AT LUNCH WITH... IVAN RHODES
We persuade one of the world’s leading Velocette experts to take a break from restoring yet another factory racer
World authority on Velocettes works his magic on works bikes at 88
Ivan Rhodes’ warren of interconnected workshops are the Velocette HQ of planet Earth. On the walls, banks of drawers containing vanishingly rare spares fight for space with the occasional photo of Ivan riding a works Velo he’s restored. Benches are covered in tools, conrods, gearboxes and engines. And then there are the bikes: a supercharged Roarer – the only one in existence – tucked away in a corner; a ‘Dog Kennel’ 500 up on a lift awaiting final finishing, and other factory racers squeezed in corridors and between benches. If you like an exotic Velo, welcome to heaven.
Though 88, Ivan is in the workshop every day, attempting to complete a seemingly endless stream of projects. That’s the problem with being the world’s authority on racing Velocettes – people keep giving you interesting bikes to sort out, and the outstanding job he does ensures even more join the queue.
Ivan’s route to Velocette expertise began on the country lanes around Derby, where he first sat on the back of his father’s BSA. “My father was a tinsmith and a locksmith,” he says while serving up a socially-distant lunch in his kitchen. “He had flat feet and couldn’t go in the army during the war, so he became a special constable. He needed a motorbike to get around and bought a 1935 250 BSA for £5. Apparently these were made for the Post Office – it was a very simple three-speed side-valve. He was invited to help with a smokescreen assembly facility near Rolls-royce
[the company’s factory in nearby Derby] as they were in line to be bombed by the Luftwaffe, and he had to service the smokescreen material. When I had time off school to help him, I used to sit on the back of this old BSA – there was no seat, just a tray for his tools.”
Bouncing round the countryside on the back on the BSA gave Ivan a taste for two wheels. “There were a few locals with bikes – you’d see a Douglas ride round the village, no tax or insurance and no petrol – you’d run them on TVO [tractor vapourising oil]. This Douglas had a crack in the front tyre, but it had some tape round it so that was all right. He’d do a couple of laps of the village and disappear because the local policeman would come out.
“There was also a chap with a side-valve AJS and his father had a field. I eventually scrounged a ride and that introduced me to riding. That would have been about 1945 and I was 13. Near us, the bypass had been dug out before the war, but they hadn’t finished it. On a Sunday we’d ride whatever we’d got up and down there.”
And then came the first Velocette, though it wasn’t exactly the revelation for the young Rhodes that you might imagine. “One of my pals had a KTT [the 348cc overhead cam bike that had the world’s first positive-stop foot gearchange], so I had a go on that. It must have been used through the war because it was scruffy, filthy and oily. The registration was RY 9699. I was quite impressed with the sweetness of it, but until then I wasn’t totally smitten with Velos – I always admired the Wolverhampton AJS.”
Eventually the KTT broke a conrod, but the father of the lad who rode it welded it up and it ran for years after that. “It did eventually break again and they rebuilt it, but used a KSS MKII piston so they couldn’t put the head back on. Rather than take the piston off and machine a bit off, they jacked the barrel with two washers under each corner.”
Not one washer, you’ll notice, two – Ivan’s memory for detail is phenomenal. I mention that for those of us who struggle to remember the registration of the bikes we have in the garage now; the fact he can recall those of bikes he rode 75 years ago is extraordinary. Ivan politely plays down this talent, though when I cheekily ask him the reg of his dad’s first BSA, he admits he does know it – “BNU 192”.
Despite being a clever lad, Ivan left school at 15 and his dad told him to get a job on the railway. Ivan complied, after a fashion: “On the way to the railway I popped into the local bike shop and asked if they had any jobs and they said I could start next Monday, so I did that instead.”
By then Ivan’s father was working for Bennetts of Irongate (a famous local ironmongers), and also earned a few quid fixing lawnmowers. He needed suitable transport and asked his bike-mad son to source a bike and sidecar. “I found a 1927 Sunbeam for £7/10s,” says Ivan. There’s a pause, but Ivan can’t help himself. “Registration RA 2281.”
This turned out to be a useful purchase – when his father eventually replaced it with an Ariel Red Hunter outfit, Ivan used the Sunbeam as a race transporter. “When I started
racing I used a Big Port AJ for trials, scrambles and grasstrack and eventually road racing. On occasion I’d strap the AJ to the Sunbeam’s chassis and ride to Cadwell to race. My first race there was in March 1951. There were three of us from the Derby Phoenix club – Jack Skerrit on a 7R [AJS], Ted Goodwin on a Manx Norton and me on the old AJ, which was running on petrol.”
Ivan’s performances on the AJ were noticed by Don Whelan, who saw him riding at Cadwell. “Don offered me his 7R to ride. It had a season’s racing on it and the first time out it broke a rocker and made a mess. But eventually I got to ride it in the Manx GP, finishing 37th in the Junior and 38th in the Senior. Ten years later I rode the TT on his Beasley Velocette. On lap five it locked up solid – the timing-side main bearing collapsed.”
After the flirtation with AJS – he ended up buying his own 7R – Ivan returned to Velocette in the mid-’60s, taking a KTT in part-exchange. In many ways the KTT is the bike that got Ivan to where he is today. He raced them for decades, collects them, restores them, and his reputation for KTT mastery eventually helped him to become President of the VMCC and later the Velocette Owners Club. “Percy Goodman [Velocette’s then owner and son of founder John] designed his little cammy [the Model K] in 1924 in his son Berty’s bedroom, who was about four at the time. It was so beautifully designed, and it worked straight away. I’ve got the original factory records in there,” says Ivan, pointing at a bookcase in the hall.
“I used the KTT forever. It was the sweetness and engineering that appealed to me. They were sensibly made – a lot of thought went into them. When Alec Bennett [five-time TT winner] was an agent for Velocette, he rode in the TT before the first war and won one on a Sunbeam. But he said to Percy Goodman: ‘I could win a TT on this. I’ll ride it for nothing – unless I win, in which case I want a bonus please’.
“They agreed, and he won it in 1926. Alec was very
‘I’D SEE A DOUGLAS AROUND THE VILLAGE; NO INSURANCE, TAX... OR PETROL. IT RAN ON TRACTOR VAPOURISING OIL’