TALES FROMTHE SHED
just for achange. Frank’s been off showing again, Two very different events, of course…
Frank’s been off showing again, just for a change. Two very different events, of course…
Inspired, I was. Completely inspired. I was on a mission – being a man on a mission is just so exciting! And the reason for this unusual intensity?
I’d been reading a lengthy thread online which had started off groaning, moaning and grumbling that there were no ‘practical’ new bikes any more. The reason for this? The original post was from a chap who’d been to the great big bike show at Birmingham’s NEC, and had been royally unimpressed.
My head was scratched, my curiosity aroused. Also my pedantry, because surely all motorcycles are practical? Even racers are great for racing, if only to work or to the handy café, in the same way that my favourite laid-back Milwaukee monster is entirely practical should I want to go and pose, ride a couple of hundred miles to beat a friend into buying lunch, or even pop off to the pie shop for an illicit ingestion of steak, ale and pastry. I think the only truly impractical motorcycle I’ve possessed is the Norton F1, which is so darned uncomfortable that I’d never willingly ride it. Other folk do, though, so the problem is plainly mine, rather than the bike’s. Which is always a thought worth keeping in mind when criticising things.
But the NEC? My own enjoyment of the great big annual bash has been cyclical. This means that at first I really loved it, then I hated it, then I loved it again, then I hated it again because I was compelled to work on a stand there, then I avoided going due to memories of enormous tedium and difficult journeys, then last year quite suddenly and out of the blue we discovered that we could catch a train into the middle of the place and … I like it again. Life is never easy. Hurrah.
Last year’s big bash was seriously instructive, not least because it was quite a while since we’d last been (yup; the Better Third and I always go together, because…) and loads of bikes were almost entirely unfamiliar. For example, I was well aware of the Ducati Scrambler (very handsome in some colours, less so in yellow) but was equally unaware of the strange understanding that there’s an entire family of the things, every one of them slightly different to every other, and I don’t mean just the colour, either. I sat on several. That was fun. Brumm, brumm, I went, pathetically.
Which is one of many great things about the big show – a chap gets to perch on almost as many bikes as he might want to, and pump-action salesmen do not instantly appear clutching fierce expressions and armed with intimidating suggestions that
a chap should either buy the bike or get off it. I do believe that I sat on all of the various variants on offer, and disliked some more than others. Last year I’d wondered whether a DucScram might make the ideal neo-classic bolide upon which a chap could cruise the cool lanes and mean streets of downtown Bude, but decided against it. Practical transport though? Yes, every one, I think.
This year’s pause on the Ducati stand was shorter than last year’s, because I wanted to buy an Indian, and they were nearby in the monster shed which is the NEC. The reason for this American aberration? We’d paid a visit to the always stimulating Col and Becky at Thor Motorcycles, down in deeper Cornwall, and I’d sat on a couple of Indians there. This is not a punishable offence, in case you were wondering. The snag with a dealer showroom, even one as convivial as Thor’s, is that I always feel a certain pressure to purchase, and Col’s suggestions that I should grab a hat and belt out to follow him across November Bodmin moorland in the half-dark and half-raining were generous but a trifle terrifying! But in a show? A chap can kick the tyres and bounce on the saddle as much as he might want to – were he interested in constructing an epic appetite, that is the way to do it. So I did. Chugga, chugga, I went, ponderingly. Very practical bikes, Indian Scouts, too. Very low, very easy to ride and with endless baggage permutations should the need arise. Which it would.
Meanwhile, and increasingly obsessed with uncovering a few impractical bikes, we headed for the Norton stand, mainly because I am still surprised at how little I enjoyed the 961 Commando I bought new in 2010. Maybe the new modern twins would suit me? Maybe not. I’d need a stepladder to actually clamber aboard, which makes them pretty impractical for me – although the more youthful, fitter types they’re aimed at should have no problems. Triumphs, though?
There are simply loads to choose from. As I am an ancient relic I instantly ignore all the modernistic rocketships and the gargantuan tall adventure machinery, the latter because I’d need a pet alp to climb to enable me to actually get aboard and the former because they’d kill my back and I’d look truly ridiculous riding one. And style is important to me, as you may know.
Which leaves us with loads and loads to choose from. They range from the obvious (armies of faux-Bonneville Bonnevilles) to the controversial (a decent range of Bobbers, black and otherwise) to the plainly most desirable – the Street range. I already possess a Street Scrambler, as you may recall, and
was enlightened to rediscover that the more modern model than my own boasts some 10 extra horses and a better front brake. That’s it, then! The new machine for the new year! Trade in my 2017 example (in red) and rustle serenely back to RCHQ Bude on a sparking 2019 machine, registered in 2020, because that’s the way to do it. Buy a last-year bike which will be cheaper than a this-year bike. Except…
…except that the trade-in drops with the older / cheaper bike so it actually costs the same to change. Rats, fooled again.
But we weren’t there to enjoy ourselves! No. We were at the NEC on a mission, a mission to uncover the truth about impractical modern motorcycles. And a chap should take these things seriously, so we’ll walk straight past the CCM stand, with its large Spitfire and collection of seriously strange motorcycles. None of which I personally liked the look of, but which may of course be wonderful in every sense. And – because of the mission imperative – I was increasingly aware that racks of bikes on racks of stands were fitted with racks – and other luggage – so were plainly practical. It is a definitions thing, a personal thing.
It’s time to stop this becoming a list. Let’s just say that I know what I like – and for as long as I’ve been riding, which is a happy half-century this year – I’ve always been a fan of machinery which offers an upright riding position, with high bars so my back’s straight, and footrests which allow my feet to be almost vertically below my knees or indeed in front of them. Café racers and I have never got on well. And my favourite riding position was once the default standard setting for the majority of motorcycles sold new. And… it still is. The only real limit on a bike’s practicality is the length of time it’s comfortable for its rider, surely? Everything else is a question of whether or not a chap likes the style. Discuss.
It’s always entertaining how an idea takes root when I want to write something around it. So it was that on the merry chuffer back to RCHQ Bude (well, Exeter, which as near as we can get) I was helping the Better Third to rest her eyes and snore only gently by wondering at length whether there’d be lots of practical old bikes at the forthcoming VMCC autojumble at Shepton Mallet – our next big day out.
But that’s a stretch too far. How many of us honestly buy an old bike as a practical means of transport? Be honest now. Some
folk do, but as I’ve risked ire by stating more than once, on my regular upcountry rides I see almost no classically old bikes in use. When I meet up with friends I know only through our shared fascination with old clunkers they almost inevitably arrive on a modern motorcycle. Or indeed in a car. I often turn up on three wheels rather than two, an option which does indeed attract opprobrium but which has been a life-saver more than once, and has allowed me to enjoy the motorcycling experience rather than the sitting in a car experience – which is always dull in comparison.
Jumbles are great places to find bikes. I’ve bought several that way down the years, and it’s always worth remembering that as the hopeful vendor has brought the sale victim to the jumble in a van or on a trailer, then he can almost always deliver it to your residence. So negotiate that into the price – and it is indeed often possible to negotiate around the asking price.
Of course there was a fine array of bikes – my kind of bikes, too – on sale at the jumble. Ranging from basket cases for those with great mechanical ability or even greater optimism to perfectly good runners. Happily I am under domestic suggestion not to buy anything which will absorb all my spare cash while providing little reward in return, which limits the options a little. But only a little. There may be pics nearby of a couple of heavily tempting machines. Happily one of them was acquired by an RC Reader from another RC Reader before I lost control of my trembling wallet hand, and the second, similar machine, was non-negotiable and more than I’d willingly pay for such a machine in ‘needs recommissioning’ condition.
I don’t know about you, but I always need a decent dose of reality infusions (strong coffee helps) before walking around a piled-high jumble
looking for entire bikes rather than bits of bikes. This time I had a mantra. Which was ‘There’s a CSR on the bench – you need no more bikes’. And it worked, although I was heavily tempted by two Triumphs, which isn’t a thing I could say often. Most tempting of all was a girder / rigid Matchless, but when I added its price to the cost of the bits required to fix it, it made no sense at all, so my wallet stayed safe in the pocket with the zip to prevent accidental withdrawals!
But I did not go home empty-handed. No. As my mantra reveals, on the bench is my elderly and seriously scruffy Matchless CSR – a genuinely great bike. However… Its genuine greatness has been marred by my lack of maintenance and the Atlantic salty spray – again. ‘Again’ is a word which I’ll use a lot when referring to the Matchless, because it’s been around for a long time and my bursts of enthusiasm wander stupidly between just putting it back onto the road again and actually improving it. It’s long been one of those machines which I drag from its slumbers to put on the road for winter (because of its scruff) and by the time it’s ready for the road again (because I am notably inefficient) winter has passed and I can ride less unshiny bikes again.
This is a cyclical process. Drag out bike for fettling in November. Get bike running in April. Park bike for the summer. Drag bike out for fettling in November…
This apparent insanity is a leftover from the increasingly distant days when I rode old AMC machines for winter rides. They were generally indestructible. I was reminded of this while writing a short piece for another old bike magazine in which I commented on the unreliability of my nearly-new T140V and how my job was saved by riding a G9 Matchless to work instead. The Triumph let us down most weeks, sometimes several times, and the Matchless let us down only once – when the cable to the manual ignition advance came adrift somehow and the camring rotated, producing creatively eccentric sparks.
This time, this Matchless, the plan is to upgrade its electrics a little. Jacqueline PUB has generously offered to look at the sparkless magneto, which would fix it – she has both the essential knowledge and the appropriate hammers – but my mind has been wandering, where it will go…
Which was why I managed not to return home empty-handed. Instead I have the shiny metal mushroom which may be pictured nearabouts. This is – as you already spotted – the heart of a conversion which will allow me to ditch the magneto completely and replace it with a pointless, rather than sparkless, ignition system. Watch, as they say, this space…