ANOTHER BSA TO BE REBORN
Rick’s found another kindred spirit – and they’re going to make a ’20s moto-ball bike out of one of his flat-tankers
You haven’t heard much about my flat-tank BSA 350 projects for a while. Well, stuff has been happening. The bike for reader Ian Wilson is now done and waiting for the DVLA to issue a registration number. I just have to finish repairing the tank of the most complete of the bikes and then that will be ready to start up.
That leaves just about enough to build two others – and I now have another customer for the first in Perry Barwick. I helped Perry tackle a job on his Triumph Thunderbird last year and he’s currently up to his eyes building a Brooklands Triumph Tiger 80 replica, but... well, you know how it goes. He fancied a flat tanker and liked the look of the BSAS, so we’re going to put the bike together between us. Perry doesn’t want standard (which is fine by me) so we’re going to build the bike to look a bit as it would have done in the late ’20s, having ended up in the hands of some tearaway – I’ve seen pictures of these bikes in moto-ball teams.
As Perry says: “The great thing about an incomplete project is you’re not spoiling anything if you don’t restore it to original – you can build it however you like.” My sentiments entirely; it’s good creating a motorcycle out of piles of rusty junk and if they all come out a bit different, then so much the better.