Happy New Year! This year, while revelling on Hogmanay, little did I realise a Christmas mystery was unfolding in the garage… The first clue was when I went to take the bike out on New Year’s Day, I grabbed my WW2 haversack containing my tools and waterproofs and found that despite having used it to ride to a trial a couple of days previously, the strap was in two pieces. But looking closer it wasn’t frayed, it looked almost as…

No, not that Palace…I don’t think I’m down for a knighthood yet-awhile; I mean Crystal Palace, which from the late ‘twenties until 1974 was the Metropolitan race circuit. What I’m talking about is ‘Motorsport at the Palace’ an event that spanned the 26 th / 27 th May. See, back in the old days there weren’t too many race tracks around. Brooklands was the first purpose built motor racing circuit in the world, but for a long time it was…

I wonder what Ixion, my favourite motorcycle journalist of all time would have made fo Stafford Classic Bike show. Ixion (pronounced as in ‘Lion’ not ‘Leon’ by the way) started riding at the turn of the last century. What makes him great is that for a commentator on early motor cycling there is a great deal of humour in his writing despite his being a clergyman in his other life. Despite this and his origin in a time of waxed…

Well okay, maybe a bit melodramatic but a prang on my Norvin before Christmas (and the resultant repairs) got me thinking about Norvins and Vincents generally. if you ask me, Ogri has a lot to answer for… Have you ever noticed that nearly all the Norvins you see are Cafe Racers? Well, mine isn’t but while it was stripped for frame checking, I almost thought about rebuilding it that way. I mean, a Norvin does make a very pretty cafe…

We’re just back from the Isle of Man, where the name Dunlop has a particular significance but in this post I want to talk about a different – and in a way even more widely known – Mr Dunlop from Ireland. I refer to John Boyd Dunlop, the man who gave his name to the Dunlop tyre, Wikipedia will tell you how Scots born JB  invented the pneumatic tyre only, regrettably, to discover that he was not the first to…

I suppose a weekend in Paris is a more traditional way to fall in love than a few circuits of Mallory Park but you’ll just have to forgive my clumsy ways…   The flat tank Model 9 Sunbeam I bought last year was an extravagance. It cost quite a lot of money and for those of us that are not exactly rolling in the stuff, that can be hard to justify; but tearing it round the charming Mallory circuit, dragging…

Holidays are not something that figure large in my life and we’ve been promising to visit to our friends Matthias and Sonja in the Ruhr valley for so long it had become a joke. As Matthias put it, “The kids would like you to come and stay before they leave home.” We flew to Dusseldorf airport; now I’m not a great fan of air travel – it’s not that I’m airsick or frightened – after all the terminal velocity of…

Well, what can I say; my last post was September last year, so first of all I owe everybody who is good enough to look in occasionally to see if there are any updates an apology. There are reasons for the lack of broadcasts but they probably boil down to excuses really so I may as well just get on with it and say no more… It’s been a very busy few months; (see, excuses already!). Before Christmas I went…

It’s been another busy couple of weekends, this one just past saw us at the second Shuttleworth Sprint, so here are some ‘snaps’ from the day. The Shuttleworth Collection, just off the A1M in Bedfordshire is A Good Thing. Richard Shuttleworth was a racing driver and pilot who having enjoyed a very substantial inheritance in his early twenties, did the right thing with it. Throughout the 1930s he indulged his passions of motor racing and flying while amassing a collection of…

Well, that’s how this year has felt to me at least. Time drags when you’re bored but the opposite is also true and it’s been a busy summer; mind you that isn’t the only reason you haven’t heard form me for a while…you see, the dog ate my homework. ‘What dog’? Ah well, that would be Peter. Formerly Judy’s mum’s dog, they both moved in with us after we sold her house and started looking for a retirement flat locally and…