Letters

My passion lies with prewar BSA M24 Gold Stars and related singles so I was therefore delighted to find the article on Sammy Miller’s 1939 BSA M23 ‘Empire Star’ restoration in the February 2018 issue – particularly as I am currently restoring an example of the same model. The featured bike has clearly been restored…

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With reference to the article on the splendid Matchless in the October edition of TCM, it may well have been entitled ‘Sizing up’ as indeed it was; were owner Andy Pennell and tester Phil Turner aware they were riding a 350? Andy has a G5 Matador engine squeezed into his G2 frame; the engine number…

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Perusing the August 2017 issue, I turn to page 90 and there was the bike that makes this old heart jump. A 1959 Greeves Scottish. After watching works rider Jackie Simpson practising on his bike, with an alloy barrel with detachable transfer ports no less, I lusted for one. I traded in my faithful, heavy…

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A few years ago I rebuilt an identical machine to the NSU Max featured (June 2017). It had stood partly dismantled in the yard of a shop, abandoned by the owner when the cost of replacing the big end was more than he thought the bike was worth. I bought it and set about returning…

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I wrote to you last year regarding the Honda CB160 at the Bristol Show and mentioned that at £220 new in 1965 it certainly wasn’t cheap compared to the British capacity equivalent, quite apart from its obvious superiority. I now see in Roy’s excellent piece on the Norton Electra (March 2017) that he also perpetuates…

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I and several friends regularly take our flat-tankers to French events such as the Coupes de Moto Legende at Dijon and the Vintage Revival at Montlhery. The opportunities to ride your girder forked motorcycle on a race track in the UK are pretty limited. I have spoken to some UK circuits and it is definitely…

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I’ve just finished reading your excellent April 2017 edition, with contributions that triggered my motorcycling memories, and now, after 56 years of riding, I find myself writing to a motorcycle journal. Phil Turner asked: “How about you?” at the end of his article on the Super Rocket and SS, which prompted the following: I regularly…

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Thanks for a fantastic article on the Ulster Grand Prix’s formative years by Richard Rosenthal (TCM April). I grew up on the A26 just north of Aldergrove (Belfast International Airport) on what was known as the Long Clady circuit. Being much too young to have witnessed racing there, my late father, himself a motorcycle enthusiast,…

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Roy Poynting’s article in the March edition (Fact? Pah, who needs fact…) spoke to me. I have owned many bikes in my long life – Ariel Square Four outfits when the kids were small, a number of original Enfield Bullets, LE Velocettes, MZ and Jawa, then a succession of Japanese fours, starting with the delectable…

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