Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 72 Autumn 2024 i Classic Dirt Bike

There seems to be an unwritten rule which affects time and work… if there’s lots of time then there’ll be nothing to do and things will run smoothly; however, if time is tight then everything which possibly can go wrong will go wrong. In the case of a motorcycle sports meeting the latter will often mean a frantic attempt to make the startline as something which broke in the last race had to be fixed. If nothing broke then there will be three or four heats between a rider’s last outing and the next race. This allows time for the bike to receive a leisurely once-over to confirm all is well, perhaps a wipe of the goggles and the number plate. However, if the last race is finished with the…

In the fast-paced world of motorcycle sport, today’s great idea is often tomorrow’s old hat as manufacturers strive to keep their products ahead of the opposition by testing new ideas. This development work has to be balanced with making sure the works team is not seen too often on bikes substantially different from those on the showroom floor or there’s a possibility sales of the current production model could stall. Each new model launched was lauded as the ‘best ever’ no matter where the factory was based. In Greeves’ case its 24TES was a massive success and had been substantially improved over the previous year’s machine. Enter the 24TFS… which, the newspaper tester allowed, the works riders had been perfecting for quite a while. Biggest changes were to the engine…

Thanks to the growth of the pre65 movement, many bikes which were deemed unsuitable in their day have gained a new lease of life. Bikes such as BSA’s Gold Star models, for instance: in their day they were deemed too long, too low and too heavy for the feet-up sport. They still held force on the scrambles tracks but the rise of lightweights – which were physically smaller and naturally lighter than big bikes could ever be – were increasingly taking the top spots in trials. It was a situation BSA became aware of and when Brian Martin suggested developing the then-new C15 roadster into a trials iron, the feet-up fate of the big pre-unit Goldie and associated all-alloy ‘B’ range was sealed. It wouldn’t be much of a revelation…

As the starter dropped the flag on the first race of the first GP in the 1978 500cc motocross world championship, it was soon pretty clear to the 25,000 spectators who made their way to Payerne in Switzerland reigning world champion Heikki Mikkola would be a tough act to beat. The Finn took the lead before the first lap was over and our pic shows him expertly handling his new factory OW39 Yamaha around the twisty and hilly circuit where he pulled ahead of an opposition which included multi-world champion Roger De Coster and a couple of future world champions in the shape of Brad Lackey and Graham Noyce. When the chequered flag dropped on the first race, Mikkola crossed the line having never been seriously challenged throughout the whole…

The Hagon Shocks sponsored Classic Dirt Bike Show 2025 How long do you reckon Hagon Shocks has backed the Classic Dirt Bike Show? Six years? Five years? More? Less? Would you take a stab at 11 years? If you did you’d be bang on, yes Hagon have been behind the ‘must do’ show in the dirt bike world for 11 years. In common with many institutions which have a full and official title The Classic Dirt Bike Show has become known to the off-road world by its location and enthusiasts will simply say “see you at Telford?” when talking with their friends. The reference being the Telford International Centre in Shropshire where the show has resided for the largest part of its life. Within the halls enthusiasts know there will…

Part of the fun of old motorcycles is solving the quirky idiosyncrasies of the technology they were designed around. Depending on the age of the machine, which for the purposes of this magazine we cover from the late Fifties to 1990ish, it could be as simple as a rigid frame with telescopic forks or have two rear dampers or even a monoshock rear. The engine might be a piston-ported two-stroke or a four-stroke with valves operated by pushrod or ohc. Making it run might involve points and a condenser, a magneto or electronic ignition. In the editor’s workshop there are motorcycles which cover this range; okay, a couple of them which were originally on points are now on electronic ignition, but they still have to be made to work. Some…

Write to us at: ClassicDIRTbike, PO Box 99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ. CDBeditor@mortons.co.uk Stop or no stop Greetings from California, USA. I recently renewed my subscription to Classic Dirt Bike and want to congratulate you on the magazine! All of the articles are interesting and informative to read and the photographs are awesome. Your magazine simply brings back so many memories I have of the motorcycle industry. I also enjoy John Dickinson’s columns and couldn’t agree more with his column in the spring 2024 issue. I have come to the conclusion that stop-stop trials is an altogether different sport from no-stop trials. I am certainly not criticising the riders and their skills in stop-stop trials, but no-stop trials is the heart of the sport. I also enjoy your workshop articles…

Of all the unlikely subjects to weave into a sentence, grouping ‘Italian renaissance city, Northumbrian village and MX racer’ are probably three of the most unusual – but they only need one more word to connect them. If it sounds like one of those infuriating word games so beloved of the Sunday supplements, which some people seem to do so easily yet exasperate me, think again; the connecting word, name really, is Ancillotti. How does the connection work? Well, Ancillotti made MX motorcycles using a variety of engines in well-designed rolling chassis of its own. The company was based in Florence, an Italian renaissance city, and the final link in the chain is the UK importer was based in a Northumbrian village. Just how did a Northumbrian village become the…

Undoubtedly an era came to an end in November 1964 when trials legend Sammy Miller signed on the dotted line for Bultaco and the second Spanish armada arrived at these shores. With Miller’s assistance, Don Smith too, the Spanish-made two-stroke trials bikes ousted the British industry’s products from the feet-up world. But what happened the day after this momentous change? The final chapter in Miller’s once-dominant 500cc Ariel-based bike was certainly successful. His second SSDT win had come a few months before, changes were being made to the bike up until the last minute and even the day before his Bultaco contract officially started, the Ariel helped the lad to win the 1964 British Experts. With the big four-stroke covered in mud from the final trial the pairing would do…

It did look like the year was going to start the way 2023 finished… cancelled events, wet, cold and so on. However, Westmorland’s Kendal Classic Scramble on April 21 bucked the trend and it was a glorious day. Glorious weather, glorious company and glorious racing… The event hosted round one of the club’s championship, round one of the Northern Scrambles championship and round two of the Dave Harper Greeves Championship. Here’s a selection of what caught CDB’s eye on the day. CANCER CARE It is an unfortunately true statistic which says cancer will affect the lives of one in two people in the UK’s population. This disease in whatever form it takes is no respecter of age or social standing and leaves victims or their families devastated in its wake.…

There is a mystique surrounding genuine works team motorcycles. Surely they must be super trick, packed with exotic goodies to ensure the factory’s name is always high in the results? In the day, when these bikes were used to capacity in events up and down the country, journalistic questions along the lines of: ‘What’s inside the engine then?’ were met with knowing smiles and a cryptic: ‘Nothing special, just well put together.’ The truth of the matter is a super-trick motorcycle might well ensure an event win or decent placing but it doesn’t sell production motorcycles. Yes, there will be a few bits and pieces which the factory needed to try before feeding them into the production range and none of us, the buying public, really had a problem with…