THE FRONT Way back in the foggy mists of antiquity, soon after the classic bike was resurrected out of the ashes of the old industry, one of the first manifestations of this back-from-thedead enthusiasm was the sudden rise of the autojumble. I remember it well. I was at the time clattering around aboard a 1959 Matchless G9 of dubious reliability but great charm, and whenever I needed spares, the only source was the owners’ club, which wasn’t always easy in those postal days.

Enter the autojumble.

Back then I was living near Chester and working near Wrexham, and as commuting on the Matchless became … unpredictable, I bought my first-ever new bike, an MZ TS125 for the commute. Similar performance to the old Matchless, but rather more reliable and considerably more frugal, too. In the end the G9 was sidelined by magneto trouble – the K2F camring was so worn that the advance / retard adjusting cable couldn’t grip it, and the cam would rotate all by itself – helped maybe by the vibration – and the timing would slip. New camrings were entirely unavailable and although I scoured the steadily vanishing breakers, I couldn’t find another. Buying a complete magneto would have cost as much as another Matchless. And it probably wouldn’t work…

I bought a 1953 AJS 20 for £79, and still have it. Which is slightly strange.

It wasn’t worth selling the G9 because it wasn’t actually worth anything. Which is also strange.

Then of course The Great Rise Of The Autojumble fixed that. There was a good one in Chester, a decent one near Ellesmere Port, and an unbelievably incredible fantastic one in Bolton.

The latter was organised by one Alan Whitehead, who did so well that he organised a classic bike show at Manchester’s Belle Vue. That transformed into the mighty Stafford events which we still know and love.

However, I’m missing my point – which was that as hordes of like-minded lunatics gathered to sort through hoards of previously worthless spares for worn-out old Brit bikes, it became clear that firstly there were lots of spares out there, secondly loads of folk wanted to buy them, and finally… it was great fun. I always enjoyed jumbling, and still possess a surprising amount of NOS old junk I bought in the late 70s.

Which brings us up to date. I’ve been clearing a lot of bikes from The Shed, which has created a lot of empty space, which has revealed that I do indeed have a lot of stuff piled on shelves, in boxes and cupboards and generally lying around.

And being honest about it, I’m never going to

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use it, so it would be best if I sold it on to a fellow sufferer for them to use as they see fit.

And here’s the snag. Nowadays we live down in the South West, in Cornwall, where there appear to be no jumbles. The last nearly-local bash was in Barnstaple, and that was several years ago.

Packing a van to the rafters with heavy, oily, bulky, rusty bits and carting it all off to any of the major events doesn’t really appeal much. And I absolutely hate haggling.

What is a chap to do?

Ride safely

Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net

THE NEXT ISSUE

RC186WILL BE PUBLISHED ON OCT 7th, AND SHOULD REACH UK SUBSCRIBERS BY OCT 11th

A Right g t

RATTLER Fond memories of a lightweight Triumph twin from the distant past encouraged Stuart Urquhart to borrow a pal’s 3TA. It looked great, started swiftly and... made a terrible racket from the top end.

What’s the haps, chaps?

Photos by Stuart Urquhart

6 I SEPTEMBER 2019

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SKELETON

IN THE

CUPBOARD

26 I SEPTEMBER 2019

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Photos by Nola

46 I SEPTEMBER 2019

n Woodbury, RC

RChive

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56 I SEPTEMBER 2019

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1951 VELOCETTE MAC

Many riders reckon that the Mac is one of the very finest of all Velocette singles. Most of the RC crew do, too

Ace Tester Miles has been infatuated with vintage vehicles of late. If anything can tempt him back to a post-war Britbike, it might just be Velocette’s most user-friendly machine‌ Photos by Paul Miles, RC RChive

Subscribe and save: www.Real-Classic.co.uk/ k/subs /

SEPTEMBER 2019 I 57

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