Classic Bike Guide

Classic Bike Guide is a down to earth, practical - and sometimes irreverent - magazine that gets right to the heart of the classic bike world. With a mixture of features, tests, reviews and event reports it is the title that has become a must for the active rider and restorer. Classic Bike Guide magazine - with the biggest and best readers adverts - FREE! Enjoy the digital edition - and save over 50% on the print susbcription price.

Who turned out the lights?

Threading the eye

Love story – AJS Model 18S • Would you take back an ex? Stuart Urquhart, Classic Bike Guide’s finder and reporter of fine Scottish classics, bumps into his old AJS Model 18 and takes it home. But not all that glitters is gold…

Fancy a day out? • Whether you have retreated to the shed or are resplendent in your sea-boot socks, army surplus underwear and dubbined boots and have strapped on the bar muffs, greetings! For the next few months, it’s all about club meets, Christmas toy runs and a bunch of winter jumbles. You could, of course, just fire up the wood burner and enjoy your time in the workshop/shed/conservatory/dining room, but if it all gets too gloomy, enjoy a trip out. Oh yes, and enjoy fact that on December 21, summer is on the way, and the festive season. And do let us know about your own upcoming events. Now, if you’ll excuse us, there’s wine that needs mulling.

Classic Bike Guide

Classic news • From Down Under to Up North: Wayne Gardner is coming to Newark’s Winter Classic

David Silver Open day and 50th anniversary of the CB400F • On the last Saturday of September, we headed to Honda parts purveyor and keeper of one the best Honda collections to celebrate 50 years of the Superb Honda CB400F

Royal Enfield Classic 650 • Want a budget-busting 650 classic with traditional lines, but don’t want to do wield a spanner after every ride? Royal Enfield has used its twin-cylinder 650cc engine to bring us a classically-styled bike with power to match – but is it a Bonneville-beater?

The Morini Riders’ Club • The Morini Riders’ Club will be 50 in 2025, being born in 1975 – one year after the first 350 V-twins arrived in the UK

Massimo Tamburini – a personal appreciation of the progettista par excellence • Massimo Tamburini, who died 10 years ago in April 2014 aged 70, was the progettista par excellence, the leader of the virtuosi who define the motorcycles we ride today. Those who have followed his lead in shaping the evolution of two-wheeled design and have continued to do so since he left us – figures like Miguel Angel Galluzzi, Pierre Terblanche, Gerald Kiska and Adrian Morton, and the younger generations who have followed in Tamburini’s tyre tracks – owe a debt of inspiration to the designers’ designer.

Yamaha YR5 • In the late 1960s, something significant happened in the design offices of Japanese motorcycle manufacturers. They worked out how to make motorcycles look modern.

Anything to say? • Email || editor@classicbikeguide.com Write to || Classic Bike Guide, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ

Sensible mods • The debate of originality over style, over substance, has no answer, just opinion. Reader Dave Godfrey has put together this fascinating history of how he has used his skills to improve his 1968 BSA A65 Lightning over the near half-century he’s owned it – and his chances of staying safe!

Yamaha TZR125 • Sweet dreams were made of these… Yamaha did its best to find something that would comply with UK learner laws and also comply with the complex wants and dreams of teenagers

A little bit of everything • Oli balances three bikes in one month, with everything from engine builds to paperwork…

Get the best from a conical hub brake • Matt has a look at how to banish the conical hub’s bad reputation for...