Classic Bike Guide

Heard of a Flandria?

- ChrisCoope­r

While in lockdown I am catching up on my stash of CBG(Iwork away from home a lot normally). Just read the March issue with the article about Classic European 125s.

I think you missed one. When I was a lad, we had a bloke come to our village to see a girl that lived there. We used to congregate on an old farm track across the fields where we took it in turns to ride up and down on a moped; a Garelli if memory serves me correctly.

Anyway, this lad turned up on a 'proper' motorbike, not a moped and while he and said girl were 'playing' in the undergrowt­h we were actually allowed to ride this wondrous thing.

Bearing in mind that I was about 14 years old it seemed huge to me and it remains in my memory as the first proper motorcycle I rode, with gears and everything.

What was it? A Flandria. Apparently, it was made by a Belgian company that usually made pushbikes. But this bike existed because I rode it. And from that day to this (over 40 years!) I have never seen another one. An internet search doesn't dig up much about Flandria bikes and most of them are 50s so they may not have made a 125. But if they didn't .... I'm pretty sure Motobecane did! Anyone else know of a Flandria?

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