I just bought all 12 issues of Bike magazine from 1976 off ebay. First read them when I was 16 and had a BSA C15. They are mostly black and white with just the main feature in colour, I could have sworn they were all colour when I first had them. Road tests are far more entertaining than today.
I remember copies of Motorcyclist Illustrated tended to be mostly in Black and White back then, but like you I thought Bike magazine was all colour.
Lots of ads for bullworkers, remember them, 5 mins a day and you would look like Mr Universe! Letters complaining about the introduction of sleeping policemen and the ridiculous magic roundabout in Hemel Hampstead. And the prices, a new KH250 for £539, and a new Ducati 900ss for £1,999, a bike I would own myself a few years later. I've only read the Jan issue, 11 to go.
I was into cars back in the early/mid 70's, bikes came later. I still have numerous car mags in the loft. What Car was a monthly read for me. I remember reading (numerous times) a test on a XJ12 in '76 and thought to myself I would get one someday and I did, 7 years later. It was the XJ's prodigious thirst that got me into bikes, purely as a cheap form of commute but I, erm......never looked back!. I also had a Bullworker and a device called a Spenby Musculator which was basically a long stiff spring with a handle at each end which didn't last very long. These are the two oldest Mags I have, way before my time but given to me some years ago by an old biking buddy who passed away in 2017. He had dozens of them but I've no idea what happened to the rest. They remind me of him and the rides we had together every time I see them. Some of the small ads make amusing reading.
I still have a bullworker, no idea where it came from, kicking about somewhere, maybe in my teenagers wardrobe Thanks for the memory. @TonyG
I have a few boxes of old bike magazines, I'll find them out and post some pics up. If anybody wants them, then if you cover postage or collect them they're yours
The “magic roundabout”… at Hemel….it’s still going strong. A weird solution to a strange junction. But it kinda works. A bit daunting for new drivers or riders.
Me too, although - having used one as a teen - I actually bought it a few years ago. I quite like it as a change from the light weights I usually do of a morning!
Yeah, Bike mag was my goto as a fifteen year old....(Ogri cartoon at the back!) What got me into bikes was (wierdly) finding a Motorcycle News in a desk at school and reading a road test on a Suzuki 125 road bike. Fifty years later on....
I used to enjoy the shootouts all the mags did back then when a new model came out. The new FZR/GSXR/CBR etc vs the existing crop of sports hacks. I was a sucker for the latest tech back then and many a purchasing decision was swung by such test results.
