Straight as an Arrow... except on sand

I’ve just read Pete Kelly’s article about the Ariel Arrow (OBM 426, December 2020) which brought back a lot of memories of when I had my Arrow, and here are just a few...

I bought the bike new in late

1963 (registration 145 KWC) from Frewin’s, Chadwell Heath, Essex. I really wanted a Golden Arrow but after trying several dealers, including Kirby’s at Roneo Corner, and not finding one, I agreed to buy the only one that Frewin’s had. This was a red and white one which I hadn’t seen before but I was told it was an exportonly colour. I believe that later Ariel produced the 200cc Arrow in these colours.

I paid £192 for the bike on HP and collected it late on the Saturday afternoon. It was pouring with rain in the evening so I went out with some friends, one of whom had a car.

On the Sunday it was again pouring with rain but I still went out for a fairly long ride with some friends who had bikes. It was still raining in the evening so we went to our local cafe, the Aqua Bar in Romford.

When it was time to leave I realised I had just under 100 miles on the clock so a friend and I went the long way home in the heavy rain until 100 miles came up.

One of the most memorable experiences with the Arrow was when I gave a friend a lift home as he had broken his wrist and couldn’t ride his own Arrow. I dropped him off at home and said I would be back in an hour to pick him up. The journey back to Romford took us through some bends, known as the Farmhouse Bends after the pub there. There were a lot of sand pits in the area at the time and the gate into the pits was on one of the corners. This meant trucks were coming out of the gate all day long, depositing wet sand on the road.

We went into the left-hand bend a bit too fast and just as I noticed a large amount of sand on the road the front end slid away – this was at the same time that my passenger informed me that he thought we were going a bit too fast!

I ended up sliding up the road backwards, laying on my back holding my head up off the road.

With my head in the air I could see my passenger sitting in an upright position with his arm still in his sling, bouncing along behind me. Just as I was wondering where the bike was, it appeared from behind him, overtook both of us and stopped alongside a parked car that was on the other side of the road. After we picked ourselves up the first thing I heard from my passenger was: “I told you we were going to come off.”

The bike had a bent left-hand handlebar, bent footrest and a tear in the seat, so it was straight down to the bike shop for a new pair of Ace bars and footrest – and neither of us had any injuries.

At the beginning of 1965 I sold the bike back to the dealer I had bought it from, and not long afterwards was asked by someone I knew what I had been doing with the bike. This person was, by this time, working for the dealer and said the bike had a problem. They’d taken off the heads and barrels and, in his words “found that the pistons were burnt and the rings welded to the pistons”.

As an aside I can confirm what Pete said about the ground clearance. I managed to wear flats on both footrests and destroyed the stand. I put the bike on the stand outside the bike shop one day and then the next thing I knew it was laying in the road.

After fitting a side stand I managed to wear flats followed by small holes in the downpipes. I think that this confirms that the road holding was pretty good… except when there is wet sand on the road!

Chris Rayment