Story: Linda Wilsmore Photos: Simon Everett Over the past fifty years, Tony Francis aka ‘Ace Rocker’, from Leeds, UK, has owned around thirty motorcycles, including Triumph, BSA, Panther, Matchless, Norton, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and currently also has a 1955 Triton. Well known on the biking and rock n’ roll scene, he runs the Northern Rockers…

We’d been collectively itching to get our mitts on Kawasaki’s new W800 since spotting one on the Team Green display stand at last January’s International Motorcycle Show. Fans of retro cafe racers have long lamented to loss of Kawasaki’s original W650 from the lineup, but after some 17 years the very British-feeling air-cooled parallel twin…

Story by Mike Seate Photos by Paul Rudolf Having sat on an idle Vitpilen at a recent International Motorcycle Show, I was struck by how low the handlebars were and how compact the overall design was of this Swedish-made factory cafe racer. Hoping to blag a test ride aboard one of the sporty 700cc singles,…

Fourteen Cafe Racer Story by Linda Wilsmore Photos by Simon Everett The engine is an Ariel Square Four, 997cc in standard tune, one of the last manufactured in 1958. The frame, a Norton Slimline, is from a 1960 Norton Dominator. Various parts were picked up from autojumbles and eBay, but the majority of custom parts…

Story by Mike Seate Photos by Yve Assad To say Walt Siegl’s motorcycles encompass a world of influences would be a grand understatement. His career, building some of the most sought-after and distinctive custom cafe racers we’ve yet seen, started in a Russian steel firm, of all places. From his time in Moscow, the soft-spoken…

Compiled and Photographed By The Staff It seems that everyone’s got a new Triumph Bonneville or Thruxton these days and just as many punters harbor opinions about what makes their particular ride special. Lucky for Bonnie owners and tuners, the 2000 re-launch of Britain’s most famous motorcycle has spawned one of the deepest aftermarket support…

Story: Linda Wilsmore Photos: Aga Pawlukowicz Is it normal for a Pole to take a motorcycle specifically to England for its debut? Is it normal that twenty guys and girls set off on a journey from Lubsko, Poland to London, to see a motorcycle that had stood in their neighbour’s garage only the day before?…

Vintage Britbike Owners’ Must.Do’s (and Don’ts) We’ve built several classic British specials, all chronicled in these pages over the years, but with the inherently limited print space we’ve got, many of the day-to-day details on maintaining one of these 50-year-old machines have gone missing. In the interest of full disclosure, we’re sharing with our readers…

Burgeoning Market Full Of Choice Machines Riders looking for a taste of retro-flavored mo-suspension and specially tuned powerplants, today’s torcycling are indeed living in a boom market. modern retros are anything but second-tier motorcy-After decades of being engineering oddities cles. Available in styles, displacements and powerbands and rare, underdeveloped exercises in affixing to suit everyone…