Oldtimer Motoren Museum Oudenburg Belgium pt 1

The Oldtimer Motoren Museum is close to Oostende and Calais and situated within the excellent Bikers Loft bar and hotel. The Museum is Johan Schaeverbeke's personal collection of some 100 machines. It's well worth taking the ferry over for the weekend, staying in the Loft, having a look at the collection and exploring the local area. Johan's collection is eclectic and intimate - he will give you a guided tour and pretty much each of the bikes has a story to tell. Johan's passion for the machinery comes across vividly in the tour. Many of the exhibits were bought locally and he's made the sensible decision to keep most of them in as found condition. The collection embraces the unusual and the obscure, you're sure to see machines from factories you had never previously heard of. Well worth visiting. Here are a few pictures....

Here's one of the 'never heard of those before'. It's an Emva.

Really loved this machine, a 1931 La Mondiale. Pressed frames
were a fashion of the era from Coventry Eagle in the UK, Gnome
et Rhone in France to Zundapp in Germany. The two stroke motor
with in-line crank sets the La Mondiale apart for quirkiness though.

Rigid-framed Scott updated with swinging arm rear and earles
front end. The small tubes and triangulation used in the
conversion match the style of the Scott nicely.

1951 BTC (Bror Christensens Fabriker) cyclemotor from Denmark.

Cyclotracteur cyclemotor mounted in a Raleigh X frame. The
museum has a great collection of first wave post WW1
cyclemotors.

Hmmm... wish I'd taken notes as the name of this early
cyclemotor escapes me. A very fragile device with overhead
valves operated by pushrods that look little stronger than
knitting needles.

Lovely unrestored FN ohv from early post war years. Very
unusual suspension design.

The rear suspension on the FN matches the wonkiness of the
front. Enlarge and see if you can figure out how it all works.

Pride of the collection. a double overhead cam czech Praga
BD from 1927.