Classic Bike

Classic Bike helps and inspires enthusiasts to get more from their passion for classic motorcycles. The magazine shares their fascination with motorcycling’s heroic past while also helping them buy, fix and improve the bikes in their shed. Our main areas of content are: - Inspirational and entertaining reads that celebrate the glory of motorcycling, from riding stories that put the reader in the seat of history’s greatest bikes to incredible racing tales - Restoration stories and instructional features that inspire and help people get their tools out and sort out their old bike - In-depth technical features from the most expert and authoritative writers in motorcycling If you share our passion about classic motorcycles from the last century, you'll enjoy reading Classic Bike.

Classic Bike

TIME TO CELEBRATE!

A falling Star • When BSA reworked its unit construction B50 singles, it revived a famous name – Gold Star. That wasn’t well received by enthusiasts, but at least, like it’s forebear, it was a bike with a racing pedigree

Quite a day for a 500 • Sixty years ago, a single-cylinder 500cc Velocette Venom became the first motorcycle to average 100mph for 24 hours. Here’s how...

Thruxton 500 • This 500-mile marathon at the famous Hampshire circuit was the mainstay of British endurance racing from its inception in 1958

Le Vack cracks the Brooklands 500-miler • This marathon race 100 years ago resulted in a dramatic win for the famed speed merchant

Derek Rickman 1933-2021 • CB pays tribute to one of British motorcycling’s true superstars

Beaming on a special day

Buried treasure • Olaf Pobantz suspects his 1930s Royal Enfield outfit was hidden underground during the war to prevent it being pilfered by the Nazis

Altruistic Triton

Riding towards freedom • Time to get out and about while we can – and hopefully enjoy some late summer sunshine...

Decade-defining 500s 1900-1989

In the beginning... • To start this CB tribute to the 500s that defined each decade from the start of the 20th century, we return to the earliest days of motorcycling, when inventive types made up their own rules...

Fighting fit • World War I was a turning point in motorcycle development, forcing improvements in reliability and durability. But one machine had already proven itself up to the challenge...

A head of its time • In the 1920s, overhead-valve engines pushed the side-valve out of racing – but one company took it a step further, producing four-valve engines that led the world by the end of the decade

Canny Cammy • In the 1930s, Norton developed the overhead camshaft engine to a level at which it became a world beater on road and track, laying the foundations for the most famous race bike ever made

Twin win situation • The model that brought twin-cylinder motorcycling to the masses – and set the template for Triumphs for decades

If Elvis was a motorcycle... • ... he’d have been a Gold Star, the sneering lip on two wheels that tore its way through the ’50s. The Clubman DBD34 was The King

Speed date • The ’60s was put to bed by a hot supermodel that everyone wanted to go out with

Thirst for being first • Honda weighed in with its CB750 superbike in 1969 – followed in the early ’70s by this, a middleweight four-cylinder for the masses

Just like Barry’s • In the ’80s, road riders got the chance to feel what it was like to be Barry Sheene on this fearsome two-stroke GP rep

Graham Noyce • Honda’s first ever 500cc Motocross World Champion was also the first Brit to win the class since Jeff Smith in 1965. Graham Noyce interrupts fettling his CR500 to tell how he did it

GRAHAM NOYCE • A career in the dirt

Supercharged 500s

Leading the...