Introduction

Iceni CAM Magazine

This is the home of the Iceni CAM Magazine—a free e-magazine about Cyclemotors, Autocycles, Mopeds … and more.  It was launched on 15th April 2007 and the most recent ten issues can be downloaded here.  All the articles from all the previous magazines are on this website.  For non-computerised folks, printed copies are available at £1.50 per edition; we can accommodate mail order too at £3.02 for single edition or £12.20 for a year’s subscription.

So what’s it about?

It’s an e-magazine all about cyclemotors, autocycles and mopeds that carries road test & feature articles, rally reports, free adverts and other assorted information.  Although we are an independent production, we have strong ties to the EACC and also to the New Zealand Cyclaid Register.

We are based in East Anglia, but are by no means limited to that area.  Much that appears in the magazine is of universal appeal.  We welcome contributions, whereever they are from, and are also happy to help to publicise any events for cyclemotors, autocycles and mopeds.

When’s it published?

We publish four times a year at the beginning of January, April, July, and October.  Iceni CAM is purely an enthusiast production, and all produced on a tiny budget.  The free downloadable version will be posted on this website on the same day as the printed version goes on sale.

All the issues of CAM Magazine that we’ve produced have been very well received.  Thank you all for your comments; they are much appreciated.  Several of you have also made donations, which has helped enormously in keeping Iceni CAM going.

What’s in it?

The October 2024 edition is available now on our Downloads Page.

Main feature: Sports Surprise

Seventeen years producing IceniCAM and we’d never managed to get even a sniff of an RM12 Super-50 sports moped for a road test, then finally, two come along at once!

Remarkably, they were even the two different early and late colour scheme models, so how did that work out?

The article started incidentally when talking to Tony Austin in Northamptonshire, and he just mentioned he had an early RM12 with the black & blue paint scheme, but was thinking of selling it.  ‘Ah, could we have it for article before it goes please?’  So we picked it up on Sunday 12^th May 2024, sorted out the clutch assembly for the road test, and had the bike cleaned up for the photo-shoot on Friday 19^th May.

Then we remembered from years back that Dave Merrin had one of the other white & red RM12s, and finally managed to get in touch with him … to find out he was now living in the next village and still had the bike!  So we whizzed round to collect it asap to enable a quick photo-shoot of the two bikes together on Saturday 8^th June because the first bike was due back in two days.  During the photo-shoot a robin took a fancy to Tony’s bike, but probably couldn’t afford it—no sale.

The black & blue RM12 went back to Northamptonshire on Monday 10^th June, then we went on to Nottingham to road test and photo-shoot the Worme for our third feature, with the following day at Nottingham Archives researching the previous Ghost feature.  It can be complicated how these magazines come together sometimes.

Dave Merrin’s white & red RM12 was cleaned up and sorted out for road test and photo-shoot by the end of July, but since it was planned to appear on the EACC stand at Copdock Show on 1^st September we got to hang onto it till after the show, and Dave didn’t get to collect it back until towards the end of the month, which was just about the point at which the article was completed for editing.

When it came down to research, there wasn’t much to find beyond factory released material and some period road tests, but tracking the facts behind ‘John Lennon had an RM12’ finally gave a definitive answer to this common urban folklore.

First Support feature: Gran Turismo

Fantic is one of those familiar brands that you might have thought we’d have covered sooner, especially considering that the company was founded in 1968, is still manufacturing, and in 2020 even bought Minarelli from Yamaha!  Current products include E-bikes, scooters, and motor cycles from 50cc through to 700cc parallel twins.

Moped definitions all changed
again in 2013.

In times up to 15^th December 1971 pedal mopeds and 50cc motor cycles had been covered by the same licence, where from the age of sixteen you could ride a solo motor cycle up to 250cc or unlimited capacity with a sidecar attached on L-plates.  Yes, in 1971, a 16-year-old could ride a 1000cc Vincent Rapide with a sidecar on L-plates, but starting from the New Year in 1972 a 16-year-old learner rider applying for a licence would now be confined to a 50cc pedal moped until aged 17.  The new sixteener law was a real step change!

1976, and along came our Fantic GT as a pedal sports moped capable of 60mph, and it was one of the bikes upsetting William Rodgers, as the Labour Secretary of State for Transport, who really didn’t like all the fast sports moped accident statistics that had appeared since the sixteener law came out five years back.

On 1^st August 1977 the moped was redefined, when its official description changed from ‘A machine of engine capacity not exceeding 50cc, and equipped with pedals by means of which it is capable of being propelled’, to ‘A machine of engine capacity not exceeding 50cc, restricted to 30mph, and weighing not over 250kg’.  Now a moped could be kick-started and have footrests, just like a motor cycle, but was limited to 30mph … so how do you tell a new 30mph Slo-ped from a 50cc motor cycle that might do twice that speed, or any of the other old 50cc motor cycles that preceded them?

Our 48-year-old featured GT started life as a moped, though adopted a religious conversion to a 50cc motor cycle, so where does our Fantic GT stand as to what it’s supposed to be now?  Today modern 50s can be scooters with electric-start only and no footrests, does anyone really know or even care anymore where all the various 50s now stand after the reclassifications over the years?  Or are they all grouped as ‘just 50’s’ now?

Our Fantic GT50 came from Stuart Austin (Tony’s brother); it was road tested & photo-shot on 12^th May when we were picking up the RM12.  Gran Turismo was sponsored by a donation from Pat Smith at Withernsea.

Second Support feature: Ye Olde Legend of the Worme

First reports of ‘Worme sightings’ started appearing from the north around 2015 and then, unexpectedly, this strange and ancient beast turned up for the 33^rd East Anglian Run at Lord Thurlow Village Hall at Great Ashfield.

Worme was an incarnation by Derek Langdon from Nottingham, created in some pagan ritual of fitting a JAP Model-O lawnmower engine to the front of a Dutch Batavus ‘Splendid’ cycle.  Worme completed the run at its own slow and slithering pace, then slipped away into the evening, never to be seen again … or so we thought…

Nine years later, and the Worme was hunted back to its lair at Nottingham while we were in town researching at the County Archives, but the beast had evolved with scary bigger cylinder fins and a new rustic brass fan-cool shroud for both a functional and fashionable steam punk disguise.

Derek was not getting away with it this time—‘We’ve come to ride your Worme!’

It’s never easy testing a Derek Langdon bike, because he’s tall and always has large framed cycles, and while it’s fine riding his bikes, it’s the having to get going from a kerb, and the dismount that make them a challenge—but it’s all part of the job.

The Worme/JAP engine regularly campaigns club runs and has further local use, so this is still a ‘working’ bike that serves its creator well and underlines the robust qualities of JAP products, though the performance of the JAP deflector-top 34cc engine is never going to be capable of maintaining 30mph traffic pace or matching the performance of 50cc mopeds.  The Model-O was a rugged little motor, and it’s just inexplicable why JAP never produced them as clip-on kits at the start of the cyclemotor boom in the early 1950s, because it could been a competitive engine of the time.

What’s Next?

The next magazine is scheduled for publication at the beginning of January 2025.

Next Main Feature: We track down and test ride another old, unusual, and very rare cyclemotor, which barely went into production in the early 1950s, and was only briefly made by an obscure company that you’ve probably never heard of.  What can this be?  And might we even be able to find anything about it to present an article?

Next First Support: Back in 1961 as an ill wind of change blew through TI’s British Cycle Corporation group of companies, a sequence of events set about by the misfortune of Norman & Phillips was strangely to influence the future of a stunning new creation only just being created at a small independent manufacturer, miles away at Ascot!   A machine so obscure that only one factory-released picture ever was published, so very rare that few people even appreciate it was made at all, and now only seven known examples remain recorded on the machine register of this most exotic of British built mopeds.  Such a machine today could only be—(Still) Absolutely Fabulous!

Next Second Support: Before the Wisp there was the RSW16 bicycle, but what if there was something in between the RSW16 and the Wisp?  And what if Raleigh might have been thinking about something for after the Wisp?

What else?

Well, there’s this Website … we’ve put a lot of useful information here, and we’re alwas adding to it.  We have a directory of useful people to know.  Information on local events and, after each run, we put photos of the event on this website.  There’s also a market place where you can buy and sell mopeds, autocycles, cyclemotors and other related items

As each edition of the magazine is published, we add to our collection of articles.  From Edition 3 of the magazine, we introduced another evolution.  Previously, features in the articles section had reflected what appeared in the magazine, but you may now discover a bit of extra content has crept into some items as they’ve transferred to the website—you might call it ‘The Directors Cut’.  The problem with printed magazines is editing everything to fit page sizes and space, and there can sometimes be bits you’d like to include, but they have to be left out to fit the available space.  The web articles don’t need to be constrained by the same limitations so, although the text will remain the same, the ‘Directors Cut’ graphic in the header indicates the item carries extra pictures and bits that didn’t make it to the magazine.

We also have an Information Service—if you want to know more about your moped, we can help.

What we do

Iceni CAM Magazine is committed to celebrating all that’s good about the Cyclemotor, Moped and Autocycle scene; researching toward the advancement of the pool of knowledge about cyclemotors, autocycles, old mopeds, and other oddities; and the publication of original material.  We are a declared non-profit making production, though we still need to fund everything somehow to keep the show on the road.

The magazine is free on line, and the nominal price of supplying hard copies to non-computerised folks is pitched only to cover printing and postage.  All advertising is free since we believe that the few people left out there providing parts & service for these obsolete machines do so as a hobby and an interest.  This involves far more effort than reward, and they should be appreciated for the assistance they provide.  Our Information Service is there to help anyone needing manuals to help with restoration of a machine.  We make a small charge for this but, again, we have set our prices so the just cover postage and material costs.  However, we are trying to make this free too!  We are setting up an on-line library where you can download manuals at no charge.

Overheads involve operation of the website, and particularly the generation of features.  Articles like Last Flight of the Eagle can cost as little as £20 to complete, while others have cost up to £150 to generate, eg: Top Cat on the Leopard Bobby.  With these overheads, you may be wondering how we get the money to keep it all going.  So do we!  But, somehow, it works, helped by a number of generous people who have sponsored articles or made donations to keep the show on the road.

How long does it take to research, produce, and get these feature articles to press?  Well, up to two years of preparatory research in some cases, where little is known about the machine or its makers, and where nothing has been published before.  Then, collating all the information and interviews, drafting and re-drafting the text, travel and photoshoots typically account for up to 40 to 50 hours to deliver the package to editing.

There are many examples where these articles have become the definitive reference material for previously unpublished machines like:

Ambassador Moped,

Dunkley Whippet & Popular,

Elswick Hopper Lynx,

Leopard Bobby,

Mercury Mercette & Hermes,

Ostler Mini-Auto,

Raleigh Ireland Super,

Stella Minibike,

…and many others.

We’re committed to continuing to produce these articles, because we believe it needs to be done, and we’ve got a proven track record for achieving it.  Nobody else has done it in 50 odd years, so if we don’t do it—who will?

To whet your appetite for what’s ahead, here’s an updated list of machines with developing articles for future features:

Ariel Pixie;

Beretta–Mosquito;

Capriolo 75 Turismo Veloce;

Cyc-Auto (Wallington Butt) & Cyc-Auto (Villiers);

Dot ViVi;

Dunkley S65 & Whippet Super Sports;

Elswick–Hopper VAP MIRA test prototype;

Gilera RS50;

Hercules Her-cu-motor;

Honda Gyro Canopy, Model A, CD50, & SS50;

James Comet 1F;

MV Agusta Liberty;

Norman Nippy Mark 2 & Nippy Mark 3;

Powell Joybike;

Rabeneick Binetta;

Raleigh R16 Poweride & RM10 Autocrat;

Simson SR2E;

Solifer Speed;

Sun Autocycle & Motorette;

Vincent Firefly;

Yamaha FS1-E.

The working list changes all the time as articles are completed and published, and further new machines become added—so as you see, there’s certainly no shortage of material.

Readers have probably noticed a number of the articles collecting sponsorship credits, and we’re very grateful for the donations people have made toward IceniCAM, which certainly assures we’re going forward into another year.  We don’t need a lot of money since IceniCAM is a declared non-profit making organisation, and operates on a shoestring (and we’d like to keep it that way)—run by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts.

It’s easy to sponsor an article by either picking a machine from the forward list, and we’ll attach your credit to it, or simply making a donation.  There is no fixed amount, it’s entirely up to you, and however large or small, we’re grateful for any contribution to keep the show on the road.

If a vehicle you’re interested in seeing an article about isn’t in the list, then let us know and we’ll see about trying to add it in the programme, but we do need access to examples—perhaps you have a machine you’d like to offer for a feature?

See the Contact Page for how to: Sponsor an article–Enter a free advert–Submit an article yourself–Write a letter to us–Propose a machine for feature–Offer your machine for test feature …