Moto escape France

Seems like a distant memory now, this was back in late September. I had a free week and the weather was good so I jumped on the opportunity to get some riding in.

The original plan was to make it to the Pyrenees and to hit some trails but apropos this I found myself trapped in a bit of a catch 22. I had off road capable tyres fitted for the mountain trails but then I found myself unable to reach those trails because the tyres made covering distance on motorways intolerable. When you're only nudging 30bhp it's quite amazing how sapping some knobblies can be when trying to cruise near your limit. And the noise, that noise! Even ear plugs couldn't drown it out.

No choice then but to go for back road cruising and lessen the ambition regarding distance covered. In the end a good decision as there's not a lot of joy in riding a Himalayan on a motorway. The Dordogne was decided upon as a suitable new target destination.

The first couple of nights I was the sole
occupant of each campsite I stayed in.
This is the municipal camping at St
Fraimbault in Normandy. Both a peach of
a campsite and village.

 

Following the motorway debacle I tracked my way down using secondary roads and trying to zig zag as many national parks as possible. Second night was at another municipal at Mezieres-en-Brenne. The Parc naturel regional de Brenne is a bit different as it is a wetland comprising of hundreds of small lakes and ponds. From Brenne I went through the Parc naturel regional Perigord-Limousin, stopped for lunch in Chalus at a traditional fixed menu place and was surprised to find it run by Brits after rocking up with a bonjour in my best French.

Despite the campsite in Domme being fairly busy I
was able to pitch up right by the river.

On to the Dordogne. A quick google for the most picturesque villages and I settled on Domme. Indeed it is quite stunningly picturesque. The temperature rose to above thirty degrees and suddenly I was in an area popular with 'snow bird' camper vanners from slightly more northerly climes. Totally undestandable given the balmy temperatures, beautiful scenery and high quality camping with pool.

Domme in the Dordogne. Stunning.

Sunrise view from my tent in Domme.

Leaving Domme I decided to follow the Dordogne to the sea as much as possible. It started a good idea with sweet roads and great scenery but I should have probably packed it in a good way before Bordeaux which was traffic hell. I'm sure a beautiful city centre but the ring road was purgatory.

It wasn't great scenery all the way.

It can't be great scenery all the way every day and the ride up to the municipal camping at Pons from Bordeaux proved that point. A functional stop over and everything got better the next day with a shorter ride to Angers on the Loire. The Indian summer was coming to an end and temperatures plummeted somewhat. I still opted for camping and the site at Angers was a lovely walk along the river to the city centre.

Angers.

Next stop was Falaises back in Normandy. I was determined to camp for the last night despite the very strong chill in the air. I rocked up to the municipal camping mid afternoon and was pretty much told to go away by a surly caretaker as the reception was not open for another twenty minutes and no, I could not hang around and wait. To a certain extent a relief as I had a good excuse to book into a cozy hotel, have a hot bath and dry off my dew soaked tent.

A short hop back up to Cherbourg taking in as many coastal roads as possible along the East coast of the peninsula and back to home and reality that same evening. All in the Himalayan was a joy as soon as I made the decision to ditch the motorway route. Never again on off road tyres though!

Alpine touring with a BSA Golden Flash

There's not been a photo from back in the day on the blog for a little while so here's a couple of shots of a well loaded alpine touring BSA A10 Golden Flash.

The alpine view pic is marked to the reverse '1954 Austria'.

Even though the photo is in black and white it is clear to see that this BSA is not Golden in colour. The Golden coloured edition gave the model its name but even if the bike was finished in traditional black it was still known as a Golden Flash.

Moto Legendes Montlhery 1999

I was digging through some old pictures recently and came across these two. From memory it was back in 1999 when the Moto Legendes event was still being held at the Montlhery Autodrome near Paris, before it moved to Dijon Prennois.

My father and I rode down from Cherbourg, stayed at the circuit for a couple of days and then rode home again, all in glorious weather. I was riding my '58 350cc Bullet that I had ridden back home from India a year or so previously and my father his '56 Velocette Venom. We both still have both bikes, the Venom is on the road, though, to my shame, the Bullet has been garage bound for quite a few years. I rebuilt the motor after a big end fail but got the crank alignment slightly out and it vibrated slightly too much. I lost heart with it and tucked it away and forgot about it for too long. Hopefully it's going to be resurrected soon.

On the way to Montlhery with '58 Royal Enfield
and '56 Velocette. Though the Velocette is nominally
a lot quicker bike for touring they were quite well matched.

And camping inside the Autodrome at Montlhery.

BSA Golden Flash

BSA Golden Flash, the apotheosis of luxury motorcycle touring in the mid fifties. A solid dependable fast touring bike, quality made and capable of high speed. And to top it this one is fitted with a matching Avon handlebar fairing. The Golden Flash is a bike that is capable of keeping up with modern traffic so imagine the thrill of speed when a vehicle that would cruise more than 45mph was the exception and the majority of cars on the road were dull, black painted, side-valve engined sluggards.

This particular Golden Flash dates from 1956 or 7 - it has a full width front hub dating it as post '55, it still carries the distinctive gold coloured frame rather than the later black and it has the earlier pressed metal tank badges.

1956 / 1957 BSA Golden Flash.

Unusual to see such proper riding

gear for the time. It's easy to spot the

Avon handlebar fairing but note also the

Craven carrier and top box. This couple were

serious motorcycle tourists

.

 

 

 

 

Isolated mini-adventure

Only a month ago I posted that things seemed to be getting back to some state of normalcy with old bike meets. How wrong I was....

A small band of us meet up every year for a moto camping trip, preferably to continental Europe and with an event as the destination. Despite optimism that a late season excursion might be on the cards it became evident that this was not to be. Rather than give in we determined to meet up somewhere quiet and enjoy a couple of nights away from reality. After all it's ultimately about the ride and the company so all else is insignificant.

As it happens Dan is of good Wiltshire agricultural stock and has family connections with land and barns: so it was that we ended up camping in a field close by the Cotswolds. Not only this but the luxury of a barn to shelter from the rain, for rain it did in spades. 

Given that the journey from home to destination
was only 75 miles I had contemplated taking the
Beesa Bantam to turn it into a bit more of an
adventure. However a rare day without rain found me
re-cementing the patio whilst I could and then needing
something a bit quicker to get there. Having just MOT'd
the Buell and fitted a rack to boot it seemed like a good
chance to check out its touring capabilities. Spoiler -
they are very slight.

 

Arrival refreshments.

The Buell alongside Matt's Beesa A10 combo and
Dan's faithful Bullet.

A trip out to Kemble Airfield for a very modern
spectacle.

At this point Dan decides to check out
Matt's carpentry skills with a stress test.

Restoration project discovered. A
genuine 'hedge find'.

And ready to go home two days later. That barn
really was a life saver for the rain was certainly
more on than off for the duration of our trip.

Having a mate with a sidecar is a valuable
thing. Not only can they bring the necessaries
they can remove them when it is all over.

Craven W Rack

Craven W Rack fitted to 1961 Norton Dominator.

In anticipation of hopefully being able to take the Norton across the channel later this season I picked up a second hand Craven W Rack from eBay and then got in touch with the helpful chaps at Draganfly Motorcycles to get a fitting kit for my '61 Dominator. Draganfly have been the owners of the Craven Equipment brand since 2007.

The redux Craven kit is very similar to the original Ken Craven products but with slight changes and improvements to incorporate modern production techniques. The W Rack has an additional flat slotted mounting rail along the underside that initially I was not a fan of on the basis of visual appearance but in terms of practicality and fitting it is a boon.

New Craven racks and mountings come with the bonus that they can be ordered in stainless steel. They are nicely made but as with most modern stainless products some of the edges on the flat plate parts are quite severe and benefit from getting a light file or emery paper out before fitting.

I chose to get the mounting kit that gives the option of panniers: these ones have a bracket going down to the pillion footrest mount for extra stability and to take the weight of loaded panniers. The mounting kit listed for Slimline Featherbeds is aimed at the Atlas model, I had to cut a couple of inches off the long mount down to the pillion rests. I rather expect minor adaptations in fitting parts like these to old bikes and in many ways was happy to have the ability to tailor the mounts to my bike as I wanted the pannier mount and the rear mount to the mudguard stay to be matched in anngle to give a slightly more graceful look.

Now that I'm fully set up all that remains is to find an event that is happening, book a ferry and hit the road...

I tried to get the angle on these two brackets matching.

And the full view.

Carrying a pair of old swagman panniers. I'm going to look
out for a set of original Craven Dolomites in cream.

BSA family snaps

A series of snaps from another forgotten family album. The bikes featured are BSAs - a brace of C11 and a B31. I like how you can see the enthusiasm develop, the C11s start off with learner plates which they lose and then, obviously happy with the C11, brand loyalty develops and we move on to the B31 which gets loaded up for touring. 

BSA C11 with L plates to the fore. Not sure of the machine
in the background, it looks pre-war, perhaps a Royal Enfield
lightweight. Seems like the bike is newly bought here.

Dad testing out the C11.

More posing with the C11.

The C11 again. A pillion has been picked up along the way!

And a B31 now,  Same place, same pillion.

The B31's screen has gone but a crash bar and natty spot
light have appeared.

On tour. AA box in the background.

A slice of old England when country roads were quiet and
free from SUV driving maniacs.

Another tour, this time using the screen.

Looks like a F-Type Morgan three wheeler in the background.

Matchless G3 on tour

Yep, not the finest quality snap but it's always good to see old pics of bikes on tour. It is obviously a rigid-framed Matchless in the foreground, the aft bike it is hard to tell but could well be the same. As for location I immediately thought Lake District or Scotland but look closely and the bike has an improvised number plate, probably one issued at a border so it could well be that they are somewhere significantly more exotic, plus the sun is shining - another hint that it is not the UK!

Rigid-framed Matchless on tour, destination
unknown...

International Motorcyclists Tour Club

I picked this machine badge up a while back, I would guess it dates from the fifties. A quick search reveals that the club is still in existence and was founded back in 1932. In 1938 the Club arranged its first 'partitour' group tour to the continent. I had assumed that these partitours were somehow connected to Ken Craven and his Mojacar Touring Club but it seems that just the name is coincidental and the Craven partitours actually began post war.

It's worth taking a look at the International Motorcyclists Tour Club site, they've got a good club history up there and are still very much active to this day.