Early Road Trial with Morgan and Combo

Another photo the context of which is lost in time. This just leaves us to make up our own narrative as to just what was going on and where. The time is early twenties, the aft vehicle a Morgan trike and the combo has a competition number. You make up the rest...

Early twenties sidecar outfit and Morgan tricycle in the
middle of the countryside, but what are they up to?

Stanley Schofield's Sound Stories

An unusual concept to modern sensibilities, Stanley Schofield's Sound Stories were once very popular. Vinyl recordings of motorsports were released swiftly after events and sold in decent enough quantities to keep the concept going for a good number of years. In days of less immediately accessible entertainments if you were a true dyed in the wool motorcycle sport enthusiast you had the opportunity to relive the sounds of great events in your living room any time you wanted.

Sound Story records are rather rare nowadays and seldom heard. I've got a couple knocking about but no means of playing them... I'll try and see if any friends have vinyl to digital players and post up the results.

 

BSA combo

Four pictures from a family album, the origins of which are lost in the mists of time. The bike is a BSA, a 4.25hp Model (H2 or K2 perhaps), dating from the early twenties.

The chap is very dapperly dressed and the snaps more playful than many of the era.

Four valves four speeds three wheels

A bit of a faded photo this one but the shape is the unmistakable one of a four valve four speed Rudge. Looks like the couple aboard the Rudge are on a holiday? The tents in the background are rather uniform, is it a holiday or is it a scout or army camp?

Mid twenties four valve four speed Rudge combination.

Flat tanker leather knee grips

These leather knee pads were once a fairly popular accessory on more sporting flat tank machines of the twenties (or at least the machines of owners who had sporting pretensions).Whilst I would never claim that my '27 Triumph N is a performance machine it does have quite racey handlebars and the knee pads certainly add to the look.

I picked the pads up from a chap at the Stafford Show who was making reproduction vintage leather items. Lacing the pads on took a little bit more head scratching than I anticipated - in order for the leather to sit nicely over the top of the tank each eyelet must have the leather string laced over it in order to pull it flush with the tank. The pads do need to age a little bit to blend in but overall I am very happy with the result. An unexpected bonus is that the pads act as stops to the handlebars: there are no stops fitted to the forks and the low pattern type bars can make contact with the petrol tank at the extremes of lock. Now the bars are neatly brought to a stop by a cushion of soft leather.

Punctures galore

Thanks James Kelly for this great triptych of wholesome 1950s puncture-themed cycling photos. The captions are taken from the reverse of the pictures and all is quite self explanatory really.

'Trouble keeps me cheerful'

'John - as usual trouble'

'Somebody else's turn'

Two Million Villiers Engines

A Villiers flyer from 1956 that is very self explanatory. As they say two million is indeed a gigantic quantity of ring a ding stinky little two strokes. Of course as motorcycle enthusiasts we think of their bike engines but the bread and butter was small industrial engines of which many many were made. Cheap and cheerful they may well have been but Villiers engines were always rather nicely made and of sound design and possessed of endearing characteristics. I've had several Villiers engined machines myself and have loved each and every one of them!