My love affair with Lady Eleanor
While it’s always a pleasure to see a completely original motorcycle, people have been modifying their machines for well over 100 years. Mike Cartlidge relives a very special motorcycle that he built more than 40 years ago.
Ihad no idea the current editor of Old Bike Mart had been connected with the custom bike scene and what Blue has written in previous issues is correct in the fact that a lot of builders, me included, love standard old motorcycles without being labelled as purists.
Like many bitten by the custom bug after watching the film Easy Rider back in 1969, I set about building a BSA A10 chop. To cut a long story short, over the years it got rebuilt three times, ending up with a rigid frame and very long springer forks.
With each rebuild I learned the value of the dry build and also made more contacts for parts and services which came in very useful on my next project, a 1974 shovelhead Harley.
I bought the bulk of the parts from a custom shop, now long defunct – motor, gearbox and primary parts, a custom rigid frame with rake to the right spec for the P&P hydraulic damped girder front forks, a mustang petrol tank, oil tank and a rusty Harley back wheel.
The top end on the motor was shot so I stripped the whole thing. The crank cases and heads were bead blasted, cylinders rebored and new pistons, along with valves and guides, fitted. The camshaft was also in a bad state so it was replaced with an Andrews upgrade.
It took three years on a motorcycle mechanic’s wages to buy all the parts and build the bike from scratch. The paint was black with a blue pearl overlay and it had the mural on the tank, complete with the bike’s name, Lady Eleanor after the Lindisfarne song. The paint work was done by two great pals of mine who at the time did custom painting. The wonderful hand engraving on the motor cases was done by Don Blocksidge, the guy who engraved John Reed’s bikes.
The bike’s first outing was to the local drag strip near York to take part in the lunchtime custom parade in 1983. Unknown to me at the time, Back Street Heroes magazine was there, too. Steve Myatt of BSH spotted my bike on display, promptly tracked me down in the crowd and asked me if I would like my bike featured in the magazine.
We took the bike to the other end of the old airfield and the photo shoot began. The photo of me riding the bike was taken by Steve Myatt riding on the back of another bike and it was featured in BSH issue number 7 all those years ago.
But it didn’t stop there. I had written to the band Lindisfarne, and in particular to Alan Hull who wrote the song, in order to ask permission to use the name.
Upon the copy of BSH coming out, a friend of Alan’s showed him the bike in the magazine. The Christmas of that year Lindisfarne were playing Hull City Hall and I contacted Viking Radio who were sponsoring the concert and asked if I could put my bike on display inside the city hall on the night of the gig and the answer was yes.
Pals from the custom club to which I belonged helped me prepare a backdrop and transport lighting seeing I have never owned a car or anything with four wheels.
We met the band afterwards and became good friends with them over the years; once again the bike hit minor fame as it was in one of Lindisfarne’s music videos.
The Harley’s motor was 1200cc or 74 cubic inches and it went well, but my craving for more got the better of me and I set about building a big inch motor from scratch – they didn’t come ready built in a box in those days.
I bought an S&S 93 cubic inch kit (that’s around 1520cc) and the cylinder heads went to the US and back for dual plugging and the ports breathed upon. To take the extra load the standard crank cases were replaced with much stronger cases made by Delkron.
The grin factor was 100% although the bike no longer liked the slow pace of town traffic.
Fittingly, the Lady’s very last public appearance was at a custom show at Gosforth Park in Newcastle along with Alan Hull and Rod Clements from Lindisfarne. The bike and all of us ended up on Tyne Tees TV.
Sadly, by that time, the custom scene was in decline and I retired from it but I still have the Harley, although due to the stupid cost of insurance it has not seen the road for a long time.
Over the custom period I also helped other people and did builds. One very special one I did was for a lovely lady who, in the early 1970s, was a local legend as she rode a 1950s Harley-Davidson Hydra Glide Panhead. Sadly this machine was stolen from her garage many years later and the only thing she was able to keep was the saddle which was off the bike when it was stolen.
I got to know Anita after the theft and together we decided to build a copy of her old Harley but using a modern motor. I built the Hydra Glide copy using reproduction parts with the only original component being that seat from her old Harley.
The copy is as right as it can be detail-wise, right down to chrome metal decals. The trumpet horn was a copy and even the paintwork was straight paint, no metal flake or pearl overlay, so as near to 1950s looks as I could get it using repro parts.
Back to present day and at nearly 70 years old I am still restoring and building for a hobby. I have a Tribsa which is progressing at a steady pace. It has a Starfire frame cradle modified to accept the Triumph 500 engine, while the fuel tank is off a later Royal Enfield Continental 535 which was for fuel injection. The hole in the tank for the fuel pump has been plated over and 1/4 bsp fuel tap spigots have been welded at each side of the well of the tank so it will work with gravity feed to the carb. It’s an ongoing build and these things take time, as they say, especially seeing as I already have two other projects on the go, my 1971 Commando Roadster that I have owned since 1972 and my rigid girder
Norton International. It’s like juggling plates but the goal is to get them finished before I fall off the perch!