Cheney Racing is a British

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...

manufacturer, founded by Eric Cheney, based in

Petersfield Petersfield is a market town and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is north of Portsmouth. The town has its own railway station on the Portsmouth Direct line, the mainline rail link connecting Portsmouth a ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

which builds complete specialist high performance

motocross Motocross is a form of off-road motorcycle racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The sport evolved from motorcycle trials competitions held in the United Kingdom. History Motocross first evolved in Britain from motorcycle trials competiti ...

motorcycles, rolling chassis or frame kits to individual customer specifications.

Development

Engineer Eric Cheney developed a lightweight competition for a

BSA Gold Star The BSA Gold Star is a motorcycle made by BSA from 1938 to 1963. They were 350 cc and 500 cc single-cylinder four-stroke production motorcycles known for being among the fastest bikes of the 1950s. Being hand built and with many op ...

in the 1960s which saw success in the 1970s when John Banks won the

British Motocross Championship The ACU British Motocross Championship (abbreviated to MXGB and currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Revo MXGB fuelled by Gulf Race Fuels) is the premier Motocross series United Kingdom. The championship is recognised as being the offic ...

on a Cheney-framed BSA motorcycle. He never worked for any of the major manufacturers but maintained a productive relationship with BSA in its heyday. After the demise of BSA in 1972, Cheney joined with former BSA factory rider John Banks to develop and ride successful BSA powered

bikes. His company was originally known as Eric Cheney Designs, then changed to Inter-Moto and is now known as Cheney Racing. Eric handed on his ideas to his son Simon Cheney, who is also an experienced competition rider. Each of the hand built motorcycles takes over 400 man hours to complete.

Cheney ISDT Team

In the late 1960s the British motorcycle industry was unable to support a national ISDT team so Eric Cheney hand built a limited number of ISDT Cheney-Triumphs, using his own design of twin down-tube frame with a specially tuned Triumph 5TA engine. Fitted with tapered conical hubs, special motocross forks and large alloy fuel tanks, a Cheney Triumph was first used in the 1968 British Trophy Team. In 1970 and 1971 three 504cc Cheney Triumphs were used by the British team in the International Six Days Trial (ISDT). Replicas were built, but production was short-lived due to a shortage of engines

Model range

Although each Cheney motorcycle is different, many are based on the

BSA C15 The BSA C15 was a 250 cc single-cylinder ohv motorcycle manufactured by the British company BSA from September 1958 until 1967, and was BSA's first four-stroke unit-construction bike. For most of that period, after the introduction of 'L ...

250 cc engine or the larger 500 cc unit version. The company also manufacture black powder-coated frame kits for BSA C15, B25, B40, B44 and B50 engines, as well as nickel-plated frame kits for Triumph 500 cc or 350 cc unit engines.

References

External links

Cheney Racing
picture of a Cheney

BSA B44 The BSA B44 was a series of unit construction single-cylinder OHV four-stroke motorcycles made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company between 1966 and 1970. The machines were developed from the BSA World Championship Motocross machines, which we ...

{{British motorcycle manufacturers Motorcycle manufacturers of the United Kingdom