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Craven Equipment Est. 1951
Vintage luggage for a modern age
01986 01988 891096 891098
ww www ww.craven-equipment.co.uk w www.craven-equipment.co.uk Open Open Monday Monda!:J -- Friday, Frida!:J, 9.00 9.00 -- 5.00 5.00
Welcome
CANADA
RICKMAN INTERCEPTOR .......................... 6
Take a venerable roadster twin engine and build it into an up to the minute race frame. Alan Cathcart rides the result
of rapid and handsome single-cylinder sportsters. Stuart Francis found a pair of them in regular use in New Zealand's thriving classic clubland .. .
TRIUMPH CAFE RACER ............................26
MOTO GUZZI ELDORADO ....................... 58
How do you convert an out of date and overweight Hinckley triple into a brash and brawny roadster? With a cafe racer kit, of course! Keith Brotherhood tells us how...
After rebuilding the engine and gearbox on his big-block Guzzi V-twin, Nick Adams set off on a shakedown ride. Just a short one. Only 9000 miles or so, into Canada's Arctic Circle. What could possibly go wrong?
VELOCETTE GTP ......................................34
Detouring from his 'Living with Legends' series, Paul Miles gets to know Veloce's prewar two-stroke 250. It's something really rather special, he says. Not a back-to-basics bargain by any means!
PROJECT WORLD-BEATER ...................... 70
Into the engine. Odgie's flat-tracker started life as a military model, so the porting needs tweaking to unleash its potential performance. The gearchange lever could do with being on the opposite side, also ...
NORTON COMMANDOS ..........................42
Asked more than once which is his favourite British twin, Frank Westworth always recommends Norton's characterful Commando. Here's why...
RE CRUSADER REBUILD .......................... 76
Alistair Matheson's rebuild hasn't exactly gone to plan. The engine's back together but it certainly doesn't sound right. Time to take it all apart ... again!
BSA'S SUPER STARS ................................50 DECEPTIVE BENDS .................................. 76
Ever bought a replacement exhaust and discovered that it doesn't quite fit and isn't quite the right shape? Odgie meets a craftsman who uses traditional tools to create hand-made bespoke exhausts to suit classics and customs ...
ELECTREX WORLD LTD Classic Road, Trials & MX Ignition Systems Self generating CDI ignition systems for strong reliable spark Individually developed for each model, lighting options available for most kits Timing advance is fully electronic with advance curve Very low speed spark output from only 150rpm Optional flywheel weights - please ask
STK-010 fitted to B40 engine
STK-009
- Royal Enfield Crusader
STK-010
- BSA: B25, B40, B44, B50, C15
STK-012
- Triumph: 3TA, 5TA, Unit 650, T120
STK-1257
- BSA: Bantam D1-D7
STK-154
- Bultaco Sherpa Trials
STK-175
- BSA Bantam Trials: D10, D14/4, B175
STK-200
- Triumph Tiger Cub: T20, T205
- Fantic Trials: - 301, 241, 303, 243 STK-402 - Yamaha: TY250, Majesty STK-405 - Yamaha: XT500 - Race/MX STK-300
- Yamaha: TY175 Trials STK-960 - Villiers: 8e, 7e, 6e STK-970 - Villiers: 197-280cc engines STK-475
STK-980
- AJS Stormer 370 & 410cc
STK-200
STK-1257
STK-175
43-46 Vanalloys Business Park Stoke Row Oxfordshire RG9 5QW T: 01491 682369 - F: 01491 682286 - E: info@electrexworld.co.uk
www.electrexworld.co.uk
Made in UK
FROM THE FRONT As you know, I have been pursuing my strange occupation for a very long time - since 1988, in fact. And that's only the full-time portion - I worked on a club magazine for several years before that, slowly understanding how magazines work. This does help if you intend to pursue that particular strange occupation In the same way, a working knowledge of most things motorcycle is a tremendous boon, and although I genuinely have forgotten more about old bikes than most folk would ever want to know, I am rarely surprised much when I ride a bike with a view to writing about it. OK, I am often surprised by how good a particular machine is to ride - less often, there's the opposite surprise too, but you'll never read about those because I prefer optimism to the depressing level of grump and outrage which appears to be increasingly prevalent. An always entertaining aside is that whenever I reveal that I do in fact occasionally attempt to ride bikes which really are not as they should be, I get mail and comments from folk demanding that I 'tell it like it is; that I 'name and shame' - whatever that means. But why? Unless a chap is seriously considering buying the actual bike under debate, it's just yet another opportunity to be unpleasant. Which I try - and try hard - to avoid. It's not always easy. Meanwhile, and as you may read about next time, I enjoyed a couple of entirely remarkable - and a little surprising - rides back-toback on the same day this week. 'This week' refers to the week I'm writing, not the week you're reading, of course. Both bikes were middleweight twins, more or less 350cc. Both were electric starters, and both sets of electric feet worked - mostly. And that's the end of the similarities, pretty much. One of the bikes is decently modern, but of a design that must have been fairly antiquated when it was first introduced and it's a two-stroke, too, which is always something of a rare delight. The other machine was the last attempt at a new range of machines, an attempt at adding modern self-starting technology to a design which was in fact pretty modern in its time. And both proved to be quite remarkable. As you should read in a little while, once I've got my thoughts in order. Another feature shared by the two twins is that they both suffer from pretty terrible reputations out here in classicland. And
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at this point you may expect me to make excuses for them, because both machines are flawed. But ... almost all machines are flawed in one way or another. I always delight in P&M's description of their Panther range of characterful thumpers as 'the perfected motorcycle'. Yorkshire humour at its best, maybe. Be that as it may, in both cases the sheer nutcase charm of both models shone through. I thought I'd struggle with the stroker - and indeed I did in a couple of unexpected ways - but overcoming the oddities is all part of the entertainment, surely? The four-stroke, though? I expected it to be as ordinary as the two-stroke was extraordinary, and in some ways it was, but in other ways it was fascinating. I returned the not-very smoky stroker to its owner, parked up, did pleasantries and rode home on my own modern Triumph. When I landed I realised that my rambling bike thoughts along the familiar roads home were all about the stroker, the Triumph just did what it does, entirely unremarkably, no thought required. The burbling stroker was so involving that it took my mind of all today's puzzles, woes and worries - and isn't that why we ride them? No surprises there, then. Ride safely Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net
THE NEXT ISSUE (RC195) WILL BE PUBLISHED
BY EMAIL: TP@RealClassic.net ONLINE: www.Real-Classic.co.uk
ON JULY6TH, AND SHOULD REACH UK SUBSCRIBERS BY JULY 10th
6 I JUNE 2020
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ritain's iconic Metisse motorcycle marque was founded in the 1950s by brothers Derek and Don Rickman, offroad aces who were household names in Britain thanks to BBC-TV showing the Scrambles in which they excelled every Saturday afternoon in winter. After achieving dirtbike dominance with their stiff, good-handling frames powered by British twin and single motors, they then did something comparable with road bikes. Rickman went on to briefly become Britain's largest streetbike manufacturer after the demise of Norton first time around, and before John Bloor resurrected Triumph. The Rickmans' creations not only represented a key stage in the evolution of the modern off-road bike, but they also played a role in helping Japanese manufacturers discover the black art of frame design for their four-cylinder streetbikes, in making Hondas that handled, and Kawasakis which delivered their impressive horsepower to the ground, without trying to chuck the rider off in doing so. It's fair to say that the brothers' bikes changed the face of modern motorcycling, even if it's too little appreciated today by exactly how much. That process began with the creation 50 years ago this year of the prototype parallel-twin Rickman Interceptor 750, displayed at London's Racing and Sporting Motorcycle Show in February 1970. Until then, alongside their off-road Metisse frame kits to house Triumph, BSA, Matchless and Bultaco engines that were their core business, the Rickman brothers had only built complete series-production bikes for the MX/ Enduro off-road market. These were exclusively powered by 1251250cc two-stroke motors from Montesa and Zundapp, not the British four-strokes they'd made their name with. An adapted Street Metisse version of the offroad frame was made available from 1966 onwards for those wanting to build Rickman-framed road bikes, predominantly with 650ccTriumph T120 motors, though efforts to obtain supplies of this engine to build compete motorcycles were rebuffed by the Meri den factory. â&#x2013;ş
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JUNE 2020 I 7
But Street Metisse chassis no.703, delivered to Royal Enfield owners Enfield Precision early in 1970, had been modified by the technical team headed by Don Rickman to accommodate the essentially all-new Reg Thomas-designed Mk2 version of the 736cc Royal Enfield Interceptor motor introduced in 1968. Its display at the London Show aroused heaps of interest, and at this stage it was envisaged that Royal Enfield would launch its own cafe racer model based on the Rickman design. This could also be adapted to police use, and indeed an Interceptorengined Rickman police bike bearing chassis no. 781 was delivered to Dorset Police in June 1970 for evaluation. Meantime, the Rickmans began offering the Street Metisse frame kit duly adapted to accept the Interceptor engine and the Albion gearbox which came with it, both firms being formerly owned by the same E. and H.P. Smith Group of companies. They only delivered the first of these, 8 I JUNE 2020
chassis no. 890, in February 1971 to a customer named Gerry Marshall. However, Royal Enfield finally entered administration in July 1970- a demise which had been some years in the making, but which now presented the Rickmans with the chance to finally become series production streetbike manufacturers themselves, without the expense and time needed to develop their own engine. That's because colourful American two-wheeled entrepreneur Floyd Clymer had made a deal with Enfield Precision to obtain an initial 200 Interceptor Mk2 engines and gearboxes, to be sent to Italy for Leopoldo Tartarini, owner of ltaljet Motorcycles, to put into an ltaljet frame, rebadge the result as an Indian, and ship them to the USA to promote the return of Clymer's beloved Indian brand, whose trademark he held the rights to. Tartarini had already produced a Velocette-engined 500 Indian single for him. But Clymer died in January 1970, aged 74, by which time just 62 Royal Enfield motors had left England for Italy. The remainder of the consignment was held by Clymer's Birmingham (UK)-based shipping agents P. Mitchell & Co., who'd already had dealings with the Rickman brothers in shipping their frames to Australia, and asked them to build a batch of Metisseframed motorcycles using these Interceptor motors. It took until the end of the year for
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Although the engine is most certainly a charmer, the same cannot be said for the gearbox. It's primitive in operation and has a chasm between 3rd and 4th gears. And the footrests - welded to the exhaust pipes - always looked like a very silly idea Enfield's receivers to approve release of the engines, but in January 1971 assembly began in the newly expanded Rickman works in New Milton of the first of the 138 examples of the production Rickman Enfield Interceptor to be built, with six fitters at a time each working solo on assembling a complete bike. It was the first time that the Rickmans had produced a series production roadbike bearing their name. Originally priced at £750 and available in blue, orange or maroon, sales of what by the standards of the day was a very high performance motorcycle - the first ever production bike with disc brakes front and rear - were initially slow,
until the price was dropped to £550, whereupon they took off. Without their own dealer network in the UK, the Rickmans arranged for major South London dealer Elite Motors in Tooting to sell this model exclusively, though Mitchell's took 26 bikes with frame numbers 1101-26 to sell abroad, mainly to Canada. This was effectively a back door into the USA, where several of the 26 went on sale for $1695, with a spare engine available for $550. Direct sales to a country where the Metisse name was already legendary, and where 546 examples of the standard Mk2 Enfield Interceptor had already been shipped, were impossible because Rickman's California-based US importer Steens
had ran into trouble after a failed takeover. The Rickman Interceptor's unmodified 736cc parallel-twin ohv twin-cam motor sat firmly in the tradition of British big twins, except that the essentially all-new Mk2 version was a full wetsump design with much improved lubrication, instead of the Mk1's separate oil receptacle cast into the vertically split crankcase housing. It featured separate cylinders with cast iron sleeves and aluminium heads, each with two valves per cylinder, and a dynamically balanced nodular iron 360° crank. Its 71 x 93mm dimensions and an 8.5:1 compression ratio produced 52.Sbhp at 6500rpm at the gearbox, with substantial torque. This was the same four-speed Albion box from before, bolted to the rear of the crankcase for a sort of semi-unit construction, with duplex primary chain and a trademark RE neutral finder, but a much improved fiveplate oil-bath clutch. The 12V Lucas capacitor ignition with twin coils and auto advance was triggered by contacts operated off the end of the exhaust camshaft, hidden behind an oval cover. Carburation was by twin 30mm Amal Mk1 Concentrics, and Thomas's redesign meant ►
JUNE 2020 I 9
-~ ... ...........
that the copious oil leaks, for which the Mk1 version of the engine had become notorious, were essentially cured - at least when new. The optional oil cooler fitted to the Mk2 Interceptor was absent from the Rickman - finding space to fit it might have been too hard. This new-generation Interceptor motor was wrapped in a trademark Street Metisse triangulated duplex frame, modified to suit, as Don Rickman explains. 'Because the newer Interceptor engine was wet-sump format, it was wider across the bottom than anything we'd used the Street Metisse frame for before: he says. 'So we had to splay the lower part of the frame out a little, to let the crankcase sit between the rails. As with all our frames, it was entirely sif-bronze welded using Reynolds 531 chrome-moly steel tubing, because when we ere just getting started, 6efo re designing our very firs frames, we went
Commando which to the Reynolds compa~nd talked ta.Ken Sprayson. In those days he was the whiz kid for was the Rickman Enfield's closest rival frame construction, and h_e showed us all the back then, still had a technical stuff, including his tricks of the trade. We never used anything else after that: drum rear brake. The frame was nickel-plated - another 'Our road racing entrantTom Kirby came to us Rickman feature from first to last - with the with a big cast aluminium hub to house a disc firm's own meaty-looking tele fork set at a 27.5° brake in that his South African rider Paddy Driver rake, and carried in Rickman's forged yokes. The had brought back from America, and said, "Can sturdy front end was required because of the_ you do something with this?"' recalls Don, "So we cast iron disc brakes ~tted fron~ndJear, for the .._had t.9 develop our own forks ~ --"""'=!!!'~ first time ever on a production b.ike - the Norton to use it, because it needed a â&#x2013;ş
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