Distinguished Gentleman's Ride - Bournemouth

Nowt more than a selection of snaps from this year's excellent Bournemouth Distinguished Gentleman's Ride. The sun shone, the bikes many and diverse, a sweet route through the best of Bournemouth and a good time had by all. Many thanks to the organisers.

ex WD BSA B40. In these days of shiny
restorations or 'original paint' authenticity
a bike like this is a breath of fresh air. It drew
a crowd and more interest than any catalogue
spec bike.

Beemer airhead customs are still rolling out of
sheds the world over. This one though broke the
usual brat style mould nicely. There's a definite
metal flake revival around the corner...

Sweet Ducati single.

Pre-ride briefing on Poole Quay.

Brilliant custom Vespa 'Scootercar'.

Distinguished indeed. Cammy Norton.

Meriden Triumph on Bournemouth sea front.

Line up of machinery by the beach.

MV tribute bike. Tax in post note is a nice piece of nostalgia
these days.

Triumph desert sled replica.

Desirable BSA Rocket III.

Triton and dapperness at Highcliffe Castle.

New Norton, old Greeves and red leather.

Triumph chop at the Castle.

Rode behind this righteous Shovelhead chop
for a while and it sounded good. 

Scootercar again. Really loved this device.

Drivers / riders seat on the Scootercar.

Another unusual Vespa custom. This one kind of Gotham
City / American Gothic inspired.

A lot of work went into this and the scootercar.

Nice YouTube clip by the Mother Ukers - the band

played at the finish at Sammy Millers. It's worth checking out

their YouTube channel.

Norton Big 4 1925

Nice snap of a Norton Big 4 combo from (at a guess, please correct me if I'm wrong...) 1924/5.

Norton Big 4 sidecar combination 1924 / 1925.

Audacious tricks and high speed thrills - vintage motorcycle acrobats

A selection of motorcycle acrobats. Mainly from the heyday of such activities in the twenties and thirties and mainly french in origin. Most details seem to be lost in the mists of time so look, enjoy and make up your own narrative.

Nowadays this would possibly be filed under child labour.
No idea of the origin of this image. Very cool bike though,
a definite proto-bobber look going on.

The caption says it all, 'Toto Marnay, the youngest motorcycle
acrobat in the world'.

It's a pretty good stunt for the day and a great picture. Really
captures the feeling of speed. The copy and paste faces are
however quite amateurish.

The motorcycle is a Terrot and it looks like he is riding a
velodrome but further details are unknown.

The Cinzano riders were a popular feature of the Tour de France
caravan in the fifties and sixties.

The Danil's act.

Paul Poitte. 'Champion of acrobatics'. 

The acrobat team is Feldgen and Beiss and they're on tour
around Europe by 'water and land'. The boat is an 'imitation'
Flettner Rotor vessel. The Flettner Rotor system was
patented by German engineer Anton Flettner in 1922. The
system uses the Magus Effect for propulsion. The Magnus Effect
is a force acting on a spinning body in a moving airstream which
acts perpendicularly to the direction of the airstream. Essentially
to put it simply thrust is generated from air flow over spinning rotors.
The rotors are turned by a motor and once the vessel is moving forwards the
airflow over the rotors can provide additional thrust. Flettner
built a prototype in 1925 which sailed successfully but was found to
be inefficient compared to conventional diesel powered vessels.
Several attempts have been made since to resurrect the concept
but all have fallen down on grounds of efficiency.
It seems likely that Feldgen and Beiss were engaged to tour
Europe promoting the Flettner Rotor. The motorcycle looks
like it is from the late twenties.

Quite a nifty trick by the Celmar's.

Those Celmar's are at it again. This
time a chair, or perhaps a pair of
chairs are involved

A static sidecar balance by the 'Equipe Boston'. Along the
bottom there is a list of components though to me it looks
like they are of no relation to this bike.

According to the caption Luciano is here engaging in an
audacious feat of acrobatics at 80kmh. Not to lessen his
achievements but looking at that bike 80kmh is a pretty
audacious claim.

WD Matchless G3L

A bit dog-eared but this is a nice snap of a trio of military gents with a well-used Matchless G3L.

WD matchless G3L.

Blurry combo

Yep, it's not a quality photo by any stretch of the imagination. Bonus points if you can identify the bike through the blur!

Living the thirties dream in Britain.
Sidecar and semi-detached houses.

The Grom Motorcycle Museum, Vransko, Slovenia part III

The final tranche of photos from the Grom collection in Vransko, Slovenia.

Cracking unrestored german Imme R100.
Very unusual and striking design. A lot of features
ahead of its time. Imme is German for Bee.

A late vintage swiss Motosacoche in the background
and a german Standard Rex Sport model from 1938
to the fore.

A trio of Indians. A 4, a Scout and a Prince.

Tomos 50cc racer.

ABC Scootermota.

Military corner. A Kettenkrad in the background,
a Welbike hiding away up on a shelf and a Moto
Guzzi Nuovo Falcone in the foreground.

Closer up on that Kettenkrad and a Zundapp KS750 Wehrmacht
combo from 1940 in front of it.

Late thirties DKW SB200 two stroke.

Lovely Jawa 500cc ohc twin. A beautifully
styled bike. The headlamp nacelle was allegedly
copied by Turner for Triumph and the engine
is fairly obviously inspiration for Kawasaki's
W650 despite claims that it is a Triumph clone.

Difficult to find an angle to take a photo of this
machine but I wanted to include it as it is a
bit unusual. On the face of it it looks like a fifties
NSU but look at the tank and it says NSU Pretis.
More below..

When NSU discontinued the 175 OSB Maxi model in 1963
production of it was taken up by the Pretis factory in Sarajevo,
former Yugoslavia. Pretis stands for Preduzeće Tito Sarajevo,
they also took on production of the Prima scooter and Prinz car.
Production continued until 1967 when the factory closed. 

The Grom Motorcycle Museum, Vransko, Slovenia part II

More pictures from the Grom collection in Slovenia....

Apologies for the poor photography here but I'd never seen one
of these before so thought it was worth including. An American
Salsbury Autoscooter.

A mighty beast. Polish Sokol v twin. This is one
of the collection's regular riders. Normally with
a sidecar it was detached at the time of visit
and undergoing some attention.

Weird and wonderful French built Majestic from the late
twenties undergoing restoration. 

Late thirties NSU two stroke.

1938 Zundapp DB200.

Slovenian pride is represented at the museum by a number of
Tomos machines. Some road but also a collection of 50cc
racers. This is a Colibri VS50 from 1957.

Tomos Colibri T12 from 1967.

1929 NSU 201R in the background. Typical fine unrestored
condition of much of the machinery in the collection.

I love this bike and it's not just personal vanity over the name.
It's rare, it's unusual, it's red and the condition is perfect.
250cc Miller made in Balsano, Italy.

That Miller again. 

Something very appealing about this little machine. A 1924
Atala made in Milano.

Absolutely wonderful MV Agusta Monoalbero