The magazine for classic Japanese motorcycles

Hello... August 2011

The amount of classic bikes I've seen out and about on my travels really does make me smile.

It's good to see so many owners getting the most out of their machines and enjoying giving them a blast through the countryside.

I wish I could say the same about my own bike – my RG500.

It's popped a seal on one of the fork anti-dive units, so the hunt has begun for a new unit. Such are the highs and lows of classic bike ownership... but I wouldn't have it any other way. I've got to say, I enjoy tinkering in the shed almost as much as riding my bikes. A summer evening fettling something in the shed and finishing with a cold beer is high on my list of all-time favourite evenings.

Suzuki's GT750 was launched in Japan forty years ago and was released in the UK the following year. See what four decades has done to the big triple on page 44.

We ran a story on the big capacity RD350YPVS-based Banshee engines being built by Stan Stephens last year. This month our Reader's Special is a bike built around one of these 100bhp monsters... and it's as scary as we expected!

Enjoy the mag.

Ben Wilkins,
Editor