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We love a true marque expert at Classic Bike, and they don’t come more bona fide than Ivan Rhodes. He huffs modestly when you suggest he’s the world’s leading Velocette aficionado, but few would deny he is. Now 89, Ivan still restores Velocettes to unfeasibly high standards – as he has for the last 50 years – and has built no end of extraordinary Velo race bikes. Perhaps the most famous is the Roarer, Velocette’s supercharged-twin prototype racer. For years it was on display at the Motorcycle Museum near Rugby, but was missing most of its engine internals. Ivan managed to buy it and – with his late son Graham – made all the components and got it going. You can read the full amazing story in Ivan’s definitive history of the marque, Velocette: Passion of a Lifetime.
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The ingredients of a great classic bike event? Fantastic roads that are appropriate to the bikes being ridden, minimal traffic, beautiful scenery and a challenge to riding skill and machine stamina. And amazingly, there are lots of events that fit the bill – many of them under the auspices of The Vintage Motor Cycle Club, but organised by local sections. The Beamish Trial in the County Durham dales is my favourite. There’s a great mix of machinery from vintage chuffers to 1970s trail bikes, there are genuinely challenging off-road sections (the fearsome Hagg’s Bank, for example), the banter is excellent and it starts and finishes at a pub. But spaces are very limited – try and get on the list for 2024 entries now.
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Ignition rewire? Cut a bit off that roll of HT lead. That’s it. A magneto is a self-generating unit ignition system – no wires, batteries or switches – and the spark gets stronger the faster it revs. Rebuilt with modern insulation, it’s unlikely to need doing again. Simple and effective, they’re still used in aircraft, so why not on bikes? First, because they work best with relatively slow-revving singles and 360° twins, and second, cost; electronics are cheap. Magnetos, on the other hand, are labour intensive to make and assemble and last too long to be profitable.
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The true extent of the greatness of the Great British motorcycle industry is in plain sight at the National Motorcycle Museum, situated across the motorway from Birmingham’s NEC.
Unarguably the largest collection of British motorcycles in the world, it boasts more than 1000 machines built by 170 manufacturers from ABC to Zenith across the 19th to the 21st centuries. Of those 1000 machines, there are around 850 on display at any given time, housed in five colossal display halls. Be prepared to make a day or two of it.
The NMM was established and funded by heavy plant tycoon, the late Roy Richards. This monument to our motorcycling
