I’m filthy rich now, but, in early 1954 when I was a touch over 18 and desperate to buy the used, two year old 500cc Ariel twin, the £104 I needed to make the local Worksop dealer part with it was as likely to turn up as the Brazilian National Debt being paid off.
It's hard to believe now, but I had to pay off the balance of that Ariel twin over four years on the drip feed system after allowing for the trade-in value of my Ariel Red Hunter 500cc single with £13 still owing on the HP. Those were the days. I now carry more than the cost of a new bike in my back pocket.
I’ve no idea what model the Ariel twin was, but it had telescopic forks, beautifully curved exhaust pipes, chrome and black tank, a rear stand which clipped under the rear number plate when not in use, plus the luxury of a centre stand. Whatever other great refinements it had I can’t recall but I was totally in love with the bike. It was the height of luxury as far as l was concerned. Many a time I had near accident simply because I often rode It just looking down at the shining tank. speedo and fork. gently bouncing up and down. taking all the bumps out of the road. Yes, we had tarmac reeds. My previous bikes had girder lurks so being on a bike with teles was about on a par with having sex.
Teles were only just becoming the norm and rear springing was a thing of the future in those days, so the fact that the solid back end of the Ariel twin caused the bike to bounce about a bit like a pogo stick didn’t cause me to think l was missing out on anything new.
Having been dragged up during the war, I'd always somehow been associated with motorcycles even from the age of ten when poverty was a way of life I used to believe that knives and forks were a form of jewellery. The yearning to have my own bike had bitten well into my brain cells in those early years since going pillion on my uncle's Indian twin when I should have been at Sunday school.
The same uncle always had some old bike to ride on round his allotment, usually without the encumbrance of a silencer, so I had learnt to ride on his bikes well before the legal age of 16, when you could ride anything you could afford to buy. To a young lad with that background, the Ariel twin sounded and felt like a rocket wheeled sewing machine.
For a short time my bike was the moat powerful thing in our village, but the other six in our gang soon had their BSA, Triumph, Royal Enfield and Douglas twins, not to mention Francis Barnetts. They worked at the local pit and brought home huge sums of money, like (£6- £7 for much less hours that I had to do in the building trade to make about £4 per week, so they could afford those modern, faster bikes, but somehow their bikes weren’t as reliable as mine. That could have been due to me having spent the first three months of my working life as a grease monkey at a garage, or it could have been that Ariels were such reliable bikes.
As a gang of bikers, we toured - raced to exotic places like Cleethorpes and Blackpool plus the occasional race meeting, but bikes seemed to attract the opposite sex and we all had active groins, so inevitably the gang went on to better things than motorcycles, like getting girls pregnant and owning four wheel tin boxes. The buying and fitting of a dual seat coincided with me taking a female passenger out regularly. It must have been a good seat, we ended up married eventually.
I once loaned the bike to a friend on New Year's Eve so he could stay at the dance hall after the last bus had gone. He started my New Year off on a downer by knocking on the door at 9am to tell me: "Yer bike's fell over the edge of the car park into the River Ryton.” The stupid prat couldn't balance it whilst he kicked it up. Anyway my fault for loaning it to a weakling.
Three of us went down for the bike in a borrowed van and tugged it out of twelve inches of water complete with weeds and bog roll trimmings. Having decided that the few dents were nothing to worry about I tried to start it. After one kick I decided it wasn't going to start. Without so much as a murmur, it rode back in the van without trouble.
With dry rings and a new magneto it ran perfectly at no cost to the borrower at all — he still owes me the £7 for the replacement mag — being an Yorkshireman I feel I’ll get it off him one day.
Another incident was with a lorry I was following, which having come to halt suddenly reversed. | just sat on my bike expecting the rear end of the lorry to shunt me backwards, being as my little legs couldn’t paddle very fast in reverse. But, no, as soon as the lorry's metalwork touched the front tyre it locked then crushed the wheel into something resembling the letter C, releasing all the air out of the tyre
A sickly feeling appeared in my wallet just as a man, who watched the whole incident from the safety of the pavement, shouted at the lorry driver to stop. The driver came to have a look at what all the fuss was about. He was a nice fellow who kept saying, ”Sorry mate, I didn't see you," as he helped me dump the bike in a nearby garden. I caught a bus home after calling at the garage to ask them to collect my bike and do it up. A successful claim against the lorry driver’s insurance had me back on the road within two weeks with a new front end.
Another incident, from which I’ve never since trusted the young of this world, was when I was travelling home from work on a mischievous night in the dark. I was casually doing 29mph, as usual, in a built up area when suddenly I was doing a nasty 40mph somersault. I remember hearing glass breaking and the sound of a garage bill. Coincidentally, this happened within 100 yards of the reversing lorry, so the chap who helped me up and explained that I'd just run over a railway sleeper type gate post left in the road, could have been the same bloke. If he’s reading, thanks.
I managed to ride the Ariel home with the forks twisted and no front lights. Another week’s wages and a few hours with my tools (hammer and pincers) soon had the bike running straight again. I still dislike riding in the dark even though modern lights do allow you to see what you’re going to hit.
National Service saw me using the Ariel for getting home from Windsor to Worksop at every available weekend off, although my first attempted journey to Windsor had to be called off at Newark after only doing 30 miles when the magneto packed up. I finished the journey courtesy of BR and the following weekend I persuaded my uncle to tow me and the bike back home.
The lights once packed up after only 10 miles whilst travelling back to camp one rainy Sunday night — the remaining 145 miles were very interesting. Have you ever tried crawling along at the side of the road on a bike with no lights waiting for something to overtake, then accelerate like mad to keep behind it with only the back lights of the vehicle in front to show you the road?
I can tell you it's an ulcer inducing experience, particularly when said vehicle does 60-70mph and you're faced with two options like braking quick in total darkness and waiting for another vehicle or staying with it not knowing how much faster he's likely to go, with every oncoming vehicle blinding you with its lights. Luckily it stopped raining after four hours and I rode into camp at 5.30am, just as the daylight started. With a weekly wage of £1.50, the replacement dyno cost nearly two weeks pay.
Without incidents like breakdowns or punctures, the journey from Windsor to Worksop usually took four hours. The M1 was only just being started in 1958. so it was ordinary roads all the way. With petrol still on ration, my fare paying passenger and I used to fill the tank up with low octane stuff from an army Land Rover whenever one of us was on guard.
I finally gave up biking (until recent years) while I was doing National Service because I realised I was riding back to camp like an accident looking for somewhere to happen and was a danger to myself. Many times I’ve sat on the bike, frozen and tired after the usual hectic weekend of drinking, footballing and dancing, then set off for camp at 10pm Sunday night, hoping that I could have an accident and be able to lay in a warm bed and go to sleep. Not conducive to a long life.
Apart from renewing the plugs, chains and tyres, the only engine replacements l carried out were the renewing of the exhaust valves and guides. These probably burnt out because I'd fitted a pair of megaphones which didn’t improve the performance but sounded fantastic.
I can't remember any of the vibration which present day writers are always on about, I used to think my numb fingers were caused by bad circulation:
So, it was goodbye Ariel, and hello Ford van. I got £35 for the bike in part exchange for the van and I'd willingly pay 100 times that amount to have that bike back now in its original condition.
Des Thorpe