Motorcycling In The 50s

For many, a motorcycle bought at the beginning of the 1950s was a first taste of the freedom offered by personal transport. Although postwar austerity was fading, money was still tight and new machines virtually unobtainable, but there were plenty of cheap prewar machines around and an ex-War Department motorcycle could be bought from one of the big city dealers on the never-never; better still it would be sent to your local railway station. Ex-army dispatch riders’ coats and boots would serve to keep the weather at bay as the new motorcyclists explored and enjoyed the quiet roads in a pre-motorway era. The decade would become a Golden Era of motorcycling as manufacturers brought new and excitingly advanced machines to an appreciative audience which had never even heard of a Japanese motorcycle. Motorcycle sport mushroomed in popularity at a time when you actually had to go to the race to see it and helped to reinforce the public’s ever-growing enthusiasm for the motorcycle. the era would also see the arrival of the moped, scooter and bubblecar. For those that were there, Jeff Clew’s insight to motorcycling of the ‘50s will provide a delightful nostalgic journey into the past, while those younger riders who cherish 1950s motorcycles today will discover a whole new dimension to their enjoyment of the machines.

These are the Good Old Days is a series of motorcycle recollections written by Fred "Bro" Smith, Wayne Hosaka and Steve Kukla that originally appeared over a number of years in S&S Off Road Magazine. You'll enjoy every memory they share because they'll remind you of dirt bike memories of your own.

In the 1950s and '60s the British motorcycle industry was at its postwar peak, with its large-capacity high-performance bikes in strong demand all over the world. AJS/Matchless, BSA, Norton, Royal Enfield and Triumph were all making 100mph-plus big twins, with the king of them all, at least into the 1950s, being the mighty1000cc Vincents, while among the ton-up singles were the BSA Gold Star and the Velocette Venom and Thruxton. In this book veteran motorcycle writer Steve Wilson reviews the top-of-the-line bikes of all these manufacturers, first giving an introduction to the motorcycling scene in the period, with a particular look at the emergence of the Rockers, the black-leather too-fast-to-live-too-young-to-die bikers who developed a culture all their own, inspired indirectly by Marlon Brando behaving badly on his Triumph Thunderbird in the banned-in-Britain 1953 movie The Wild One. Then the motorcycle makers are dealt with alphabetically, with their big bikes described in detail and their performance, handling, strengths and weaknesses discussed. In addition to a wide selection of archive photographs, specially commissioned colour photography features examples of the outstanding bikes of the period: AMC/Matchless CSR 650 twins and their Norton Atlas-engined 'Hybrid' siblings, BSA A7SS 500, Gold Star singles, AIO Super Rocket and Rocket Gold Star 650 twins, Norton SS 500/600/650 twins, Velocette Venom and Thruxton 500, Royal Enfield Constellation 700 twin, Triumph pre-unit 500 and 650 twins and unit Bonneville 650, and finally the Vincent 1000 vee-twin.

This book provides the first accessible English language account of motorcycles in the Soviet Union. Concentrating on the wartime and postwar period until 1990, prior to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, it covers the motorcycles produced, and looks at the way in which they were used at home and exported abroad. Chapters cover wartime, models produced, the social character of Soviet era motorcycling, and wide-ranging sport. With planned, rather than market-led, production based around copies of pre-war German BMW and DKW models, the industry churned out hundreds of thousands of utilitarian and rugged machines that were very different from the more fashion-orientated machines produced in the West. These motorcycles went under the place names of the producing factories: Ishevsk, Kovrov, Moskva, Minsk and, of course, the large flat twins produced in Irbit and Kiev under the Ural and Dnepr names. With a strong emphasis on Soviet era illustrations, the book provides an insight into a life based on idealism and ideology that has now passed. Period photographs and images, many of them from private family collections, show Soviet bikes as well as popular imports Jawa from Czechoslovakia, and Pannonia from Hungary.

For the first half of the twentieth century, Great Britain led the world in motorcycle design and production, exporting its products to countries all over the globe. However, by 1960 this once-great industry had fallen into what was to be a terminal decline. During the 1960s and '70s Britain still manufactured a wide range of machines, but a combination of poor management, lack of investment, foreign competition (notably from Japan), and the arrival of the small, affordable car conspired to sound the death knell for most British motorcycles by the end of the 1970s. Mick Walker uses a host of colourful illustrations to explore the models produced by British companies and their foreign competitors, and explains what the industry did to fight its ultimate demise.

The Café Racer is one of the most enduring styles of motorcycle ever created, encapsulating the rebellious spirit of the 50s. Featuring a huge, global Café Racer directory alongside a unique mix of personal memories, previously unseen photos, iconic machines and chassis builders in profile, this book is a must for any 'ton-up' rider.

John Penton has spent his life redefining off-road motorcycling. Here Ed Youngblood presents an exhaustive review of the man and his machine, explaining how major political and economic events affected the creation of the off-road motorcycle in the 1960s, the decline of the market during the 1970s, and the rebound that found KTM motorcycles competing successfully against powerful Japanese manufacturers in the 1990s.