The annual British motorcycle show started before the First World War and during the heyday period of the British motorcycle industry, so from the 1920s into the 1960s, really, it was some event, often attended/opened by royalty, prime ministers and

I hold great admiration for designers and engineers, in fact for anyone who has the kind of mind that when presented with a problem, no matter how complex, can craft a solution. I think that’s probably one of the reasons why I like classic motorcycle

No one can deny technology has moved on apace since the types of motorcycles we enthuse over, and view with rose-tinted goggles, were made. This embracing of technology is a double-edged sword of course, and there is a valid argument to say embracing

The 1987 500cc world champion, Australian Wayne Gardner, is star guest at the Classic Bike Guide Winter Classic show, taking place at Newark Showground on January 11/12, 2025. Wayne – known as the ‘Wollongong Whizzkid’ – went from a fresh-faced boy r

Named after the river running through it, the Mayenne department is located in northern France, in the Pays-de-la-Loire region, with Normandy to the north, Brittany to the west and the Loire Valley to the south. It is one of the original 83 departmen

Since Triumph revived the Bonneville name in 2000, the motorcycle it was attached to has become less of a single model and more of a catch-all platform. Launched to rekindle the spirit of the original machine, the Bonneville has expanded into an exte

Having looked at this BSA-powered Ariel in real life, more than once in fact, and having gone over the pictures several times too, I’m still undecided – is it a brilliant period special which should be maintained as it is, or is it a monstrosity that

My father Oskar was a time-served, pre-Second World War Mercedes Benz engineer. Although dad had a few motorcycles, his real interest was Mercedes and Porsche cars, but when in 1971 I bought my first old motorcycle, which was the 1924 OEC Blackburne

This classic archive picture and article on page 20 of your January 2025 edition was of great interest to me, and hopefully others. You ask if anyone has any further information and I can well remember Fred Collis, who, according to the 1962 Pioneer

While mainstream speedway is strictly controlled, the Lydd track has remained independent, available for private hire, as well as having its own race series for amateur riders. Originally established in the mid-1990s, it revived the name of the Romne

Sixteen time Irish trials champion Benny Crawford surely suffered from the misfortune of competing at the same time as his fellow countryman, one Samuel Hamilton ‘Sammy’ Miller – Miller arguably the greatest trials rider of all time. Indeed, in Irela

Starting as a motorcycle maker in July 1955, Yamaha was historically a late comer in the Japanese powered two-wheeler industry, but from the start were a real competitor to the likes of Honda. Yamaha’s first model, inspired by the German DKW RT125, w

At the end of a birthday visit to Oxford in 1987, my wife Susannah left town with a pair of small candlesticks. I left with a Moto Guzzi Le Mans. It wasn’t my birthday. I’d spotted this fine example of Italian sculpture perched artfully in the front

Sitting in a square near our home in Munich, I saw a couple of motorcycles that looked familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. One was a 350cc split single, the second also a single, this time of 500cc. What confused me at the time was both wer

In the summer of 1941, war was raging across Europe. German and Italian forces were in control of most of the mainland, with Great Britain and its Allies standing alone against the onslaught, while also fighting in North Africa. The United States War

We’ve all dreamed the dream – and if we’d had a quid, or a buck, or a euro for every drawing of a motorcycle we concocted in class at school, instead of listening to the teacher droning on about algebra equations or some long-dead monarch, we might a

Choosing a sweltering day to start stripping down the MZ wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but in my defence, a couple of weekends had passed with it just sitting in the way in the middle of the garage, while life, houseguests, work etc. took up my

As part of a ‘rounding-up’, three-page feature all under the headline reproduced above, this photograph – in the November 16, 1950 edition of The Motor Cycle – was accompanied by the caption: ‘Over 30,000 people watched the Johore Grand Prix (see nex

This picture appeared in The Motor Cycle of August 23,1923, with the caption: “Every picture… It seems a pity in a setting typifying the glories of our Empire – The Viceregal Lodge, Calcutta – the sidecar should be so typically American; but as our r

With the title sponsor being our sister title Classic and Motorcycle Mechanics, the accent for October’s Stafford is on the ‘next generation’ of machines from those which we predominantly favour, so it’s heavily weighted towards 1970s and onwards. Of

The National Motorcycle Museum’s annual event ‘Museum Live’ has established itself a place in the calendar, seemingly attracting a bigger crowd year-on-year, with the appeal of Henry Cole and friends, in particular, piquing the imagination of many wh