From Bantam boy to Speedtwin tearaway!
In the first part of his memoir of the motorcycles in his life, Peter Jenkins remembers his first three bikes – all owned while he was still at school!
There was no history of motorcyclists in my family* so, given their bad reputation for safety and for encouraging antisocial behaviour, you may wonder why an otherwise reasonably rational grammar school boy would contemplate buying his first bike
(my interests up to that time were coin collecting and making model aeroplanes). The reasons were quite logical to me; it was, I admit, a little bit about appearing cool and attracting the opposite sex, but mainly it was about transport.
(*Not strictly true, I’ve since realised that a great-grandfather died while watching a TT race in the Isle of Man; a bike crashed into the crowd, it didn’t hit him but brought on a heart attack!)
I had been given my first full-size bicycle at age 15 by my parents as a reward for some exam success. Sadly, the bicycle only had one gear which was a major drawback due to me living in hilly Oldham. Despite my lack of athleticism, I persevered with it, cycling out to the moors at Saddleworth and even Buxton on one occasion which nearly killed me. I found the hills such hard work (panting hard with my head down) that I once cycled into the back of a parked car going up a long straight hill! The solution to this painful problem was obvious: get an engine! Coming up to my 16th birthday, ignorant of motorbikes and with no one to ask for advice, I scanned the adverts in the Manchester Evening News and found a three-year-old BSA 175cc for sale by a local dealer. As I had heard of that famous British make and I could get it on Hire Purchase (HP), the deal was done. Dad kindly did the HP paperwork but I had to pay it myself with Saturday job wages as my parents weren’t keen on motorbikes. For £110 plus interest I was the proud owner of a 1968 D14/4 Bantam, very pretty I thought, with lots of chrome.
Following a comprehensive training course (‘that’s the clutch, that’s the throttle and those are the brakes, off you go!’), I was on the road. It was two weeks before I was confident of getting away from traffic lights without stalling and getting shouted at by car drivers. There followed a fairly steep learning curve. I’ve heard it said that if you survive the first year on a motorbike you’ll probably live a long and happy life and I am fortunate to say that has been the case.
Among my many adventures in that first year was getting caught speeding three weeks after I got the bike, resulting in a visit to juvenile court with my dad, a £3 fine and an endorsement. Wish I could say I learnt my lesson and never got caught again, but not a bad fine for doing 45mph in a 30 limit, though.
I had many problems starting the Bantam; it was lucky that I lived at the top of a hill and that my school was also on a hill as I had to bump-start it frequently. I once had to leave it at the bottom of the hill after failing to start it and get the bus to school – sadly it was still there when I got back as Bantams were not worth pinching in those days! I always carried a plug spanner to remove and clean the fouled plug as I sometimes got the ‘petroil’ mixture too oily.
The first time I lost control was on wet leaves; I thought I’d got away without much damage but I ended up picking bits of broken glass out of my knee while sitting on the outside loo a few days later! My next stunt was mounting the pavement while taking a righthand bend too fast. Fortunately, there were no pedestrians and I managed to stay on the bike and ride sheepishly off. Not long after this, I nearly did myself in overtaking on a bend when an ambulance with ‘blues and twos’ came hurtling around the corner towards me – I got away with it by inches. I can see now why proper motorcycle training courses are compulsory!
Along with my new biker image (ha ha), I started going to the pub with a pal who had a tasty Royal Enfield Crusader Sports. Being quite tall but not really looking 18, the pub we preferred was The Colliers Arms out in the country by the side of Hartshead Pike. This was in an old farmhouse and was run as a sideline by two ancient (or so it seemed to us) ladies. I remember getting a taste for draught Bass straight from the barrel behind the bar. One night I gave my pal a lift there (two provisional licences equal one full licence don’t they?) as his bike was off the road and foolishly let him drive us home. We fell off on the first bend. You can see why I always felt a lot of empathy with poor old Malcolm in the Ogri cartoons in Bike magazine which started a couple of years later!
Getting knocked off
During that first year I got knocked off twice. The first time was by a car turning right at Crown Point lights in Denton; he said he didn’t see me and then just drove off! I went to the police station a few yards away but as I only had a bruise or two they weren’t interested. The next time was a classic rookie error. I was overtaking a line of stationary cars and failed to spot a car pulling out through the queue to turn right. Only a slow speed bump again so no real harm done and hopefully all this experience was sinking in and giving me some risk awareness!
The rear chain snapped one night in Denton on my way home in the days before I knew enough to always carry a spare spring link. I’d only pushed it about half a mile (with five miles to go!) when a van going the opposite way stopped to help. He put the bike in the back and took me home, 10 miles out of his way, and wouldn’t accept any cash. A great example of the kindness and generosity of people – particularly motorcyclists.
Of course, the Bantam didn’t go fast enough for this tearaway so a high compression Todd head was sent for which didn’t give an obvious increase in speed but probably contributed to the crankshaft assembly falling apart twice in 3000 miles! I was not only learning roadcraft but also some mechanical knowledge. I can understand why some people considered the Bantam engine (originally a DKW design given as reparation) revenge by the Germans for losing the war.