A lifetime’s adventures with a lightweight BSA – Part two
This month we bring you part two of Alan Graham’s reminiscences of a life with his C11, in which he falls off the BSA for the first – and last – time and goes to the TT for the first – but not last! – time.
It was still 1975 and my brother, his wife and some of the mad mechanics persuaded me that really ought to go to the Isle of Man TT races with them. Knowing my interest in old bikes they were particularly persuasive and cogent.
“There’s thousands of people go, you’ll love it! You’ll see just about every bike that’s ever been made, Alan.”
“What, even a C11?”
“Bound to.”
“But I can’t keep up with you lot.” “You won’t need to, you can go with Wes on the back of his 500/4.”
I had no inkling that I was in for the best holiday of my life. Some memories of that week are fleeting; others as powerful as if yesterday. The morning was gorgeous as we set off through the Yorkshire Dales, green and beautiful at that time of year. In no time we were through Leyburn and Hawes, over the Pennines and heading south down the M6 towards Liverpool. There are sights you never forget, like our bunch of riders tilted at 30 degrees or more as we traversed motorway curves at 70mph, making the whole world take on a list; thrilling stuff.
Then there were the dockside queues, hundreds of bikes and riders who, like us, had converged from all corners of the country and beyond, the annoyance of having the petrol drained, but the reward of the coveted ‘IoM TT 1975 Tank Pumped Out’ sticker. Then the amazing spectacle of cranes lifting three bikes at a time, hoisted below what looked like an airborne cattle grid crossing the water with their precious cargo from dockside to ferry; the anxious looks from flat twin BMW owners if they thought their precious rocker covers were going to knock together.
As the Liver Buildings receded into the haze on that Friday lunchtime I looked round the boat. Leather-clad bikers lazed anywhere they could find a space to stretch out. Smoke plumed lazily from the funnel, leaving grey clouds above the white wake from the stern. I leaned on the railing and watched the wave from the bow as it carved its way through the calm water in glorious sunshine. My mind went back exactly one year when I was stressed out at school, revising for A Levels, and taking exams. What a contrast to now; school was a distant memory, everything had moved on, so much had happened since and life couldn’t be more exciting.
Motorcycle mecca
If I’d had any expectations, the
Isle of Man, the TT and the race atmosphere exceeded them all. I was completely absorbed, the atmosphere felt tangible and I had the time of my life. I was thrilled to watch Dave Croxford and Alex George on a British Triumph – Slippery Sam, what else! – take on the best of the Japanese in the 10lap production race … and win!
And then seeing Mick Grant win the Senior on his Kawasaki with an average speed of 100mph, followed by John Williams and Charlie Mortimer. And it was a bonus that in the evenings you could go to the Villa Marina awards presentations, mix with the stars and collect autographs. The names of the various course sections became as familiar as the names of football teams at final score, and the
Sarah’s Cottage location became my all-time favourite viewing spot. In my mind’s eye the Isle of Man became a kind of motorcycle mecca where the sun always shone, the beer was good and there was nowhere like it. And yes, I did see another BSA C11, and a much better one at that!
I was having a lot of fun on the BSA and one spin-off I hadn’t reckoned on was that I became part of the local motorcycle scene and began making new friends. My elder brother John was a marshal at the local Croft racing circuit and encouraged me to join. I soon found myself in the thick of the action as our customary marshalling point was at the chicane where spills and accidents were almost guaranteed every time. Practice was held on Saturday mornings and customers arrived in the afternoon for the racing. As marshals, you could ride the circuit. This was a surreal experience on the C11 as it was strange to ride round the wide empty track with its large orange directional boards at every bend at no more than 40mph. It must have been a curious sight for the spectators too as an unknown boneshaker trundled past them. I joined the local Swaledale
MCC whose weekly meetings were well attended at the Fleece Hotel in Richmond market place. Sunday afternoons became club rideouts, supplemented by camping weekends in the Yorkshire Dales. Often we would pitch tents behind a pub, so, after the obligatory Saturday night session, there’d be a tasty fry-up in the bar next morning for those who could manage it.
I also became an unofficial member of the Honda Owners’
Club Teeside Branch, perhaps because my elder brother ran it, and the meetings were held at my uncle’s pub, the Raby Hunt Inn at Summerhouse near Darlington.
Under tow
It was while I was riding there on a dark wet night that the C11 came to another of its unscheduled stops a few miles short of Piercebridge. Now what? It was pitch black, miles from anywhere. The road was reasonably flat and I thought if I could push it to a village I might find a phone box for help. But then I had another stroke of luck when my mate Dave passed on his CB250 and stopped. I sent him onwards to the pub and told him to ask my uncle for a length of rope. Now, I’d read in one of those 1960s motorcycle magazines that it was perfectly possible for one motorcycle to tow another, so when Dave returned with a length of rope we decided to put it to the test. In the dark. The magazine’s author had warned against tying a rope to the bike on tow so we only tied the front end to Dave’s Honda. A large knot was tied to the other end and I pushed it through my legs so it rested on the saddle behind my bum and I sat on it. The idea was that if the rope yanked too hard I could stand on the footrests and let it go. Not expecting the battery to power the BSA headlight for long enough, I switched to pilot lamps; this way I’d have a red light to the rear and there was just enough light at the front to keep an eye on the rope and see the slack rise and fall.
It was actually quite easy, Dave eased off carefully from every junction and I only had to stand once. After six or seven miles we reached the pub, the bike was left there and I got a pillion lift home.
That wasn’t quite the end of it. I went back at the weekend to fix the bike and ride it home but it started easily; it had just been water getting in the distributor. However, it was December, the roads were wet and I was too enthusiastic on my way back. My home was at Brompton on Swale, which has a right and left double bend at the entrance to the village. Treating it as the chicane at Croft I endeavoured to see if I could get through the bends quicker than I’d ever done before. I got through the first bend okay but having flipped to opposite lock for the second, the footrest dug in, the bike slid away on its side and I came to rest in the middle of the road sitting astride the white line and facing the way I’d just come.
I looked around, luckily there was no other traffic. A lady who was putting her washing out on a line looked across briefly before returning her attention to her peg basket. I followed a groove in the tarmac and saw the bike laid against a church wall. Luckily I was unhurt but I had learned my lesson. It was a stupid thing to do, and even now, decades later, was the only time I ever came off the C11 and it was my own fault. Back home it only had a bent footrest and a flattened rear number plate. One of the mad mechanics cast a lazy eye over it, took a last drag on his fag and ground it under his foot. “They don’t make ’em like that any more,” he pronounced. “Nowadays when you go down the road you end up with half a bike.”
By the end of 1979 my Triumph Herald was sold to an elderly bloke who paid me more than
I’d given for it five years earlier. He wrote it off two weeks later.
For the next 18 months or so I’d have no other vehicle than the BSA. It was well sorted by now and wherever I went it performed reliably as my everyday transport. But there was one ambition I had always longed to do, to ride it round the TT circuit; hallowed ground for any motorcycle as far as I was concerned.
NEXT MONTH: The C11 goes to Scotland.