A lifetime’s adventures with a lightweight BSA: Part Four
This month we rather sadly reach the final part of Alan Graham’s marvellous reminiscences of his BSA C11. No doubt, some of you will be wondering what happened to this little trouper of a motorcycle. Well, read on…
It was after I’d returned from the 1982 TT that some friends asked me if I’d like to make up the numbers for a holiday they’d booked in a self-catering cottage on the Isle of Arran.
They’d already arranged everything for themselves and there wasn’t room in their car for me. I’d bought a car by then but there was no space for it on the ferry – so why not go on the bike, I thought. Surely there would always be room on a ferry for a bike, and sure enough there was.
I got out the map; it would be 235 miles to Ardrossan to pick up the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry. I rode off up the A1 on a sunny summer evening and spent the night with the rest of the party at their home in Longframlington near Morpeth in Northumberland. A few pints and a good sleep later we set off next morning in a two-vehicle convoy through Coldstream towards Ardrossan. I led the way, my friends following in a Renault 5. It must have been a slow journey for them, going at BSA speeds, and especially with a new baby in the car, but we made it.
The weather that fortnight was glorious. The sun shone hotly every day, we swam in the sea and walked for miles. Some of us climbed Goat Fell, the highest mountain on the island and swam in rock pools on the way down, following the little stream which tumbled into them. During the evenings there wasn’t much my friends could do as they were somewhat stymied by the demands of the baby. That was when I got on the BSA and went exploring. If you’ve never been to Arran, there’s a bendy road goes in a loop right round the coast and I think it was about 60 miles from start to finish. So, as the shadows lengthened, I made my way around it, through towns and villages with diverse names like Lagg, Blackwaterfoot, Brodick and Whiting Bay. Of course, I had to stop for an occasional pint and I found the locals a friendly bunch, so it was in the early hours of the morning when I made my way back to the cottage at Sliddery on the west coast.
A hairy experience in the dark
Riding those narrow coastal roads at night, struggling to see the bends with useless six-volt lighting was a hairy experience. If I went over a cliff edge, would anyone find me, I wondered? The scary thing about the BSA was that the faster you dared to go, the brighter the lights became. It helped that the conditions were dry and with no other traffic about, I would take up a position on the white lines which made it easier to light the way ahead.
Eventually the time came to head home and once the ferry docked at Ardrossan my friends were no longer in a mood to hang about. I’d said I’d make my own way back and their car soon disappeared into the distance. This time I’d take a direct route home through Kilmarnock, pick up the A74 and the M6. It was a long journey of about six or seven hours and I should have stopped for something to eat as I was famished but I decided to press on. It was as I was heading down the M6 that I saw it ; the white police car on one of those raised platforms that have a little sign: “For police vehicles only”.
As I passed at a stately 55mph (you could just about do those speeds in safety in those days) I saw two heads swivel in unison as I sailed by and just knew what would happen next. I was directed on to the hard shoulder and came to a stop.
Was it insured? Did I have a licence for it? Did it have a test certificate?
The good news was that I had every document with me. The bad news was that they were under a fortnight’s worth of mucky washing at the bottom of a pannier. So, there I was on the hard shoulder, dirty shirts, socks and pants, etc., forming an untidy pile on the tarmac as vehicles hurtled past a few feet away.
Bored, disappointed or perhaps both, having satisfied themselves that everything was in order they soon disappeared out of sight, leaving me alone and vulnerably exposed in a dangerous place for another 15 minutes while I tried to compress everything back into the tight space it had been so carefully packed into before.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, picking up the A66 over to Scotch Corner and back down the A1 to Brompton-On-Swale near Richmond. But I’d had the sort of holiday I’d never forget, and it brought it home to me that those ancient four-strokes that BSA had made so long ago were capable of covering some long distances reliably.
A couple of weeks later I met the girl who would become my wife. She lived nearly 40 miles away so, while we were saving for a mortgage deposit, I took on work like gardening in addition to my day job in the office.
Although I had a car it was much cheaper to use the BSA for visiting and it did these 80-mile round evening trips regularly. As it only had a single saddle, however, she never got to ride on it. From then on, the story took on a familiar twist. Marriage and the birth of a daughter followed and we seemed to be perennially hard up.
A new job for the C11
The little BSA was relegated to a corner of the garage until the mid-1990s when we decided that it would save money on fuel if it was recommissioned for journeying to work. It didn’t take much to get it going – a new battery, some fuel, a bit of oil down the plug to soak overnight and it was soon running again. I spent about £400 on things like dynamo refurbishment, new rims and tyres, etc. Then, for many years, I used it for the 20-mile round commute from our home in lower Wensleydale to my work at the JobCentre in Richmond. This was an ideal route for a low-powered machine; all single track roads till I reached Catterick Garrison where all the roads were limited to 30mph, and the same in Richmond. There it became a regular sight parked on the cobbles of that lovely ancient town and I could keep an eye on it from the window at work.
It certainly attracted plenty of attention there, usually from men of a certain age, and sometimes I could overhear snatches of conversations: “That’s an old ‘un, Sid, reckon you could ride that?” “Aye reckon I could. Just my sort!” In spring and early summer the single track roads were alive with the scent of cow parsley and wild honeysuckle in the hedges, and the verges were a kaleidoscope of wild flowers.
It was a heady mix, and, of course, the beat of the old four-stroke simply added to the enjoyment. In rain, hail, fog, snow or wind the
BSA just did its job as its long-gone makers had intended, providing dependable ride-to-work transport. A “utility machine” was what they called it.
Retirement followed but the C11 is still there, occupying a space in our garage alongside a Triumph of the four-wheeled variety. I can take it for a ride whenever I feel like it, but without the specific purposes it once had. When strangers come up and want to chat about it the usual question is: “What’s it worth?” Well, judging by the prices being asked for similar models, a lot more than I paid for it.
But how do you put a value on something that’s been part of your life since you were a child? If, like me, you’d never dream of selling it, then its value is in the recollection of memories and adventures you’ve had together, and in the pleasure of riding.
As I write this I’m turning 65 and the BSA is turning 70, but when I ride it I feel as if I’m 18 again. It honestly wouldn’t bother me if it was still only worth the £2 I paid for it and there’s a great feeling of time travelling when you take to the roads on something that was going about before you were thought of. Whenever I meet people I haven’t seen for a long time they invariably ask if I’ve still got the bike.
“You still got that old Beezer?”
Perhaps the last word should go to the unknown RAC patrolman who fixed our car more recently when it broke down miles from home in pitch darkness. Job done, he switched on the cab light of his van so I could sign his paperwork and I thanked him for getting us under way again.
“You still got that old Beezer of yours?” he enquired.
I was dumbstruck.
“What? But how do you know about me and my bike?” I asked. “Well, you used to come to our Tees Tornados motor bike club at Bishop Middleham near Durham,” he replied.
That was back in the 1970s! I looked hard at him in the dim light from the van’s feeble roof light. I couldn’t place him or recognise him at all. If I didn’t already know that the bike had become part of my identity, I did now.