LABOUR OF LOVE FOR ODDBALL CLASSICS

Old bikes are great, until you ride them. The only exception, in my experience, was a 1942 Harley WLA, a sweet and gentle ride which was a gem compared to a scary 1948 Panhead with a suicide clutch, a 1978 Electra Glide which was like trying to control a 345kg blancmange, and a Ural which was, er, agricultural.

- GEOFF HILL

Still, always open for new experiences, I rolled up undaunted to Evolution Motor Works, the custom shop which had supplied the aforementioned Harleys, to meet Barry Cooper.

Barry, a former aircraft engineer who’d travelled all over the world fixing Boeings, and spent a couple of years restoring Spitfires, opened a Royal Enfield dealership in Wales, then retired to Northern Ireland with his wife Pat and now works part-time at Evolution rebuilding wheels and other bits and bobs.

But his real passion is old Soviet bikes, for the simple reason that they’re unusual and cheap.