A long time ago my step dads friend Stanley acquired an Ariel Square Four And for some strange reason he let me ride it. Now Stanley lived in a very remote area of Southern California where the roads were empty and all you had to contend with were deer and cows crossing the road at…
For some weird reason I apparently am on a BSA kick. I started my road riding life on a BSA, I restored a BSA C15 (which got stolen out of my garage while I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and my friend sold his BSA to another friend who then sold it to…
I started my street bike life on a Lightning 650. It vibrated, it leaked oil everywhere (we called it marking it’s territory…or also remembering where you parked it), and it was a bit unreliable. Some days it would run great, others…well, not so much. But…I loved the bike. Up until the day I traded it…
Ok, lets face it, this was not BSA’s finest hour in some people’s opinion. The Rocket 3 was a rather late answer to Honda’s market changing CB750-4, but still the Rocket 3 is an incredible motorcycle. By 1971 BSA was trying everything they possibly could to sell bikes, sadly this version of a great bike…
I have always been a fan of oddball motorcycles…actually owned a lot of them, much to the bewilderment of family and friends. While doing my daily search of ebay for stuff I need and / or want, I found a bike I have never heard of before, a Junak? In Post War Europe there were…
The Yamaha ‘Tuning Fork’ logo is historically important because Yamaha has been in the piano business since 1887, motorcycles didn’t come along until 1954…The YA-1 ‘Red Dragonfly’, 125cc of two stroke fun. Post World War Two was a big time for small displacement motorcycles around the world and truthfully, other than here in America, they…
Is there a motorcycle in your past that you regret ‘not’ buying? Many of us have come home with a bike that once it is in our garage we asked ourselves “what was I thinking?” Worse yet is when your significant other asks you the same question, in a much different tone of voice. And…
“A vintage motorbike that only an engineer should own”, is how one British magazine described the Velocette Venom. I don’t why he said that because the Velocette isn’t all that complicated, yeah its your typical British single…finnicky, requires very regular service (the old addage of ‘ride it for one day, work on it for two’…
“Just as much at home threading its way through slow traffic with two up or ‘Thunderbolting’ up a steep grade”. That is how Motorcyclist magazine described the 1968 BSA A65 Thunderbolt. Some may disagree but I think the A65T was probably BSA’s best twin ever. The A65 twin was built from 1962 to ’72 in…
It’s a Holly Jolly Christmas, it’s a Happy Time of year… Those of us in the Vintage Motorcycle World always know that one of our friends needs something for some project he or she is working on. Yes, there are a lot of women working on bikes and, doing a damn fine job I might…
