Let's hear it for the humble LE
I would be old enough (16) to get my licence in 1965; I couldn’t wait! In 1964, a neighbour a few doors away gave me an early ’50s Velocette LE 150. It had been his commuter bike to get to and from work, but he hadn’t used it for years. It was under a tarpaulin in his backyard and I eagerly accepted it and took it home. It was hand start and hand gear change. When I tried to turn the engine over it wouldn’t budge. With a little help from Dad (and best mate, Dave) we removed one of the cylinder heads and found the piston seized in the bore; water (from its cooling system) had got in and rusted the bore and rings. Penetrating oil was poured down the bore and left for a few days. With a bit of persuasion from a lump of wood and a hammer the barrel was removed. The bore was carefully cleaned up with a bit of fine emery and some steel wool. The piston was removed and cleaned up together with the rings.
After reassembly, the oil and water levels were checked and petrol added to the tank. After several pulls on the handle it didn’t start. The points were cleaned, together with the plug gaps. The carburettor was then removed and the blocked jets cleaned. After quite a few more pulls, it started to fire. Eventually it cleared its lungs and burst into life. We were over the moon!
Along the side of our house, and up the rear of all the houses, was a drive to give access to the back gardens and garages. It was just hard core, no tarmac, and rather uneven and potholed. Over the years we had ridden our bicycles up and down it as well as our home-made trolleys (there was a good slope as we lived part way down a hill, ideal for trolleys). This was an ideal place to ride the
LE, so my father rode it up and down a few times. Everything seemed okay.
It was now time for my first go at driving a motorcycle. I had been in combos and ridden pillion many times, but never been in charge. After a few stalls I eventually got it under way. What a feeling! I knew then that I wanted to have a bike on the road when I was old enough. Dave also had a go and was hooked too; persuading his parents to let him have a road bike was something else though.
After that, whenever we had time to spare and could save enough pocket money to buy fuel, we were riding up and down the drive.
The LE was ideal, the low centre of gravity meant it was easy to handle, it wasn’t too fast and it was very quiet. The only problem was that we were young lads and wanted to emulate the racers. The almost silent exhaust note wasn’t right. We hatched a plot. By disconnecting the two exhaust pipes from the silencer, they could be swung 180 degrees so they were above the cylinders. This meant that they were now straight through and sounded much more like a racer!
After a few rides we found we kept burning our ankles on them, so Dave got some asbestos string which we wrapped around the pipes. Problem solved! (Can you imagine the outcry now? Asbestos, we’ll all die! No such problem then).
Things went well for a few days until complaints started rolling in from the neighbours about the noise. Several of the men who lived in the road worked shifts at the Austin factory at Longbridge; they didn’t take kindly to us waking them up when they were on nights. We had to change the exhaust back to the silent LE!
When the great day arrived and I was 16, I took to the road – not on the LE but on my dad’s Suzuki 50 that he used to get to work. I used it evenings and weekends, and he used it in the day. I went everywhere on the bike – to scrambles and road races at Mallory Park and Little Rissington. After about four months, I passed my test first time and Dad bought me a Tiger Cub. It seemed powerful after the LE and Suzuki but carried me reliably for many miles for the next 18 months.
What of the LE? A friend of my father bought it off me for spares for his son’s LE for the princely sum of £2! What a bargain! Peter Cranmer