When Lars Schau decided to build a cafe racer, he knew he wanted something different, to ride the road less ridden. But that wasn’t all; his cafe racer would be different on a tight budget. He achieved the first of these objectives through his unusual choice of donor machine and the second by tackling the fabrication of most of the custom components himself. Continue reading
Over the past few years the market for retro motorcycles, those machines that conjure up memories of the past, has really expanded and now many of the mainstream manufacturers have at least one retro model in their range. With that in mind, I thought it might be entertaining to compare these machines with the ones they take their inspiration from. Continue reading
Sometimes it can be hard to visualise how that box of bits you bought as a ‘project’ will look when finished. This is one of the many challenges that will face the new owner of this circa 1938 Triumph Tiger 80 up for grabs with a guide price of £2,800 – 3,600 (US$4,200 – 5,300) at The Spring Stafford Sale being held at the Staffordshire County Showground by auction house Bonhams on 26 April 2015.
Owning and running any motorcycle sets you apart from the ordinary, the run of the mill. And it’s this desire to be distinctive, different from the next person, that Yamaha is tapping into with the Yamaha Yard Built initiative. Continue reading
During the ’60s and ’70s, the name Seeley was synonymous with quality, go-faster aftermarket frames, bodywork and exhausts. The man behind it, Colin Seeley, began as a motorcycle mechanic in the early ’50s and was soon to set up in business with his father offering workshop services and then becoming a dealer for new machines and by the late ’50s had secured main dealership contracts with the likes of AJS, BMW and Matchless to name but three. Continue reading
The BBC documentary, Full Throttle: The Glory Days of British Motorbikes, captures the spirit of the motorcycling experience in Britain during the ’50s and ’60s tracing its roots back to the great British hero, Colonel T.E. Lawrence CB DSO, better known to all as Lawrence of Arabia.
Anyone who’s ever spent a quiet moment idly flicking through videos on YouTube will, I’m sure, be aware of the journeys of discovery they can quickly become when you see something that piques your interest and sends you off on a tangent that leaves you wondering where the time went. What follows is one of those journeys. Continue reading
Mike “The Bike” Hailwood was certainly a force to be reckoned with. Between 1958 and 1967, he competed with great success, winning nine motorcycle Grand Prix World Championships and fourteen Isle of Man TT races. Continue reading
You might think that cutaway versions of motorcycle engines showing their inner workings are a recent phenomena but you would be very much mistaken as these have been around almost as long as the motorcycle itself. Continue reading
During the ’70s and ’80s, many of my father’s friends were keen motorcyclists. Consequently, a number of interesting machines came to my teenage attention. One that left a particularly deep impression was the Kawasaki Z1-R. Immediately and obviously different to its predecessors and peers, I clearly recall being struck by its appearance which, for the time (1978), was distinctly exotic. Continue reading