RICHARD HAMMOND
Riding with, talking to, and nosing around his collection
AGRAND TOUR? HARDLY. It’s only 15 miles from TV presenter Richard Hammond’s home to the tea hut at British Camp in the Malvern Hills. Still, the run along the swooping A449 is great, even on a grey October day. Richard’s been riding his new toy, a 1961 Triumph Bonneville T120C. I’ve been entrusted with a 1976 Kawasaki Z900, but it took us a while to select just two bikes from Richard’s amazing 30-plus collection. He’s been quite busy. The Grand Tour, the former Top Gear team’s new TV series on Amazon Prime is about to go on-air, plus there’s a social media scheme called Drive Tribe due to launch, and he’s just published A Short History of the Motorcycle. Still, there’s always time for a Sunday ride.
‘Most of my riding is commuting to London on my BMW R1200RT, but I’ve got back into the Sunday ride thing,’ he tells me. ‘A quick ride along good roads, stand around, drink tea, talk about bikes and then home. It’s great.’ It’s also a perfect petrolhead’s counterpoint to travelling the world driving supercars in exotic locations.
Unfortunately we’ve missed most of the bikers that flock to British Camp on a Sunday morning by dint of arriving on Sunday afternoon, but there are plenty of people here. A ZX-10R rider lends us a screwdriver and tape to re-attach the Bonnie’s tail light lens, shaken loose by traditional British bike vibrations. With the tail light lens re-attached, Richard joins the queue at the tea hut but is called away for photographs with children and dogs. Such is the life of the celebrity TV biker. We want to get pictures too. Richard’s mildly embarrassed to be sat on his Bonnie with photographic lights pointing, but he’s used to being the centre of attention and carries it off with humour. He’s about to be completely upstaged. A chuff, chuff, chuffing noise announces the sedate, but smelly arrival of a contraption being piloted by a mature gent wearing a leather jacket and a deer stalker hat (that presumably once qualified as a crash helmet). Suddenly no-one is very interested in Richard, and he’s not very interested in having his picture taken. ‘Hurry up and take the photo,’ he shouts above the din of the Matchless outfit. ‘I need to go and have a look at THAT!’ THAT turns out to be a 1919 Matchless combination ridden by owner (and retired professional restorer) Robin James. It’s an amazing device, approaching 100 years old, but recognisably a motorcycle. We gawp at the bizarre foot-clutch, hand gear-change linkage and other Heath-robinsonesque attachments. ‘I love the old stuff. The pioneer years must have been so exciting,’ says Richard, who has been immersing himself in motorcycle history while writing his latest book. ‘They’d only just invented the bicycle, and then they bolted the engine to it. There was no template for how to do these things, they just got on and did it. And have you seen the list of stuff that
‘Those sportsbikes are my era, the very bikes I lusted after’
people took in their tool kits? Leather to repair belts, lumps of metal, valve grinding paste for roadside rebuilds. Every ride was an adventure. It was a properly heroic time.’ From the 1919 Matchless to the 2016 BMW R1200R that’s parked nearby, and via the Bonneville and Kawasaki there’s a pretty good cross section of motorcycling history. But not as broad as the collection back at the house. Oldest of Richard’s bikes is a 1925 Sunbeam Model A, complete with acetylene lights that you turn on with a match, and with a bulb horn and hand gear-change. ‘I tried using the Sunbeam like a normal bike. I rode it to Ross, which is about four miles. It broke down three times.’ The most modern is the 2014 BMW RT. ‘I commute between home and London on a BMW R1200RT. You can sit on the M40 listening to Desert Island Discs and having a cigarette. It’s fantastic, a real tool. But my brother takes the piss. He sends me photographs of Sam Browne belts.’ Between those two extremes is an nd extraordinary variety of bikes. ’80s and ’90s sportsbikes are well represented (916, ZXR750, GSX-R1100, KR-1S) because, ‘Those are my era, the very bikes I lusted after when I was growing up.’ There are also quite a few BMWS, starting with a 1926 R42 through to a ’76 R90/S and a ’91 K1. Guzzis, more Ducatis. And they all work. Well most of them do. A Vincent Black Shadow has a note taped to the 150mph Smiths speedo. ‘Do not run’. ‘I can’t start the bloody thing. It’s a Black Shadow, but it’s got Lightning spec pistons. I just can’t turn it over, so I’m going to have original pistons with a lower compression ratio fitted. And if I still can’t start it then I’m getting an electric start fitted. All the changes will be reversible. But you’ve got to be able to ride them. ‘It’s not a collection and they’re not investments. Though of course I tell my wife that they are,’ he says grinning. ‘Can