Road Tests

The old adage of what looks right is right applies here.

As we followed Derek Mann’s neat Beesa B40 down a twisting Yorkshire lane, my wife summed him up: “You can tell he’s spent most of his life on two wheels, he looks part of the bike.” No flash, just smooth progress. A proper motorcyclist…

Writing about a 1952 Triumph Speed Twin, arguably the most handsome and sleek member of a line that began in 1937 and set a fashion, it’s difficult not to repeat what has gone before too many times. Over to Jim Reynolds…

BSA’s well loved pre-unit twins culminated with the Rocket Gold Star, pretty much a hot Super Rocket twin engine in the Gold Star cycle parts. Overshadowed by its Triumph Bonneville counterpart, the Super Rocket was arguably as good a machine. Jim Reynolds takes a ride out on one, which is probably as good as it…

In 1953, a Featherbed-framed Norton Dominator would have been an unusual sight on the UK roads, being hampered by a very high price tag. But that aside, the early Norton Dominator gives off an unmistakeable aura of competence and quality…

Bimota’s SB2 was both the Italian factory’s and Massimo Tamburini’s first production road bike design and offered the motorcycle-buying public a glimpse of the innovation they could expect from future projects. John Nutting tested it on the Isle of Man in 1978…

When standard just won’t do, in comes the special builder with the Triumph-engined, Norton-framed ‘Triton’. It’s not an easy route and it is quite possible to create a dog of a bike, but not in this case as Phil Mather finds out…

The AJS S3 was a bright and bold new design from AJ Stevens of Woverhampton. Unfortunately, its release couldn’t have come at a worse moment…

By the mid-1960s the once-great independent Matchless and Norton motorcycle concerns had been amalgamated and product ranges rationalised, and the two firms – once great rivals – were now producing identical-bar-the-badge machines…

Visually striking and rarer than hen’s teeth, the Neander certainly stands out, with its designer clearly a man who knew his own mind…