Photos Classic Motorcycles and Traditional Knives

[desmobob]

OK... my bike turned 25 this year, so she's officially a classic!

PS- I had a 1972 R75/5 that looked just like the OP's R60/5...

 

[mbkr]

OK... my bike turned 25 this year, so she's officially a classic!

PS- I had a 1972 R75/5 that looked just like the OP's R60/5...

Lovely

 

[Henry Beige]

OK... my bike turned 25 this year, so she's officially a classic!

PS- I had a 1972 R75/5 that looked just like the OP's R60/5...

It has been a long time since my /5 looked as good as the OPs. There is another member here with a very nice /5 who really can ride the wheels off the thing.
I have a quasi-Ducati in my shed that I have not yet ridden. It is a pretty nice Cagiva Alazzura 650SS that I took as a fee for a case I tried. I need to get it into a well-equipped shop and get it running. The last time I rode one of those was nearly 30 years ago, but it should still be a fun backroad ride.

 

[mbkr]

Cagiva Alazzura 650SS

I never got to ride one, but I always liked those.

 

[mbkr]

A motorcycle related knife. I don't normally buy branded knives. I only have two or three. I like Case's single blade mini trapper pattern and really like these black and grey G-10 handles, so I picked this one up. The Harley branding doesn't particularly bother me. Case made this one right. Good pocket knife.


And one of my bike.

 

[desmobob]

I have a quasi-Ducati in my shed that I have not yet ridden. It is a pretty nice Cagiva Alazzura 650SS that I took as a fee for a case I tried. I need to get it into a well-equipped shop and get it running. The last time I rode one of those was nearly 30 years ago, but it should still be a fun backroad ride.

In the mid-'80s when I was station in Wash. DC in the Navy, I ran a couple of Yamahas in the WERA Sprint Series (An RZ350 and the FJ600 shown in my avatar at Summit Point, WV). I met a fellow racer with a red Alazzura and it was a nice bike, for sure.

It wasn't planned, but I just happened to have owned only European bikes before I bought the RZ350 for the track. One weekend racing at Pocono, PA, I got to see Dr. John's Guzzis, and someone's black Ducati 900SS. I had always liked Ducatis but never saw one in the flesh until that day. (I'm from a tiny rural town in northern NY.) I was captivated by the sight and sound of that bike.

When I got out of the Navy, I searched for a Ducati dealer near my home and located a very small shop in northern VT. I called them and put a deposit down over the phone on my 1995 900SS SP, sight-unseen.

I hope you get your Alazzura in tip-top shape and enjoy it in good health!

 

[desmobob]

Here's a fixer-upper/project bike that's been in my basement for ten years or so... a 1969 Triumph Daytona chopper...

 

[Chui]

Here's a fixer-upper/project bike that's been in my basement for ten years or so... a 1969 Triumph Daytona chopper...

- almost exactly the same engine...



The days when I used to do all my own work on the bike (Triumph 500)

 

[Chui]

OK... my bike turned 25 this year, so she's officially a classic!

PS- I had a 1972 R75/5 that looked just like the OP's R60/5...

 

[Chui]

A motorcycle related knife. I don't normally buy branded knives. I only have two or three. I like Case's single blade mini trapper pattern and really like these black and grey G-10 handles, so I picked this one up. The Harley branding doesn't particularly bother me. Case made this one right. Good pocket knife.

Had a few of those......sold all for a pittance

Couple o' very nice trad lockbacks among them...

 

[Jolipapa]

- almost exactly the same engine...



The days when I used to do all my own work on the bike (Triumph 500)

More time to fix all than to ride, hey OK that's unfair...
I balanced between a Daytona and a GT250. Surely the last was cheaper, more reliable... but as long as it stayed on the road, which was not so often... I failed to be fined one day because the rear wheel was so much wiggling the gendarme thought I was drunk. It was 9am... When I realized I was wrong it was too late... and it took three full years to sell at bargain price...
Then I saw the light!

 

[Bastler]

1999 Triumph Legend.

 

[Travman]

I’ve been cleaning up my 79 Montana Whittler this evening.

 

[gben]

My old man was a dealer/racer of British motorcycles in the 1950s and early 1960s, mostly with a brand called Matchless which almost nobody has ever heard of, here is a couple of photos of him about 1960 with some of the bikes he raced/sold:

My old man LOVES pocket knives and always carries very small ones so he can not tell they are in his pocket until he needs it for some practical task. He is still kicking along in his 80s, and still tinkers with the old Matchless bikes. The distributor for Matchless bikes in the 1960s was a company called Berliner. The head technician for Berliner and the guy who ran it's road-racing efforts in the 1960s was named Heinz Kegler, Heinz was an old friend of mine before he kicked the bucket about a decade ago, He worked at the Norton factory in England before coming to the USA. Heinz had a works Norton 500cc road-racing bike he tuned for 47 years, it is one of three made for the 1962 Daytona races, he and his riders won many races and championships during the 1960s and even scored a World Championship GP point in 1967 at the Mosport Gp in Canada. When Heinz got sickly he had me take over care of his racer, this is how it would appear today if I took it out of storage and dusted it off:

Another 1962 Norton, a 650SS that I ride sometimes:

And now a really rare motorcycle, an Italian Capriolo. I don't really want any more motorcycles, and I really need to get rid of them all before I kick the bucket and my wife has to do it, but this was at a local garage sale a year ago for $100 and I had read about them for many decades so I thought it would be interesting to examine one first-person. It has a very unusual engine with an overhead "face-cam" design that was only used in one other motorcycle engine back in the 1920s in England:

 

[mbkr]

Thanks for the pics and story. I'd never heard of Capriolo or a face cam motor. Sent me down the internet rabbit hole for a while
Nice to learn something new

I was going to disagree with your statement that nobody's ever heard of Matchless, but you're mostly right. Most riders under 40 probably haven't, and hardly none of the general population. Of course, most of the general population's never heard of Moto Guzzi, MV Agusta, Aeromacchi, Velocette, Ariel, Hodaka, or a host of others. Ignorant cretins

 

[Henry Beige]

That is a great post, gben. That Capriolo looks a lot like the Wards Gilera 106 I had for a while in the early “90s. If I could see them side by side, the differences would be obvious, but the general profile is similar.

In my early 20s, a friend had a Matchless G80CS. At the same time, I had a BSA DB34 Gold Star. I was clueless about bikes at the time, wasn’t nearly cool enough to have either bike, and didn’t know anybody in the enthusiast community who could help me out.

The Goldie was a cantankerous beast, sometimes hard to start, and up around 100mph just shed parts like corn husks.

The Matchless, in contrast, was “sweet as a nut”, as the British reviewers used to like to say. It started easily on one kick, settled down to a nice, slow idle, and pulled smoothly throughout the rpm range. I tried and tried to get my buddy to sell me his bike, but I could never gaet it away from him.

We used to get our bikes out in January and February and ride around on the winter streets of Minneapolis. Nobody would do that with one of those bikes now.

 

[gben]

That is a great post, gben. That Capriolo looks a lot like the Wards Gilera 106 I had for a while in the early “90s.
The Goldie was a cantankerous beast, sometimes hard to start, and up around 100mph just shed parts like corn husks..

My old man and I both had Goldstars, the only reason any British bike will not run well is because it needs a real mechanic to look at it. One of my father's friends ran a Goldstar on the Grand National circuit, another was a BSA dealer and raced them for many years, they still have their Goldies.

The Gilera 106 was a standard pushrod engine, my father had one in the 60s and we used to ride it through the woods when I was a kid, it is still sitting in his barn, we have not used it for forty years. All of the Italian manufacturers made small-displacement bikes because that is what sold in Italy the most. Berliner was also a distributor or Ducati, which my old man was just starting to sell in the early 60s when he got out of the game.

I had my Norton 650 out on the road weeks ago this spring, but I live up on Lake Erie so the weather is really spotty. My old man used to race on the frozen lake in the winter, he still has a bin full of ice-studs he used to make one at a time by sharpening carriage bolts. I have a set of ice-tires, but they are the newer style with store-bought screws.

My Uncle Fred on his Golden Flash, he won hundreds of trophies racing TT flat-track on this and a Goldstar, he just passed away a few years ago:

If you know someone who rode, owned or raced the bikes of the 50s or early 60s before they became collectibles for hipsters in the 1980s soak them up because they are all dropping like flies right now and in a few years will all be gone like all those I grew up with.

Here is Heinz Kegler and his rider at a race in 1972, the last full year of racing for him and his 62' works Norton racer:

Me back in the 80s with one of the only Harleys I ever owned:

Heinz and his rider after winning the Mosport Championship race in 1963, his rider was Jim Varnes who usually rode Goldstars, but he said this Norton works bike was far, far better than a Goldstar;

My Uncle Gary with my father on "pillion" back in the mid-50s. Bike was a 1940 Triumph Tiger. Gary was a top competition rider in his day, he also ran Matchless bikes on the dirt. :

Another great rider that used to ride for Heinz Kegler was Kenny Hayes, here he is winning a race at Laconia in 1963 while riding the 62' Works Norton 500cc bike, Kenny passed away two or three years ago:

 

[herder]

My old man and I both had Goldstars, the only reason any British bike will not run well is because it needs a real mechanic to look at it. One of my father's friends ran a Goldstar on the Grand National circuit, another was a BSA dealer and raced them for many years, they still have their Goldies.

The Gilera 106 was a standard pushrod engine, my father had one in the 60s and we used to ride it through the woods when I was a kid, it is still sitting in his barn, we have not used it for forty years. All of the Italian manufacturers made small-displacement bikes because that is what sold in Italy the most. Berliner was also a distributor or Ducati, which my old man was just starting to sell in the early 60s when he got out of the game.

I had my Norton 650 out on the road weeks ago this spring, but I live up on Lake Erie so the weather is really spotty. My old man used to race on the frozen lake in the winter, he still has a bin full of ice-studs he used to make one at a time by sharpening carriage bolts. I have a set of ice-tires, but they are the newer style with store-bought screws.

My Uncle Fred on his Golden Flash, he won hundreds of trophies racing TT flat-track on this and a Goldstar, he just passed away a few years ago:

If you know someone who rode, owned or raced the bikes of the 50s or early 60s before they became collectibles for hipsters in the 1980s soak them up because they are all dropping like flies right now and in a few years will all be gone like all those I grew up with.

Here is Heinz Kegler and his rider at a race in 1972, the last full year of racing for him and his 62' works Norton racer:

Me back in the 80s with one of the only Harleys I ever owned:

Heinz and his rider after winning the Mosport Championship race in 1963, his rider was Jim Varnes who usually rode Goldstars, but he said this Norton works bike was far, far better than a Goldstar;

My Uncle Gary with my father on "pillion" back in the mid-50s. Bike was a 1940 Triumph Tiger. Gary was a top competition rider in his day, he also ran Matchless bikes on the dirt. :

Another great rider that used to ride for Heinz Kegler was Kenny Hayes, here he is winning a race at Laconia in 1963 while riding the 62' Works Norton 500cc bike, Kenny passed away two or three years ago:

Fantastic pictures and stories. Any motorcycle enthusiast worth his or her salt knows what a Matchless is, the Capriolo though is a bit more obscure.
Here is a Matchless engine side cover with a proper English "Butler" knife sitting alongside.

View attachment 1330701

 

[herder]

That is a great post, gben. That Capriolo looks a lot like the Wards Gilera 106 I had for a while in the early “90s. If I could see them side by side, the differences would be obvious, but the general profile is similar.

In my early 20s, a friend had a Matchless G80CS. At the same time, I had a BSA DB34 Gold Star. I was clueless about bikes at the time, wasn’t nearly cool enough to have either bike, and didn’t know anybody in the enthusiast community who could help me out.

The Goldie was a cantankerous beast, sometimes hard to start, and up around 100mph just shed parts like corn husks.

The Matchless, in contrast, was “sweet as a nut”, as the British reviewers used to like to say. It started easily on one kick, settled down to a nice, slow idle, and pulled smoothly throughout the rpm range. I tried and tried to get my buddy to sell me his bike, but I could never gaet it away from him.

We used to get our bikes out in January and February and ride around on the winter streets of Minneapolis. Nobody would do that with one of those bikes now.

A few still might...

 

[Henry Beige]

A few still might...

Good point. I was forgetting New Year’s Day.