ASL

ASL in Corporation Street, Stafford, began life as Associated Springs

Ltd, manufacturing a pneumatic suspension unit designed and patented by engineer and keen cyclist Professor Archibald Sharpe.

The company began producing Peugeot-engined motorcycles in about 1909 to promote and publicise its suspension (which it also offered as a kit to adapt any motorcycle).

While its machines looked much like those of the time, the front and rear suspension was truly innovative, giving travel of around two inches.

In 1911 the company changed its name to Air Springs Ltd and began to use JAP and White and Poppe engines, which would later be replaced by Fafnir or Precision motors.

In 1913, a model with an intriguing design that mounted a chain-drive two-speed gearbox in front of the engine was launched. The airsprung forks had a tendency to leak and when that happened the bike would, as one rider reported, “steer like a crab”. Such problems didn’t stop Harry Martin piloting a JAP V-twin ASL to a speed of 68mph at Brooklands on August

17, 1910, setting a new world record.

However, ASL motorcycles were simply too ahead of their time and motorcyclists shied away from this new technology. The coming of the Great War would, like so many other small manufacturers, sound the death knell for ASL and it ceased production in 1914 or 1915.

‘Riding on air’ is a frequently used phrase, but ASL may have been the first to coin it. In 1910, a ringing endorsement from Harry Martin was about as good as it got.