Having had a protracted affair with a re-engineered BSA A10, far be it for me to take the piss out of the breed. But? I'd borrowed this 1957 model from some born-againer. Born-againer as in I want everything just like it was in 1957. Not that the A10 was a particularly bad bike back then, though I can't confirm this from personal experience as I was a mere four years old. The born-againer was called Rodney, which explains a lot...
The A10 was rebuilt to original spec by some tosser who reckoned he was a master of the breed, if not of the universe. Depending on the way the tolerances go, A10's can be mildly vitriolic or downright self-destructive. This one thrummed away at tickover with a violence out of all proportion to its 30-odd horses and throttle abuse tried to conjure up a dose of double vision.
At least there was plenty of pulling power and the gearbox worked with an unknown precision for such a relic. Imagine one of Suzuki's better boxes but needing a deal of foot pressure and you'd get close. Of course, the A10 runs to a stringy primary chain rather than gears, bites back with a vengeance if you back off the throttle too viciously or get the gear ratio and revs way out when changing down.
The trick with these old bruisers is to get the box up to top as soon as possible, waft along on the excess of torque produced by the mild OHV twin cylinder motor. The motor spins hardest between 60 and 90mph but 110mph came up on the clock on a few occasions. You wouldn't believe the vibration when held flat out. Blurred vision was the least of my problems - the bars felt like they were going to leap out of their clamps and my feet kept falling off the madly rumbling pegs. The immaculate heap felt like it was going to dissolve into its components parts.
Fearing that there wouldn't be anything left to hand back to the owner, I pulled over. My legs were so shaky that I couldn't find the stand's prong! The back-pack full of tools came in handy, a myriad of chassis and engine bolts needed tightening back down. My re-engineered example also vibrated but never turned into a pile-driver - the major difference in the motors, some care taken in matching components, the SRM upgraded main bearings and a dynamically balanced crankshaft.
Even at slow speeds, 60-70mph, the bike vibrated harshly and never found a smooth spot. However, compared to the racket and vibes put out in third or second gear, it was a reign of relative calmness. Fuel was a disgusting 50mpg, maybe 55mpg if ridden in a mild mode.
Handling was okay. Not totally stable at speed, it could cope with smooth roads and sweeping back lanes. Slow turning in town, lacking any kind of decency in its braking and running like the transmission was breaking up whilst the clutch threatened to seize up, it soon had fumes coming out of my head in Central London.
Rodney was pissed with my tale of woe having paid about five grand to get the bike in its current state of decrepitude, though it looked very nice externally.
He was also a bit pissed with the oil gushing out of the cylinder head gasket. Rodney had asked me to have a go as he was a bit concerned that the thing wasn't working properly, something about the motor cutting out at tickover in traffic. As I rarely sit idling in town it wasn't something that I noticed. I knew we weren't on the same planet when he asked me in a concerned voice whether I'd taken the BSA above 40mph!
I persuaded him to let me have the bike for a bit longer to suss the problem. Having tightened down the head bolts and added some oil to the tank, I rode off to see a back street mechanic who was sorting British bikes back when they ruled the world. He gave the old bugger a quick service, muttering something about the timing being way out and which idiot had torqued down the head way too hard?
Could hardly say that the bike was totally revived but it ran far better at 60-70mph before turning into a pneumatic drill. A bunch of the lads were doing a London to Manchester run on old British iron, the kind of trip never advertised but that comes together on the back of word of mouth. The A10 was the only bike that approached original spec (there's always some lunatic who will complain that the left-hand mudguard's bracket retaining bolt is the wrong shape or size...), most of the others highly modded tackle moulded to their owners needs. Something for which old British bikes are ideal. A broad-minded bunch who don't go mad at the odd XS650 engined A65!
The pace of riding wouldn't give replica riders any worries but we kept most cagers in check, if from nothing else than sheer intimidation - a dozen, or so, British engines on open mega's must sound like the world is about to end to your average cager. We kept the speedo's the wrong side of 70mph for most of the time, the odd blast to the ton pushing things for the A7's and Tiger 100's.
The A10 battled valiantly through the elements, communicating its general discontent at having to maintain velocities suited to modern highways by going through various permutations of the white-finger blues. These intensified with mileage... on investigation the cause was found to be an almost empty oil tank that was red hot, the whole engine not far off turning molten!
There were plenty of cans of oil to hand. Turned out the BSA was eating a pint of oil every 25 miles at a constant 70mph! By the time we made it to Manchester the valves were clattering away very merrily. One thing to be said for these old Brit's, it's easy enough to whip the cylinder head off. Not a pretty sight, the exhaust valves all eaten away.
Our BSA expert diagnosed that the main jet in the carb was too small. It was okay for pottering around on but under the stress of our high speed jinks the old motor couldn't cope with the unlikely temperatures. Luckily, he had plenty of spare valves and jets on him! If all the spare parts we were carrying were put together we'd have enough for one whole motorcycle; maybe two! An hour's work and the bike was running again.
I phoned the owner up to give him the good news, problem solved, machine transformed, only a couple of hundred sovs. He balked at the idea of his motorcycle being rudely stripped down in a pub car park by a bunch of amateurs but in the end, as the deed was already done, he gave in.
The bike wasn't exactly transformed. It was still a vibratory, noisy old bugger that trundled along only with a bit of spirited manhandling. You had to be used to the way old Brit's wavered from the back end and fluttered at the front, at least when the speed was serious. At least now, the acceleration between 60 and 90mph was on the pace with the other bikes, before it was being hammered even by the 500's!
The ride home, the next day, was uneventful save for an A65's breakdown, shedding its main bearings like shrapnel through the engine. The owner was sanguine; he swapped engines every 20,000 miles and was 300 miles overdue! His own fault! We waited for the AA to do the honours.
As we closed in on the capital, a final blast of speed indulged; the poor old A10 being giving a real work over. I suspected that the original rebuild had included some old valve springs because past 105mph the valves floated merrily. Head down on the clocks, the final reading was 112mph - as far as I could tell through the blurred vision and madly vibrating chassis. I was close to the front of the pack, most owners not willing to take their engines to such extremes.
By the time home was reached what oil was left in the tank was frothing away madly and the engine was knocking, all the normal clearances expanded beyond the designer's imagination. Even turning the motor off, the engine still clicked and tapped away as if protesting the unlikely speeds and length of the journey.
I drained all the oil off the next day, an interesting amount of debris amongst the watery texture of the lubricant. Fresh oil, new plugs, ignition reset, and valve clearances perfected, the motor blasted into life and settled down to a robust tickover. Sounded better than ever mechanically, had to revise my opinion of the bike favourably.
Rodney was all over the machine, having worked his way through past UMG's and learnt my method of road testing he was expecting to be given a box full of bits! He came back all smiles after a brief blast, congratulated me on sorting out the hassles and handed over the loot.
Three weeks later he was on the phone again, whining about the gearbox disintegrating and did I have any idea why all the bearings were shot? Bad rebuild, mate, I told him, though I'd thought the box was one of the better areas of the bike. After a bit of mutual abuse I put him on to someone who would fix it for a third of the price he'd been quoted. British bikes can be amazingly cheap and easy to fix, but only if you know what you are doing and the right people. With old designs like the A10, the gearbox is separate and therefore relatively easy to whip out.
Didn't hear from Rodney again for a few months but when he phoned up he was almost in tears. The A10 had blown on the Brighton run, crankshaft bearings gone and con-rods poking out of the broken crankcase. Rodney had been wondering about the knocking noise for a couple of weeks!
I ended up taking Rodney to some back street dives where we found a motor out of a crashed chopper. I somehow ended up helping him do the swap, which meant I did most of the work whilst he went into a diatribe about the cost of his divorce. Poor chap was being reduced to a life of relative poverty in which the A10 would end up as his sole means of transport!
The chopper owner had a funny sense of humour, the motor heavily breathed on. I realised this as soon as I started her up, the animal bellow not the normal exhaust note from an A10. Rodney insisted on first ride. He came back wide eyed and shaking. The cam's must've been close to racing spec as the motor didn't want to run below three grand and went ferocious at 5000rpm. Trouble was, the engine pounded out the vibration in direct relation to the power it put out. Great for short bursts of acceleration but not really much use for sustained motorcycling.
Rodney was like a kid with a new toy, ignoring my warnings about the motor blowing up. Took 1500 miles before she went! I was out of the country at the time, came back to find he'd been taken for a ride by a mechanic but was back on the road again. I told him to get someone good, like SRM, to sort the engine but he didn't really want to know. The last time I rode the bike, didn't feel right at all - the kind of old Brit I'd test ride and walk away from rather than make a serious offer; you get a feel for this kind of thing after a while. Rodney got a sharp lawyer on the divorce and with money to spare moved away from the scene.
About that time, a re-engineered A65 fell into my hands. One of the early cooking models, the 38hp Star. Actually slower than the A10, at least until the engines were uprated in later models - the more power, the more vibes and less reliability. The Star ran on a pure punch of low end and midrange torque, something of a ball at speeds under 80mph.
Heavy, at 410lbs, it sat on the road with undue sturdiness and could be thrown through the bends with a bit of muscle. It wasn't perfect. If the engine was notable in its relative lack of vibration then its gearbox wasn't one of BSA's better efforts. I think the primary chain wasn't in very good nick, either, as there was a lot of churning on the overrun. Engaging gears required a hefty boot and a strong belief in God. Occasionally, it would seize up in a gear and need much hassle on the throttle, clutch and gear lever to get it working again.
A65's, of course, are unit construction which means it's a pain in the arse to get the gearbox apart. I decided to live with it, after all it added a bit of excitement to a machine that in most ways would be written off as totally boring. Curiously, the Star's speeds were perfectly suited to the UK's heavily policed and restricted roads and able to keep up with the vast majority of cages.
Comfort was excellent. Most British bikes have a good relationship between bars and pegs but are somewhat ruined by the vibration that seeps through the chassis even when held at sane speeds. The A65 only went vile above 80mph which coincided with most of the power doing a runner.
It was such hard work getting a ton on the clock that it wasn't really worth the effort, though on one memorable occasion, on a long downhill section, I put 109mph on a clock that wanted to fall apart! The BSA was so far from its original design parameters that when I pulled over to recover from being shaken and not stirred I found that almost every bolt on the bike was loose!
Trolling along at 70-80mph, though, the Star didn't complain, so resolute that I occasionally forgot it was a 35 year-old motorcycle on relatively ancient tyres. Thrown over with too much gusto, the wheels would step out, the back going really wide if I was playing silly buggers. Needed a spine breaking lurch to pull back on line and once I got it so out of control that the bike went walkies into a field
As a 410lb trail bike, the Star was more tractor than scrambler, though back in the sixties it wasn't unknown for intrepid riders to shoehorn twin cylinder engines into tiny trailster frames! The BSA lurched through a spattering of gravel, hit the grass, slewed wildly and then had a fight with various holes and bumps in a recently ploughed field.
One of the nice things about the old horror, slamming the throttle shut produced enough engine braking to lose loadsa speed rapidly without any complaints from the chassis - even off road! This saved me from serious damage when the front wheel dug in, as speed was down to a mere 20mph. Still, it's always a shock to the system, a fall from grace and a dose of harsh reality. The BSA ended covered in mud but no serious damage.
I think we may have caused an accident on the way home. Some cager found the sight of a mud encrusted bike and rider so curious that he swivelled his head as if on ball-bearings, the Datsun swerving violently towards the cars behind me. The earth shook for a moment as the scene dissolved in the inelegantly angled mirror. Would've liked to have heard his explanation to the plod!
Shortly after that accident I sold the Star at a reasonable profit - to the usual old dude who thought he was eighteen again. One of my back street mechanic friends had an A65 Spitfire Mk2, tweaked a little further to knock out about 60 horses. A total contrast to the Star but not as bad as I expected (modernised engine internals and a good rebuild helped).
Didn't really want to run below 3000 revs - spat back out of the open carbs and gurgled away in discontent. At three grand it growled and surged forwards harshly then at 6000rpm metamorphosed into a real old rocketship with an unlikely bellow from the exhaust and even in top gear the tacho went from 6000 to 8000 revs extremely rapidly. Of course, at those kinds of revs the mill felt close to disintegration.
125mph on the clock if the revs were taken to even more extremes! The bars felt close to fracturing but the pegs were okay, modified with dense rubber mounts. I pulled over, much to my surprise all the bolts were still tight, though there was a very slight oil weep from the cylinder head gasket.
The acceleration was so heavy that on bumpy bends the normally stately A65 chassis was all over the place. More XS650 than prime British meat, though it didn't come unhinged when upright and flat out. Couldn't say that the bike had any of the vintage charm of the Star; neither could it compete with moderate modern tackle - a GPZ500 saw us off in the swervery even though I ended up sweating like a slave trying to keep the flag flying.
My mechanic mate was full of glee when I returned, chanting, couldn't break it, could you? Well, I probably could have but would've ended up with either rotated eyeballs or a dose of tarmac rash. He somehow sold the bike to a real relic who part-ex'd a ratty Tiger 100 that was actually almost totally stock and therefore much more valuable than it looked.
The mechanic was reluctant to let me loose at the controls but I muttered something about always wanting one and greed got the better of him. These people never learn. Took me approximately 35 minutes to reduce the engine to rubble...
Generally, Triumph made the toughest vertical twins going, only in their later years when capacity was increased and the workers were in a self-destructive mind-set did their reputation dive. However, given some internal wear, the engines do tend to grind themselves into oblivion with an ease unmatched by most of their rivals. Conversely, they can keep running with incredible levels of internal wear, just up to the point where they go pop with a loud bang and there ain't much left to salvage.
The indications of a readiness to die found in excess engine noise, oil leakage and vibration (with exhaust smoke thrown in for good measure). It's very easy to find Triumph engines that do all that and are still in reasonable nick; it's all a question of degree, which needs experience to gauge. The fifties relic in my hands suggested it had a few thousand miles left.
The worn chassis and minimal SLS drum brakes made for an interesting concoction - not totally suicidal but only because the engine wouldn't push the bike beyond 95mph. In fact 75mph plus induced a passable imitation of a fast moving pneumatic drill and any sane person would've backed off pronto, filled his mind full of visions of his favourite babe and motored along serenely at a pleasant 50mph, which given the general level of decrepitude was about all the bike could cope with.
I began to turn nasty when the clutch cable broke. The separate gearbox was equipped with a boot shredder of a gear lever that refused to budge after the clutch went dead. Stuck in second gear with a surreal level of vibes right through the rev range. As it was only a quick blast I'd failed to take my back-pack full of tools and spares; a silliness that can only presage coming senility.
I was about four miles away from the garage and I couldn't resist seeing what the motor would do in second gear. I never did find out as the level of vibration caused the speedo to break! Didn't cause me to back off, ominous black clouds fast flowing in my direction as if aware of the cute but totally dangerous square cut ancient Avon rubber the bike came with. Suggested it had last been ridden in anger in 1963, the back tyre skipping all over the road whenever I tried to apply the 30-odd horses that the engine was still capable of producing.
It was a race between the heavens and the engine exploding. Once momentum was built up there was no point trying to stop, the wheels would've probably broken up. I was thankful for relatively deserted country roads. The one car I overtook appeared to shake on its suspension in the blast of exhaust noise and quaking vibration as we sauntered past. God knows what the driver thought, probably put him off bikes for life.
The engine finally disintegrated half a mile from the workshop, coasted most of the way there as the chain conveniently if violently snapped after the shock of the motor seizing. The momentary rear wheel skid when everything locked up solid left me with a mouth full of blood, not to mention underpants in urgent need of attention. Never happened when I was a young thug!
Riding old British bikes hard is a real work-out, builds muscles in the upper body, gives bulging forearms and a handshake that gets civilians down on their knees. Just as well, the mechanic was threatening to go all violent, not amused to find an engine spewing out fumes and oil. A long litany of curses, but he was only taking the piss as he had a rebuilt motor ready to shove in the chassis. And, no, I couldn't test ride that one.
The nearest I got to a ride on a prime - as in concours - Tiger 100, was a stint on the pillion of a grey-beard's bike whose idea of speed was a 60mph troll through the countryside. I kept twitching, wanting to grab hold of his right wrist and make him tweak the throttle all the way back to the stop, get a little rock and roll in your life, man.
I wasn't exactly bored (the editor's reaction, by the way, to the boredom of the passenger seat in a cage is to stick the gear lever into reverse when the car's doing 50mph!), the loose rear end trembled and wavered to such a degree that I nodded from side to side whilst my backside was vibro-massaged into another world. Braking had to be thought out well ahead, engine braking as heavy going and as useful as the actual brakes. There was plenty of mildly frightening moments. The owner reckoned the bike was worth five grand, easy, no way I was even going to be allowed to play with it at idle.
On that mild outing, one of the Tiger 100's owner's geriatric mates let drop that there was a Royal Enfield 500 Sports Twin, circa 1964, on offer. Rough as they come but just one owner from new. Sounded promising, I managed to coerce the phone number out of them. Royal Enfield did things slightly different to the bigger manufacturers of British iron. Having a bolted up gearbox and the oil tank in the sump, though it wasn't a true wet sump design. The 500S was based on the Meteor Minor, a bike revered in some circles as the perfect blend of usable performance with relatively minimal vibration.
The next day I turned up in Richmond, had a look at the bike and made an offer on the spot. Looked tired but the engine didn't rattle or clatter even with 89000 miles on the clock and there were a few boxes of spares thrown in, the lot for 1350 notes. A bargain in the terms of what you can buy, these days.
The bike was still rideable but showed a fairly desperate need for attention to brakes and suspension on the way home. I could only float the valves in second as higher revs in third or fourth produced too much speed for the chassis, the bike falling apart under me and taking up a couple of lanes. The brakes were just plain useless. The old codger who sold me the bike (he even knew about the UMG!) admitted that he only pottered around town on the Enfield. Anything else, he would've been a goner.
A week or so later I'd sorted the suspension and brakes with a mixture of Enfield parts and whatever was going cheap on the cosmic exchange circuit. A quick paint job and some wild evenings with Solvol on the chrome and alloy had the machine looking serious enough to attract the born-againers.
As to the riding, the motor was the least vibratory 500 I've had the pleasure of for a long time, which probably doesn't mean much. Compared to anything vaguely modern and sophisticated - say a Suzuki GS500E - the RE was agricultural, slow and vibratory. The handling wasn't much worse than the GS, though, despite the kind of minimal bit of frame tubing the Jap's would think twice about using in a fifty.
The various elements of the Enfield's ride quality - suspension geometry, riding position, etc - come together much more neatly than the Suzuki's, reflecting the fact that the bike was designed by someone who actually enjoyed riding motorcycles. More than made up for any deficiencies in tyres, ground clearance or chassis strength. Comfort was also excellent.
The theory goes that 500 British twins are the best compromise between power and vibration of the breed, but in the Enfield's case, its high mileage engine went so asthmatic above 5000 revs that it soon became boring. Also dangerous, as cagers weren't too amused to find a vintage relic in front of their bumper straining to break through the 80mph barrier (new bikes could blast through the ton). It was impossible to destroy the engine because the thing ran out of puff before the revs became dangerous!
Didn't keep the 500S for longer than a couple of weeks, sold it at a very nice profit but had to take a Triumph 750 Bonneville in part-exchange. Looked rather dapper but the main bearings were knocking. I was in two minds, strip it right down and fix it or ride it around until the motor exploded with a big bang! The latter would've been fun but some kind soul thrust a complete crankshaft into my hands at a bargain price.
Anyone experienced in stripping down old British engines would expect to find the usual catalogue of disasters but this particular one had a clean top end and only a minimal amount of scoring of the bore. Even all the bolts came out okay. What had probably gone down, the past owner had done myriad repairs and then found that the response to his tender loving care was knocking main bearings!
With all that sorted, the motor blatted away like it meant business, dropped more oil than I would've liked and vibrated across the garage floor. Pretty much what you'd expect from a design that was carrying too much capacity and one too many carbs. The single carb version was always a much more pleasant device and any deficit in power didn't really matter because the Bonnie vibrated vividly beyond 6000 revs.
Gritting my teeth, I could sort of enjoy the blast of power between 5000 and 8000 revs but holding on to such madness for any length of time meant that various bit of the engine and chassis broke up or fell off. Don't really know what the designers were thinking about when they made this concoction, probably didn't have the wit to tell the suits upstairs to piss off when they were running scared of the Japs in the American market.
Handling was okay if you didn't mind the minor work-out from the taut suspension, the riding position and thus comfort was poor compared to any number of rival Brit's but no worse than myriad modern Jap bikes - it was, anyway, easy to set up to suit your own perversions.
The Triumph never got deep into my mind, it was a bike I could ride without much thought and the level of vibration at high revs stopped me from really thrashing it into the ground. Prices for this kind of iron are highly variable, down to the luck of the gods. I felt well pleased with the two and half grand I picked up but there are plenty around in no better condition sporting price tags for twice that. To be honest, I don't think they are worth more than two grand, much better to go for one of the softer 650 twins.
I then had a hankering for a big Vincent vee twin. Or at least to test ride one. Prices had gone a bit surreal but there were plenty on offer. Telephone conversations took a disturbingly similar bent.
'Sorry?'
'When can I come and test ride it, then?'
'Test ride?'
'Yes, you know take it out for a spin.'
'You mean actually ride the bike on the road?'
'Yes, please!'
'But, you might scratch it!'
Scratch it? I wanted to rev the venerable vee to nine grand and see if it was as tough as they make out. Eventually, I found one still in use on the highway and made the trek up to Nottingham on a re-engineered Tiger 650 Triumph that a friend was trying to sell me. The single carb twin ran very well indeed up to about 95mph, thereafter it huffed and puffed its way through the ton barrier with a great deal of reluctance.
The front brake was one of those curious conical TLS jobs. The crucial element in this design's the cable as it pushes as well as pulls (if that makes any kind of sense). I wouldn't really claim that this is anywhere near the standards of a modern disc, just about on a par with a worn seventies disc brake. Its most alarming trait was a bit of snappiness at low speeds that could lock up the wheel on a whim.
It's not often that I fall off motorcycles, despite a total disregard for most of the laws of the land. I was hurling the Tiger out of this sharp country bend when some kind of creature shot across the road - a fox, I think, but a bloody big one. Not thinking about it, I muscled the bars to get the bike upright and hit the front brake. The latter locked just as the front wheel hit a small patch of gravel.
The result was written in heaven. The old leather jacket and jack-boots saved me from serious injury, just a bit of gravel rash to the knee. I'm an old enough hand to carry some medical kit in the spares/tool bag, soon had the knee cleaned up. Much easier and quicker than seeking out the nearest NHS slaughter house, probably more hygienic, too. Not that I've got anything against nurses.
The Vincent owner lived in a minor mansion on the outskirts of Nottingham but had come up the right way, was all over the Triumph. His garage was bigger and had better security than my house. We swapped bikes for a blast around the countryside. Not my first ride on a Vinnie but I hadn't indulged for a while and had forgotten just how noisy were the engines. Not the exhaust, though that was bad enough, but the way the internals whined, rattled and slapped away; not exactly an intimation of precision engineering, but they are all like that, sir.
Given that the owner was bigger than me and right behind me I didn't do anything too silly on the Vinnie. Except for winding the motor up on one long straight, 120mph coming up on the clock. Left the Triumph for dead. Whatever the claims made for being the quality option back in the fifties, the Series C was always damn hard work - a work-out on the controls and steering even for those used to old British iron.
The Vincent owner was impressed with the little Tiger, willing to give me a large discount for part-ex, but as I didn't actually own the Triumph and he still wanted over ten grand in cash that wasn't really on. He didn't seem to mind, an afternoon's outing and a good blast had put him in high spirits. Ended up staying the night, getting drunk and swapping increasingly tall tales.
Riding home, the Tiger sulked and misfired, seemed to be getting nowhere fast. Start nice and easy, I thought, put in some new plugs. Only took a few minutes but two bikers stopped, replica riders full of themselves. They asked where the vintage rally was and what was I doing out without a support vehicle. Poor chaps looked relieved for an excuse to stop, walking like they had piles and hunched over from their silly riding positions. Noticed they had matching leather outfits, so probably gay-boys out for the day.
The spark plug chop revived the Tiger, ran home at 80-90mph for most of the time. Just fast enough to make it on the motorway, the twin could also be hustled through the bends without any qualms despite spitting me off previously. Big wheels, sensible geometry and light mass adds up to much fun and games as long as you're willing to put some muscular effort into the plot.
Entering the great conurbation of London, I found the clutch was dragging whilst waiting for the lights to change. Oops, forgot to check the oil, the unit construction engine suddenly running red hot. Sure enough, the round trip had gravely depleted the lubricant and allowed the motor to go all molten. I'd been taken in by the way the motor ate up the miles. Oil added just in time, no real damage done.
The relative lack of stopping power of the front brake was the major limit on Central London kicks. There was so much mad traffic that there was no way to plan everything ahead, just had to react as and when it was necessary. Needed twin discs of a ferocious aspect, but I managed to avoid hitting anything by losing 10mph off my normal cross London speed blitz.
The Tiger was returned to its relieved owner intact but he wouldn't accept my sensible offer. Even with re-engineered examples of British engineering you have to allow a large wedge for something going wrong.
Some young lady, in revenge mode, then thrust a Peugot scooter into my hands. Some smart little 100cc warbler that had an automatic gearbox and no clutch. Whilst I can live without a gearbox the lack of a clutch was disturbing, though the transmission was so well engineered that it lacked the typical lurchiness of a C90, and their ilk. The scooter squeaked across London with marginal acceleration above 40mph, though it wasn't half bad on standing starts and would squeeze through most traffic gaps. Small wheels but fat tyres meant it handled okay though control lacked precision. Good for a laugh, after a couple of days I handed it back with the stroker motor smoking heavily and rattling merrily! You can take the piss out of them by holding on the brakes and revving the engine madly!
Swinging my leg over another 750 Triumph Bonneville was a huge contrast. Felt massive, vibrated crazily and performed harshly. Took an hour or so to get used to it. The engine ran fine to five grand but then went all surly, just didn't want to go any higher up the rev band. The owner had tried a myriad different solutions, including a top end overhaul, electronic ignition and rebuilt carbs. Out of sheer frustration, he wanted shot of the bike rapidly.
700 sovs poorer I rode the Bonnie home, pondering what the problem might be. All the obvious stuff had been done. The bike was still usable in London, not that many occasions when you want to go over 70mph and despite the twin carbs there was useful performance below five grand - late era 750's had been neutered somewhat due to the pollution reg's and didn't revel in the higher rev power punch in the same way as the free flowing sixties 650 Bonnie.
The chassis was original but kept up to spec, which meant the bike went where it was pointed without much trauma and I could put on a nice spark show through the heavier bends. The front disc brake was the usual horror show but eventually pulled the bike up. Even on the first ride, I had to shoehorn the Bonnie into tiny gaps to avoid hitting something; less frightening than relying on that front disc.
I never did find out the ultimate cause of the Triumph's unwillingness to rev high because despite being unable to float the valves the mill seized up after just ten days of abuse. I had a perfectly decent chassis with a useless, coagulated engine sitting in it looking dumb. It was at this point that I was offered a TSS mill, the rare four valve per cylinder Bonnie variant.
Both hop-up kits and four valve conversions were available as aftermarket kits for Triumphs long before the TSS turned up, so it wasn't any great technological feat to upgrade the motor in this way. Even the Jap's had problems stopping aircooled four valvers from overheating and the TSS doesn't have the most outstanding reliability record. Neither does producing more power on a not particularly strong twin bearing bottom end help things.
But beggars can't be choosers, the stock engine was sold off for spares and the TSS installed into the Bonnie's chassis with only slight recourse to the B & D grinder. This technological wonder didn't want to start until new spark plugs were fitted - surprise, surprise. Give the motor its due, there was an immediate and obvious improvement in engine smoothness - not a giant leap forward but with an agricultural design like the Triumph's any help goes a long way.
The bike was much more willing to cruise at 90-95mph than a stock Bonnie, let alone the old horror I'd been punting about on. Vibration was even more excessive at higher speeds than that, suggesting the crank's balance factor had maybe been modified, the ton trying to unravel my eyeballs. Oddly, there was a calm spot between 110 and 115mph but then the vibes came in with a real frenzy as 120mph was broken through!
I suspect that the only thing people who do a 125mph on a TSS are fit for is life as a pneumatic drill operator. At this point the rev counter broke, the mirrors unfurled, flew off, and the bike began to stutter. I was tempted to see if it was going to seize solid but recalled I had a deal of cash tied up in the plot that the UMG certainly wasn't going to reimburse even though the magazine had created the ethos of destruction testing.
The stutter was caused by fuel starvation. I realised this immediately because fuel was spraying out of the cracked up petrol tank! The only good thing about the debacle was that the tank had gone on top rather than underneath and the fuel soon found a level where it wasn't spraying out! Had enough left to motor home. By the time I got there three indicators had fallen off and the back mudguard was reduced to scrap. I wasn't really surprised by any of this.
After welding up the tank and fitting the more important lost components the bike was back into the Central London blitz. I even took the trouble to strip down the front disc's caliper, do the seals, add new fluid and pads. Braking was much improved but still not exactly sharp. Degutted silencers meant the loud bark stopped dopey ped's and cagers from trying to totally ignore my existence.
A couple of months went by, just oil added and the tyres kicked. The TSS did around 45mpg and was rather fast through the narrow conduits of hope in the chaotic traffic. Can't say I grew fond of the bike, its nature as a hastily thrown together bitza shone through too brightly for that, always aware that it might fail or fall apart at any moment. Its hybrid nature also meant it was very difficult to sell.
In the end, I sold the TSS motor off to the only addict of the breed in the country and the Bonnie chassis to a born-againer who'd had an unfortunate experience with a black cab - the lack of braking as much to blame as his lack of experience. Never mind, it all added up to a nice profit.
During the next couple of weeks I was offered a few abortions. A tidy looking Tiger Cub - until it exploded into life, the top end didn't so much rattle as ring with metal fatigue. The frame was also bent. Fifty quid sounded about right but the guy wanted two grand - and he got it when someone came along, took one glance at the gleaming machine and handed over the dosh! Some punters!
Then there was the Triton, that also gleamed with polished alloy and chrome. The first time I tried to start it the kickstart went. Stopped turning the motor over as if the clutch had gone (it was probably the little woodruff key that holds the clutch body on to its shaft, primitive old Brit's...). The owner went all stroppy, accused me of vandalising his bike. He wanted four grand for that one, I left him spitting out his false teeth. Unless done by proper engineers, like Dresda, most Tritons don't work very well.
Finally, there was the Ariel Huntmaster that had been thrown to the back of a garage and left to rot for a couple of decades. The engine was locked up solid and the frame was almost rusted through. If it had been a vintage machine there might've been some sense in trying to renovate it but Huntmaster twins ain't that rare. Another fifty quid touch? Nope, three grand this time!
You have to laugh. Now I've got some money together again I'm probably going to buy another Triumph triple (no, not one of Meriden's foibles), don't know which yet. Be fun choosing, though.
Johnny Malone