RealClassic - March 2014 - Sample by Mortons Media Group Ltd

GUZZI ELDORADO ● MATCHLESS G80CS ● TRIALS CUB

ISSUE 119 • MARCH 2014 £3.60

BIRTH OF THE BONNIE 1959 TRIUMPH T120

INDIAN BULLETS!

PLUS

SUZUKI T500

LOTS ON SCOTTS LODOLA BUILD ROCK‛N’ROLL STAR - BMW R1150 ROCKSTER

GUZZI ELDORADO ● MATCHLESS G80CS ● TRIALS CUB

WHAT LIES WITHIN

ISSUE 119 • MARCH 2014 £3.20

BIRTH OF THE BONNIE 1959 TRIUMPH T120

INDIAN BULLETS!

PLUS SUZUKI T500

LOTS ON SCOTTS LODOLA BUILD

06 MOTO GUZZI ELDORADO ............................ 6

It’s the Wilderness Wanderer! Nick Adams strikes gold with his choice of mile-munching Guzzi V-twin; a machine more than capable of crisscrossing Canada

TRIUMPH BONNEVILLE.............................. 22

ROCK‛N’ROLL STAR - BMW R1150 ROCKSTER

REALCLASSIC 119; PUBLISHED IN MARCH 2014

RC REGULARS

THE CONTENTS PAGE ...................................4

All right, all right. It’s a Triumph twin. Worse; it’s a Bonneville. A man told us at the Bristol Show that he thought we shouldn’t feature so many odd bikes, so here’s a Bonneville. Oh … and an Eldorado. And a T500. Say nothing, OK? We held the Sunbeam scooter over until next time…

SCOTT SELECTION ..................................... 56

Last month’s road test of a Scott Flying Squirrel created a cascade of entertaining correspondence on the subject. Here are just some of the reminiscences, observations and suggestions which RC readers have to offer on the subject…

WE’VE GOT MAIL! ...................................... 14

Born on the salt flats at Bonneville, the first T120 is legendary. But can the Tangerine Dream ever live up to its reputation? Rowena Hoseason examines an icon

All about jet engines. Nearly all. Also a Thruxton, some sidecars, Scott brakes, life at Plumstead… And some old bike stuff, too. Of course. OUTWARD BOUND .................................... 78

And so the calendar steadily fills. No matter how we try to avoid it, at some point we need to go out there and actually go places… MATCHLESS G80CS.................................... 60

BMW R1150R ROCKSTER

‘In the clearing stands a Rockster, a fighter by his trade…’ Frank Westworth was seduced by the dark side of a civilised Germanic streetfighter TRIALS CUB SPECIAL

The plan was for Odgie to ride this tricky trials Cub and tell you all about it. Next thing you know, we’re talking Mick Grant, sand-racing, and rumours of buried pioneer bikes…

NEWS!......................................................... 81

Take a competitive Matchless scrambles machine and put it on the road. Does it make a decent touring and pottering tool? Martin Peacock found out the hard way

We ran out of space last month, so there was no news. Made up for it this time, with a report on the Bristol Show, an invite to the Ardingly Show, and even … some news

BULLETS IN INDIA...................................... 70

READERS’FREE ADS .................................. 88

The original Royal Enfield Bullet was the perfect bike for post-war Britain. How does it fare in 21st century India? Reuben Fowles found out for himself…

Very few offerings for our shared delight this time. There is, however, a pair of old boots for sale. No no; really. This is not TP being rude about Triumphs again

PUB TALK ................................................. 100

The truth about copying. PUB airs her opinion about Val Page’s Ariel Leader / Arrow being a ‘copy’ of the contemporary Adler

SUZUKI T500.............................................. 48

Tim Ellis ended up with a Suzuki two-stroke entirely by happenstance. Now he’s celebrating over 25 years with the same motorcycle…

BENDSWINGIN’........................................ 106

MOTO GUZZI LODOLA ............................... 94

Stu Thomson returns a 1960s Moto Guzzi single to the road. This month he tries his hand at wheel building and starts to investigate the engine…

• THREE-WHEELERS BMW BUILD • FOUR-POT PANTHER

•

REBUILD COMMANDO

SPECIAL DER • BSA AJS OFF-ROA

ITION

D IGN

N M19

110 ISSUE

ENFIEL

ISSUE 88 • AUGUST 2011

2011

lsR’ ie r uTaEreA q S E S T N U H U O R £2.95

TALES FROM THE SHED ........................ 110

£2.95

SEE PG108 FOR MORE 100 O NORT

ISSUE 87 • JULY

O lor! Not more about Black Shudders and their Vincent kin. No, not quite, at least not as you would be forgiven for assuming. Minton tells a tale or two of what might have been. Or not... As the case may be...

MPH

TRIU

Frank Westworth has been taught a lesson by RC readers, and was so depressed by his stupidity that he’s decided to read more books…

TWIN

E TO BUILD A CHALLENGRD RIDE A REWA TO

CHAIR PULLING A ARE WITH A SQU

20 3 £3. E 201 • JUN

1 E SUBSCRIB Velocette TODAY & SAVE S YEATR HE OF

PH TRIUDM TWIN

PARALLEL S!BRIT TWINFY

G CANDY KIN KI Z1B: THE KAWASA

BSA’S BEE

15/07/2011 12:08

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AN ITALIAN E ALTERNATIV TWIN FROM MOTOBI: SE! YOU CHOO

16/06/2011

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The only way you can be sure of your regular fix of RealClassic, the world’s least sensible and best value old bike magazine, is to subscribe and join the RealClassic Club. And you can pay to by many magical means now, too.Welcome the biggest subs page on the planet…

WHO’S DONE WHAT THE MARCH magazine has hopped into print courtesy of Frank ‘marcher rides’ Westworth and Rowena ‘long march’ Hoseason, aka The Cosmic Bike Company. Mark ‘march hare’ Hyde designs editorial pages, while Martin ‘march ado about nothing’ Gelder manages the RC website at RealClassic.co.uk TRADE ADVERTISERS should call Lee Buxton on 01507 529313 or LBuxton@ 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 anything returned or something like a sensible reply SUBSCRIPTION INFO is on page 108, or 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 too busy setting up MurderMayhemandMore.net to enjoy ourselves, so if you want to see what we’ve been reading and watching then drop by the new site. Oh, and we fibbed just then. We had time to romp through An American Outlaw (a modern twist on the fugitive theme) and Derek Raymond’s Nightmare in the Street (dark noir with a bitter heart), and were utterly delighted by All Hail The New Flesh, a collection of futuristic short stories which features (fanfare! trumpets!) a nifty little tale by our very own FrankW. You’ll find this sci-fi anthology on Amazon, published by Dagda as an ebook and a paperback. Go see! RealClassic is published monthly by MMG Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, LN9 6LZ, UK. USA SUBSCRIPTIONS are $58 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI. 54921. Postmaster: Send USA address changes to RealClassic, Motorsport Publications LLC, 715-572-4595 chris@classicbikebooks.com

FROM THE FRONT

t cannot have escaped your notice that this is one spectacularly wet winter. It’s also been wildly windy, too, which has resulted in the entire nation (apologies if you live somewhere faraway and hot; droughts are surely hard work too!) becoming obsessed with the news on TV and radio, on the front pages of all the newspapers and wailing away on social media, as we should apparently refer to the vast chat which is the internet. As you may already know, RCHQ is located in a beautiful part of Cornwall, a rocky protrusion of mainland UK which sticks provocatively out into the Atlantic. It does get stormy, and the last production week of this very issue saw the rafters rattling, hailstorms blasting against the windows while the very lawn itself attempted to take flight. We were resigned to the power going down (the powerlines are on poles out here in the rural hinterlands, and we watch them flex and bend in the gales) or at least the internet disconnecting itself. But no. The crews responsible for keeping us connected to everyone else performed heroic service, and everything has chugged along just fine. So far. I grew up in Taunton, at the heart of rural Somerset, and my early riding years were spent on an assortment of ghastly old horrorbikes. I developed a lasting love of riding through wild places at wild times – on hard roads only, though; I completely lack the skill required to ride off-road. And as the Somerset levels have been in the news a lot, I dug into my memories of the early 1970s and dredged up the happy recollections of riding my AJS 18 across those same roads to visit a friend in Burrowbridge, which often became an island in winter. Beautiful place to ride. The main roads – such as they are – are mainly raised above the field levels, but the minor roads, which usually started life as tracks between those fields, were a real challenge. The AJS was perfect for them, and I would go chuffing around, scaring the wildfowl and being endlessly reprehensible and irresponsible, as teenagers are. Were. On one memorable ride I chugged sedately along (you soon learn to ride slowly when

navigating floods) with water splashing up my shins, onto my knees and the petrol tank, feeling the road surface shifting invisibly beneath the muddy surface of the floodwater, all the while accompanied by the bizarre popping and gargling from the submerged silencer. I was of course terrified. Not terrified of falling off, because teenagers do that a lot and I was soaked anyway, but of stalling the engine, letting all that filthy water up the exhaust pipe and into the engine itself, thus rendering it unstartable. This would have resulted in my either pushing the Ajay to dry land or leaving it where it fell. Neither appealed much. Looking back, and pondering while we drove the RC Roadshow to the recent excellent Bristol Show in our 4x4 Subaru, I was reminded that the AJS engine never did stall. The magneto – hated piece of Lucas junk, obviously – never failed to provide sparks, despite running completely submerged occasionally. Look at a picture of a 1948 AJS single and observe where the magneto is located. Elsewhere in this issue, I have written about my‘modern’bike, a BMW twin. I found myself wondering while I wrote the story whether the BMW would perform so stoically in similar conditions. I’m sure it would, modern fuelling systems and modern electrics being rather more sophisticated than Amal carbs and Lucas N1 magnetos. The difference between then and now is that then I would have taken the BMW out to discover how well it would work under challenging conditions. Now… Ride safely Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net

THE NEXT ISSUE (RC120) WILL BE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 1st, AND SHOULD BE WITH YOU BY APRIL 7th

6 I MARCH 2014

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1972 MOTO GUZZI ELDORADO

WILDERNESS WANDERER Nick Adams strikes gold with his choice of mile-munching Guzzi V-twin; a machine more than capable of criss-crossing Canada Photos by Nick Adams

t was all Doug’s fault. He insisted that I take his Honda CB350 for a ride. I just rode it up the street, up through the gears and back down through the gears. Long before I turned back into my driveway, I was hooked. I had to have another bike. Before leaving the UK for Canada, I had exclusively ridden motorcycles: Panther 600 and 650s, BSA C15 and Royal Star, Ariel Leader and a host of smaller bikes and scooters, most of which required pushing or fiddling with much of the time. Faced with the alternative of buying a brand new Norton Interstate or chasing a girlfriend back to Canada, I chose the latter. Thirty-plus years later I’m still here. That particular girl is long gone; so too was my hitherto unbroken string of bike ownership. In Canada, bikes are positively seasonal.

Once I saw my first winter, it dispelled any thoughts that riding all year round was a viable proposition. Instead of being transportation, motorbikes are toys – and that didn’t appeal to me at all. My motorcycle addiction was put on the back burner, and the burner was off. Then Doug turned up. We immediately started searching the advertisements and within minutes had found a 1972 Moto Guzzi Eldorado about 200 miles away. As a teenager I had always lusted after Moto Guzzis, but at that time they had seemed impossibly exotic and expensive (particularly the latter) and I had put them out of my mind. Now, here in front of me was a one owner bike with 35,000 miles on the clock. The troublesome chromelined cylinders (the chrome flakes off and destroys bearings) had already been replaced

Real Bikes. Real People. RealClassic: online at www.RealClassic.co.uk

MARCH 2014 I 7

UTAH’S BornonthesaltflatsatBonneville, thefirstT120islegendary.Butcan theTangerineDreameverliveupto itsreputation?RowenaHoseason examinesanicon Photos by Kay Eldridge of focusedimage.com.au

he first Bonneville – as seen here – is acknowledged as an instant icon and a super soaraway sales success. Right? Well, that’s the normal narrative as told by the men of Meriden and old-time industry observers alike. ‘After the Bonneville went to the show the public – and Americans in particular – couldn’t get enough of it’ said Hughie Hancox, who was one of the young men wielding the spanners during the prototype T120’s shakedown period in 1958. Historian Jeff Clew agreed: ‘made with the American market very much in mind, the T120

22 I MARCH 2014

Bonneville met with instant acclaim,’ he said. And any auctioneer will tell you that there’s something very special about the earliest Bonnie: ‘first-off-the-line examples of iconic models are always highly prized by collectors, and none more so than the newfor-1959 Triumph T120R Bonneville, which was introduced in the autumn of 1958 for the forthcoming season.’ However, the accepted wisdom turns out to be only part of the picture. It seems there are opposing opinions on the other side of the Atlantic. Timothy Remus, a more recent American author and journalist, has something of a different perspective on the ground-breaking T120. ‘Although we always think of the Bonneville as the most popular bike among American enthusiasts,’ he says, ‘the TR6 enjoyed equal or even greater popularity among riders in the western

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1959 TRIUMPH T120

SAINT... states’. To most modern motorcyclists the Tangerine Dream 59 Bonnie is arguably one of the best-looking bikes ever built, but to the American audience in 1958: ‘the hot new Triumph didn’t look very hot.’ In fact the very first Bonneville seemed stolid and staid, out of step with its genuinely impressive performance potential. The American customers didn’t much appreciate the heavyweight valanced mudguards, fork shrouds and the

Said Triumph; ‘This is the motorcycle for the really knowledgeable enthusiast who can appreciate and use the power provided.’ Don’t let 46bhp go to your head now

‘

Real Real Bikes. Bikes. Real Real People. People. RealClassic: RealClassic: online online at at www.RealClassic.co.uk www.RealClassic.co.uk

MARCH 2014 I 23

SuzIe’S Stroker twIn Tim Ellis ended up with a Suzuki two-stroke entirely by happenstance. Now he’s celebrating over 25 years with the same motorcycle… Photos by Tim Ellis

got my 1973 Suzuki T500 quite by accident in 1987. I’d gone to a firm in Leeds with a view to getting the crank from my GT500 rebuilt. This chain of events started in 1985 when we were expecting our first child. Up to this point our only transport was a Kawasaki Z650 which inevitably was sold to make way for a car. I thought I could manage without a motorcycle, but I was wrong. I rapidly became the proud owner

48 I MARCH 2014

of a 250 Super Dream; a nice enough bike but not very quick, and I got fed up of dancing up and down through the sixspeed gearbox. I stuck with it for a year until I came across an advert for a Suzuki GT500. ‘Would suit penniless nutter,’ the advert read. Well, they’re half right, I thought, so I took my wife and baby son over to see the GT. They acted as hostages while I went for a test drive and when I got back a deal was done. I think I paid

£275 for it. ‘It uses very little two-stroke,’ the vendor said… How prophetic that turned out to be. A couple of months later I was travelling to Leeds in search of a company that could repair crankshafts. The GT had in fact been using no oil at all because the pump wasn’t working and the big ends had gone. The conrods in these engines are one piece items with needle roller bearings, so require the use of a press to

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repair. On the plus side, I had managed to sell the Super Dream for exactly what I’d paid for it. It turned out that said crank repair experts also dealt in scrap bikes and secondhand parts, so when I plonked my defunct crank on the counter I was pointed towards a 1973 T500 and was told I could have it for £125. They said that it had been running when it came in but had a carburetion problem. If petrol was poured down the plug holes it started fine. For some reason they seemed very reluctant to repair my crank. ‘Will my existing generator and CDI ignition fit the T500 motor?’ I asked. ‘Oh yes, they just bolt on to the end of the crank.’ Sadly in my naivety I believed him, paid him the £125 plus £10 for delivery and that evening had the T500 sat in my backyard. It was missing the front mudguard and three of the indicators. The back mudguard was shot, which was a pity because the one on my existing bike was one I’d made out of fibreglass and wasn’t brilliant. At that time I had no shed, so all my bikes lived uncovered in the backyard, getting the occasional spray of WD40 to slow down the rust. When it came to doing the engine transplant it was raining, so I ended up with a sheet of plastic tied to the house to form a makeshift lean-to. The donor T500 was positioned alongside my GT500 (already minus engine) with short planks between the two. Once everything had been undone from the donor it was simply a matter of levering the engine up on to the planks, sliding it across and dropping it into place. Sounds easy now, but they’re bloomin’ heavy lumps. With the new engine in place I decided to use my original carburettors to resolve the aforementioned problem. I also thought that at this point it would be a good idea to swap out the points ignition for the GT500 CDI unit. Guess what? The crankshaft ends are completely different, as are the crankcase castings where the generator fits. Ah well, you live and learn. The Haynes manual doesn’t show a wiring diagram for the GT, so there followed some head scratching while I worked out how to connect the points and generator to the existing loom. It wasn’t too bad though. I don’t usually have a problem with wiring, it’s everything else I struggle with. So with it all back together, and making sure the oil pump was primed, it was time to see if it would start. Start it would not. Sure enough, if petrol was poured into the plug holes it would run for a few seconds, but that was all. There was a spark at both plugs, good compression, and fuel was definitely being sucked in from the carbs. Timing OK. Bother. I don’t know what made me do, it but I decided to look underneath the engine. Hmm, no crankcase drain plugs, therefore no crankcase compression, something I am led to believe is

PRIDE & JOY: SUZUKI T500

This claims to be the GT500, and it may be, of course, possibly with a T500 engine…

And this is the T500. We think. It is certainly blue Tim Ellis and his T500 rode on the only slightly eccentric RC Norton Challenge

Real Bikes. Real People. RealClassic: online at www.RealClassic.co.uk

MARCH 2014 I 49