BEST OF BRITISH
Walwin Motorcycles
The world of Classic Trial Magazine and motorcycles continues to amaze me. I wrote this article after making contact with Ross Winwood. As mentioned on occasion, my father was an Automotive Instrument Fitter in the Research and Development facility at Ferodo Brake Linings based at Chapel-en-le-Frith in Derbyshire for most of his working life until he retired. As part of his job, he would visit other automotive suppliers in the ‘hub’ of the automotive world in Great Britain, the Midlands. One particular manufacturer was Girling Brakes at Tyseley, Birmingham, where he would become friends with a certain Ray Winwood, the Development Garage Manager, and Ross’s father. Their common interest was motorcycle trials. I vaguely remember my father, Ron, coming back from one of his trips and talking to me at a very young age about this man he knew who helped his two sons build trials motorcycles, but that they looked very different. At one of the British Experts trials in the late ’60s, we would first see a Walwin trials motorcycle. Unbeknown to me at the time, this is where I would meet Ross Winwood for the very first time.
Words: Ross Winwood, John Hulme and John Moffat
Pictures: Brian Holder, Bob Currie, Winwood Family, Alan Vines and Eric Kitchen
Ross Winwood’s grandfather, Walter, had a company called Walwin Engineering which his father, Ray later took over. Ray was a toolmaker and designer and ran the company until the late ’50s when the company closed down; he then secured a Development Garage Manager position at Girling Brakes. In his younger days, he rode in Grasstrack events on various specially built machines using Rudge and other engines. Len Vale-Onslow was a long-time friend and collaborated on a number of machines at that time. Apart from his interest in motorcycles, he also competed as a passenger in car trials with Ron Kemp. He was responsible for tuning engines for their car design and build.
His wife, Gwen, was heavily involved with the midland Centre ACU and, as a family, they ran events for the Kings Norton MCC and later for the Birmingham MCC, for which Ross was the club captain in the late ’60s.
Ross has a brother, Mike, who is four years older than him. When he was 16 years old, his father built what was perhaps the first Walwin trials motorcycle using an Ariel HT350 engine in a home-built duplex frame. He rode it in the Midland Centre trials and one Scottish Six Days Trial.
EARLY DAYS
Ross: “The history of Walwin motorcycles goes back to when my father built his own grasstrack machines in the ’30s and ’40s; however, my history began in the late ’50s.
“In 1957, my father, Ray, built a duplex frame to house an Ariel HT engine for my brother Mike’s first trials machine when he was 16 years old. My first trials motorcycle came in 1961 when I too turned 16. It was a standard four-stroke BSA C15T. Over the late ’50s and early ’60s, apart from the Ariel frame, we used frames, engines and ancillaries from other motorcycles to
make ‘Bitsas’.
Mike’s first scrambler was a 500 Ariel engine in a BSA Goldstar frame, and I had an underpowered 250 Velocette engine in a BSA Goldstar frame as my entry into scrambling; this bought us to the end of 1962.
“Although not old enough at this time, I had various other motorcycles including a 98cc twostroke hand-gear-change Norman and actually rode in a trial at the age of 15 on a 125cc rigid framed James.”
MOTORCYCLE LIFE
Mike Winwood started as an apprentice at BSA and worked as a draughtsman until BSA’s demise in 1972. The entry for Ross into the motorcycle world was as an apprentice at Royal Enfield in 1961, which only lasted a week as they used apprentices as cheap labour. His first task was to produce 1,000,000 crankcase studs! He then secured an excellent apprenticeship at an engineering company, finishing up in the drawing office producing exploded drawings of gear trains for the multi-head drill machines the company made. They sent him to Birmingham art school to learn technical illustration.
In 1967, he joined BSA as an illustrator producing parts lists, and eventually took the position as a technical author. He also had a lot of involvement with the development department. Before BSA closed, his last job was to write and illustrate the ‘Rocket Three’ model workshop manual. After BSA’s closure, Mike went to work at Girling and Ross moved to Wassell to help develop their Sachs engined trials and scrambles models.
WALWIN MOTORCYCLES
In 1962, they designed a completely new duplex frame to house the BSA C15 engines. These were a vast improvement on the standard C15 frames, as they were much lighter and better for trials, and both brothers enjoyed success on them. They developed these frames over the next few years, building new machines for the SSDT each year.
In 1963, using the experience of building Reynolds 531 tubular trials frames, they designed a duplex frame to house a 500cc Velocette Venom engine for Mike. This frame housed the oil tank, which became the norm for all four-stroke Walwins from then on. There needed to be fancy engineering with the Velocette to achieve the correct chain
line without offsetting the engine. A Norton gearbox was married up by using an outrigger bearing on the engine crankshaft and a Royal Enfield chain-case.
During 1964, and taking note of the handling characteristics and some other improvements, they built the second Velocette-engined Walwin for Ross. As a decent front fork was not readily available at this time, they used the standard BSA fork legs but with a Girling Gas damper, which gave much better-controlled action.
After a couple of successful seasons and the emerging success of the four-stroke BSA 440cc Victor engine, combined with the problems of crankpin breakages on the Velocette engine, they decided to retire them although a very good friend of Ross, Ian Turner, continued to race one until Velocette engine parts were no longer readily available.
BSA WALWIN SCRAMBLERS
Ross: “In 1966 we designed and built a frame kit for the BSA 440 engine for me. Mike was racing a standard Victor at this time but was unhappy with the handling. We made six frame kits to order, but we decided to shelve this project due to some manufacturing problems. Mike and I rode these machines with some success until we retired from scrambling in the early ’70s. Both Mike and I, headed by my father, collaborated in the design and build of the early Walwins. However, as time went on, Mike took more of a back seat on design. Usually, when we designed a new machine, it would be for me then, once tried and tested, we would make one for Mike.”
ALUMINIUM WALWIN TRIALS MODELS
Ross: “In late 1968, I, along with my father, Ray, developed an idea for a completely new trials frame to house 175cc BSA Bantam engine, and in 1969 the alloy plate frame was born. The alloy Walwins were designed by my father and me alone, with a fair amount of machining done with the help of Girling’s machine shop and hours of hand-cutting the alloy plates – do remember, laser cutting was a process of the future.
“This radical design was cut out by hand from aircraft-quality Dural, which was extremely light and very rigid. The bolt-on steering head assembly was turned in a lathe from a solid billet which was bolted to the frame plates, easily enabling different steering head angles to be achieved without manufacturing a completely new frame.
“The engine was a fairly standard 175 BSA Bantam unit built with some support from the BSA factory in the way of parts, including a trials gear cluster used in the factory works machines. The whole complete motorcycle with a gallon of petrol weighed in at just 160lb. By far, this motorcycle was the most successful Walwin trials machine; I had many great rides on it.
“In late 1970, we designed an aluminium frame to house a BSA B25 engine specifically for the 1971 SSDT. This used a lot of standard tried and tested BSA cycle parts, and had some fairly drastic changes to the engine to achieve softer power than the ‘fiery’ standard B25 unit. This machine was moderately successful and robust enough for the ‘Scottish’. That week my claim to fame was to clean Pipeline on the last day; it was very good in a straight line.
MICKMAR WALWIN
In 1970, they became involved with designing a frame to house the prototype Mickmar engine which Michael Martin designed. They built a complete machine with some very advanced features found on today’s modern trials machines, such as a removable aluminium rear sub-frame which housed the air-filter, exhaust silencer and seat in one monocoque unit.
By this time DVLA recognised Walwin as a motorcycle manufacturer and decided to enter
a Walwin team in the 1972 SSDT. Ross would ride the new Mickmar, Mike was to have a 250 Bultaco engined version, and Ian Turner was to compete on the aluminium 250 BSA engined machine. Unfortunately, the Mickmar needed much more development to become a viable trials engine. With very little time left before the Scottish, they had to decide what engine to use with a similar exhaust outlet position and engine dimensions. The only engine available at this time was a very good 250 Ossa one. Ross purchased an ex-works Ossa and installed the engine along with some of the running gear. The weight with the Ossa engine was 165lbs. This Walwin turned out to be very successful and probably influenced at least one major manufacturer in their later designs. They did consider producing this machine as a production trials model, but the complete lack of an available proprietary engine at the time scuppered this plan.
Now, in more modern times, it would, of course, be much more viable. The brothers rode these Walwins until retiring from solo trials in the late ’70s.
The machine was later converted to a sidecar outfit with a newly designed sidecar. Ross and his wife, Paula, as passenger, competed for a couple of seasons until, during a very difficult section at the Colmore British championship round, an accident put her in intensive care with broken ribs and a punctured lung subsequently putting paid to the venture.
WALWIN GRASS TRACK MACHINES
In 1973, Ross fancied having a go at grass track, but starting out on an Elstar frame with a BSA B50 engine the first thing he realised was that the standard’ rubber band’ forks were not for him.
Later that season, he designed and built a new frame, with metal profile front forks and an aluminium plate sub-frame with oil in the top tube. The standard B50 engine was ‘tweaked’ by his father Ray; he was a wizard on cylinder head shaping. So along with an unbelievable 19–1 compression ratio and a squish head design achieved what was, arguably, the fastest BSA engine grasstracker in the country.
In 1975, Ross won the Midland Centre 500 championship and the Shropshire championship in 1976. In 1977, he was sponsored with a 500 Westlake engine, which replaced the BSA unit, but he never had great success with this setup. In 1976, he designed and built an all-aluminium frame to house a 350 BSA engine, and he rode this for two seasons until retiring from motorcycle sport in 1978.
RETIREMENT
Ross: “After retiring, I had very little contact with the sport until, in 2017, my son Adam tried tracing some of the Walwins with a view to buying one as a legacy; he wasn’t born until after I had retired. It ignited an interest for the two of us to trace any of the aluminium-framed trials machines. In 2020, I traced all four of the alloy-framed 175 and 250 models and, in the end, Adam and my wife, Paula, purchased my BSA Bantam-engined machine from Keith Quinn as a Christmas present which will now never leave the family.
“After some research, I have traced more Walwin owners in various parts of the world. After a few owners, the Walwin sidecar outfit, now belongs to Olivier Barjon in France, who is restoring it as a solo with a Mickmar engine. The two grasstrack machines now belong to Alan Jones from Australia who may have by now exported the machines out there. Two of the scramblers are in the process of being restored in Ireland.
“I would like to thank the Classic Trial Magazine editor John Hulme for bringing this story to life on the Walwin motorcycles that mean so much to the family.”