In an ideal world, a bike could be pulled apart and bits laid out while work went ahead, but few of us can realise this idyll, and work on motorcycles in my workshop has to dovetail in with other things. This means a bike has to be mobile as the hydr

A full six decades have passed since a new motorsport discipline landed on UK shores, announcing its arrival with an all-out assault on the senses. The occasion was the 1964 International Festival of Drag Racing. This pioneering event, soon known as

The Morini 3½ is a machine for enthusiasts, and this is reflected in the energetic Morini Riders’ Club. Membership offers all the usual club benefits as well as track days, factory visits, dealer discounts and products. Subscription is a reasonable £

‘Brooklands’ is possibly my top museum in the UK, perhaps tied with the Shuttleworth Collection, due to the fact that both are working museums whose tireless volunteers keep historical machinery running in order to provide a full motoring experience

Now, those of you who are regular readers will have grasped that I can basically resist nothing when it comes to motorcycles, always able to justify another purchase in an often elaborate manner. So when details of Bonhams’ first online-only auction

Those riding most of the motorcycles featured in the pages of this magazine inevitably defer to the age and rarity of the machine, and leave full-out performance to estimates or makers’ claims. So it is interesting to see venerable bikes being – in m

“First-hand impressions of a country which is seldom visited,” so read the subheading to the same title we’ve used for our piece. It’s hard to believe now, that in 1949, Spain was a mystical land that not many had ever been to – within a generation,

Well, Peter Hall has done it again. Regular readers may recall retired mechanic Peter’s painstakingly mechanically restored and beautifully finished takes on other BSAs, including his 1940 M20 (TCM, October 2020). But his preference runs to the 1971/

Both when the original races were staged in the early 1950s and the commemorative event was inaugurated in 2006, the closed street circuit in central Bressuire, in Western France, played host only to four-wheeled machines. Then, in 2018, the organise

This incredible time-warp 1913 Flying Merkel 996cc Twin Seventy-one 471 was acquired by Vic Norman in 1998 from Bud Ekins. Vic’s work routinely took him to California for the air show season, and his friend Alain De Cadenet and he would often ride ov

The theme for this year’s Motorcycle Day, on July 7, was ‘Norton.’ A bigger canvas it is hard to imagine as the manufacturer is surely the most storied name in British road racing. The marque really cemented its place in history between the wars, par

If you were asked to name the machine most likely to ignite a passion for classic British motorcycles, you’d probably go with an iconic winner like the Manx Norton or Gold Star, or something rare and exotic like a Black Shadow or SS100. You probably

In the old days (pre-Covid) when I lived in Lincolnshire, the journey to Founders’ Day, at Stanford Hall in Leicestershire, was worth doing by motorcycle, as it was quite a nice ride, or could be. Often, there’d be a few others going too, thus making

The Ariel Motor Company, Birmingham displayed its Minerva-engined Motor Bicycle at London’s National Cycle Show in November 1901. Ariel was one of the pioneer brand names in two-wheeled history, dating to 1847, and after other applications was duly a

In a feature titled ‘I join the police’, published on April 13, 1967, Motor Cycle’s Midlands editor Bob Currie reported on a new departure, the formation of a West Midlands Police Motorcycle Display Team. The West Midlands Constabulary had just been

There are a few motorcycle makes which, to me, have always held a special interest – and the ‘Davies’ HRD is one of those. The scarcity of the actual machines and their success in such a short period – if ever a star shined bright and burned out fast

Southport has been much in the UK news of late, owing to a terrible atrocity, claiming the lives of three young children and injuring many more. This is a much more positive focus on the North West coastal town, with the picture capturing a wonderful

Suffolk-based YPV Spares started as a hobby, but 15 years ago became a business, run by Martin and Gemma Austin, selling moped spares. One speciality is Puch (pronounced ‘pook’). With an impressive stock of Maxi spares listed, we are grateful for Mar

As I stood on the freezing, snow-swept hard shoulder of the A7 autoroute somewhere near Lyons, France, on January 10, 1993, I wasn’t to know that at that precise moment, I had probably reached the toughest point of an eventual 34 years of ownership o

This picture, taken by ace photographer Nick Nicholls at Mallory Park, on Sunday, September 21, 1969, shows the two who many regard as the greatest motorcycle racers of all time, Giacomo Agostini and Mike Hailwood, indulging in a bit of pre-race chat