VMCC Weymouth Run

The Dorset Section of the Vintage Motor Cycle Club's Weymouth Run from last Sunday. Great clear weather and a decent turnout of bikes including a good smattering of pre-war machinery. I was planning to ride as a shakedown before heading off to Moto Legendes in Dijon on my Dominator but electrical gremlins set in.

Indian Scout.

Another view of the Scout.

Lovely BSA G14 twin.

Close up of the G14 powerhouse.

1929 Norton Model 18.

Another Norton Model 18. 1927?

Early Norton Dommi.

Unit Triumph Speed Twin looks over
the bay to Weymouth.

Honda XL 250 in front of the Pavilion.

Mid Thirties Sunbeam (Model 8?)

Nice detail on the Sunbeam showing
the Lucas stamping on the battery
carrier.

Royal Enfield Vickers v twin
c. 1921 / 1922.

Close up on the Enfield motor. Note the hand crank starter.

Good fun with AJS and old school bath tub sidecar.

Ricardo Triumph

Nice shot of a gent on a mid-twenties Triumph Ricardo four valve model.

Mid-twenties Triumph Ricardo.

Charterhouse Auction 11 May

A few pics from yesterdays' motorcycle auction by Charterhouse of Sherborne. A reasonable turn out of bidders and plenty of action from online bids. The surprise was that run of the mill machines were attracting a lot of interest, top end stuff less so and seemingly the market for number plate transfers is still alive and kicking....

Cute 1958 DMW 200P fitted with arguably
Villiers' best motor, the 8E, was bid to £1500
(don't forget the 10% buyers' premium). Less
than the somewhat optimistic estimate of £2200-
£2500 but it sold none-the-less.

Very rare 1965 DMW scrambler with their own
clone of the Villiers Starmaker lump fitted. Est
£3000-3500 and didn't meet reserve.

1928 Coventry Eagle is a very attractive vintage
bike. A slightly underwhelming 300cc sv JAP
motor fitted but still a useable machine. A good
buy at £4400 plus premium. Flat tankers had a
big jump in interest and price a few years back.
They seem to have leveled out now.

Another well presented Coventry Eagle. This one a Silent
Superb 150cc. Sold for £3000 plus premium.

Nice wing accessory fitted to the Coventry Eagle's headlight.

1952 Norton ES2 was an honest bike. Needed a
little fettling by the look of it and if it was indeed
sold at top bid of £2800 was a good buy.

Best bike of the auction condition-wise was undoubtedly this
1954 Matchless G9. At £4400 a good buy.

The Matchless appeared to be very meticulously restored.

1959 DOT trials didn't sell. Nice bike but the over optimistic
estimate of £3000-3500 may have contributed to this...

Super rare 1923 Grigg v-twin fitted with 1000cc Bacher and
Hellon engine was very lovely and a star of the auction. It
even came with a spare engine. Only bid however to £12,500
and not sold. Interestingly interest in all four of the v-twins
on offer (Grigg, Vincent, AJS and Matchless) failed to sell.
Perhaps sellers' expectations for them have just gotten too high?

Audible and Sufficient Warning

Cute postcard postmarked from 1908.

Built like a bridge Francis Barnett

Pair of lads on a 'built like a bridge' Francis Barnett from the mid twenties. For those that don't know, the built like a bridge triangulated frame Francis Barnetts were ingeniously designed for cheap manufacture: the frame was made up entirely from straight sections of tubes bolted together. The forks were the same design too with a big rubber buffer for the springing. A sound piece of design and in practice very strong and durable. The boast was that broken down the frame would easily fit in to a golf bag but woe betide the restorer who doesn't make drawings before dismantling! Most of the earlier bikes were fitted with 148cc Villiers motors with later ones up to 344cc two stroke twins. Francis Barnett even had success at Brooklands in the hands of British Two Stroke Club founder Tommy Meeten. A testament to their strength is that folks have even built home-brewed specials with engines as big as 750cc v-twins fitted. A proper design classic.

Do these lads know they are astride a
design classic? Mid twenties Francis
Barnett 'built like a bridge'.

BSA 1969

Four postcards from the stateside BSA advertising department. Get the bike, get the girl, have the lifestyle. The '69 BSA range did indeed look pretty awesome but the looks belied designs stretched to the limit, iffy reliability and heavy vibrations. To me the '69 Lightning was a massively iconic bike, I mean Hunter S Thompson has one and it also starred in the public school counter culture revolution film, 'If'. I too had one for a while, it wasn't a great example and maybe had it been fully sorted I would have loved it more. In the end I sold it on to a friend (and almost lost a friendship over it!), he sorted it out with much time, effort and money and then also didn't particularly bond with it and in turn passed it on. Stunning looking bike though....

Captions under the postcards are copied verbatim from the spiel on the reverse.

BSA Sptifire Mk IV Special
650cc Twin with dual carburetters
This is the super-sport tuned for performance. This is the
one described as the 'fastest road machine under 750cc'.
This limited-edition bike has racing parts and the new twin
leading shoe racing front brake and has been timed at an
actual 120 mph, but canters along at top legal speeds like
a well-mannered thoroughbred.

BSA Starfire 250 250cc Single
This is the lightweight with the heavyweight performance.
Four-stroke ohv power makes this one look and act like a
bike with twice the displacement.

BSA Lightning 650cc Twin with dual carburetters
Acceleration to match its name, sport bike stop-and-go power.
This is the thriller, scaled up to highest highway performance.
This is the BIG dual twin: twin carbs, twin cylinders, new twin
leading shoe racing front brake. This is the one with the revs,
the full race camshaft, with the 53 long-legged horses. This is
the best in super sport.

BSA Royal Star 500cc Twin
All the power you'll ever need to flatten the steepest hills,
even with two up. Easy starting, easy riding, easy to look at
and the lowest-priced, full-sized Twin in the BSA line.

Syd Gleave Specials

I came across this paperback book about Syd Gleave a short while back. I've got to admit that I was ignorant of him and his motorcycles until this point.

Syd was born in Macclesfield and was something of a local celebrity through his racing exploits in the late twenties and into the thirties. From 1927 to 1931 Syd produced his own motorcycle, the Syd Gleave Special and it seems that some 60 examples were made. Syd's racing career came to a halt in 1935 following a bad spill. In the meantime however he had obtained his private pilots' license and became a keen air racer. In 1938 he joined the Fleet Air Arm (the naval air force). In 1942 he became a test pilot for the aero manufacturers Avro. Syd tragically died in 1944 whilst testing a Lancaster at its terminal velocity dive speed.

There's a little more about Syd here:

https://macclesfieldcemeteryheritage.com/2014/01/21/sydney-gleave-b2073/

I'm assuming the book is quite rare, it is a 60 page paperback published in 1981 but if you want to hunt it out the ISBN is 0 9507599 0 2.

Syd Gleave on one of his own SGS motorcycles.

The cover of Syd Gleave and his specials by Paul Maybury.