I fell in love with motorcycles at the age of three, when I saw despatch riders controlling convoys during the last war. I wanted one to the extent that it would forever eclipse toy trains. I waited for years before trying to consummate my love with a 25cc Cyclemaster motorised rear wheel bought as a basket case. My suit was rejected as it never rewarded me by starting.
My path to fulfilment lay with other noxious, malodorous machinery, another Cyclemaster and a Minimotor which drove against the tyre, ripping off the tread. The first real motorcycle to come my way was a Norton 16H of 1932 vintage. It had a kickstart and a positive stop foot gearchange of early design. The machine was complete, clapped out but running. Once started, nothing would stop it, least of all the rudimentary brakes.
The army introduced me to the BSA WD M20, which I had adored all those years ago in the war. Our formal introduction showed me that I had charge of a game old bird whose beauty had faded but beneath the green all-enveloping paint bore a striking resemblance to my late Norton. It was on this old girl that I passed my driving test - in those days you could learn on as large a bike as you could get hold of. The army driving test was more exacting than the civilian one as the examiner followed the examiner round on another machine, usually a Matchless G3 with the luxury of oil damped telescopic front forks.
I celebrated by buying a six year old Excelsior 125, which was a reliable little workhorse with the performance of a Honda 50. When it died I gave its remains away. Some years later I saw someone trying, without success, to bump start it. It appeared unchanged and probably had not run since I last used it.
Disenchanted with two strokes, I looked for a four stroke and came upon a BSA C10L side valve 250. It was very tidy with low mileage. I found the cylinder head gasket blew frequently because the alloy head expanded at a different rate to the iron barrel, and scrubbing occurred. It seemed an unlikely explanation but the barrel was true and a new head failed to rectify the problem. Marriage and a family brought me a combo in the shape of a Panther 600 of 1951 vintage. This machine was fitted with Doughty Oleomatic forks which provided adjustable springing to compensate for load by inflating the forks with a tyre pump until the correct attitude was attained. A snail cam on the rear axle made chain adjustment easy.
I was offered a BSA B33 with a Watsonian Avon sidecar on a VG21 chassis. This was two years older than the Panther but it had been extensively rebuilt and I knew its recent history. I swapped the VG21 chassis for a sprung Canterbury chassis which suited the plunger frame of the motorcycle, producing an outfit which handled beautifully. I drove it for a year, flat out wherever possible. It always returned 50mpg.
A friend told me of an immaculate AJS Model 18S that was stored in a garage. I commenced negotiations and £18 changed hands. The forks and rear Jampots were filled with thicker oil and the sidecar hitched up. I was never as happy with the handling as I'd been with the BSA, nor was it as economical but it ran so smoothly and looked so well that I was content except for the two normal faults common to the marque. The primary chain case leaked like the proverbial sieve and the bracket for the exhaust fractured under the steady vibration of the big single, allowing the exhaust to fall out of the cylinder head. Noisy!
Next, a professional relationship with a BSA A65 and a Triumph Saint became impossible, so I graduated to a car. The A65 was a chunky machine which vibrated at high frequency, shedding various parts and causing metal fatigue in carriers and mirrors. Its moderate performance was further restricted by the fitting of a fairing which was designed in such a way that the inner panels, which should have directed cooling air to the engine, restricted the exit of air. The pocket of trapped air soon heated the engine up so that it ran very hot, and on one occasion caused the oil pump to fail with expensive consequences. The Triumph was a quicker and smoother ride. I found it a great improvement on the BSA, though they had in common 6V glow worms and shared a similar SLS front brake.
My motorcycling ended at the same time as the British industry went into terminal decline. The factories just didn’t bother to uprate the machinery and were soon left looking dated by the advance of Japanese engineering, unlike the car industry which progressed with better engines, lights, brakes, styling, etc.
Euan MacLean
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