The Ride Past
David Dixon relives some early 1960s teenage motorcycle mayhem and riding past the Ace Café at the dead of night.
We had it so good as teenage riders in the early 1960s – plenty of jobs, the bikes, no national speed limit, great music and girls. There were actually only two or three of these strange female creatures in our group. Although hazy memory suggests they were more prolific at parties, there weren’t so many who would ride on the back of a bike. Consequently, they were much sought after. Having a girl on the back always improved the handling… of the bike. Well, what else were you thinking? Not that there were any offers to ride on the back of my D1 Bantam. The fact that it was green and a Lucas coil ignition equipped deluxe model seemed to cut no ice at all.
Back then the whole world seemed to be monotone black and white. For we teenagers it was a new and surreal experience to thunder along the highway late at night, shrouded in mysterious blackness and shadows, lit by the occasional strobe of an orange sodium streetlight and accompanied by the smell of hot oil and roar of the engines. Well, most of our engines roared. We felt that we ruled the world.
The Ride Past was what we often did at the Ace Café. No race against the jukebox record for us, but just an attempt to impress everybody by riding past the café at 100mph. The hero of the moment would roar past at maximum speed before nonchalantly freewheeling with blipping throttle back into the caff. “How fast was you going?” we were asked. “Oh,” we would reply, “about a ton five”. It was probably more like eighty-ish on the bikes we rode, and that’s if we were lucky. Even then there would be leaking oil, blue smoke and the occasional bit falling off. This is where riders of foreign machines fall off their chairs laughing. Listen – we were heroes!
The first Japanese bike seen at the Ace by our group was a Suzuki and attracted considerable mirth: “Horseshoe shaped headlight? Indicators! Mirrors! No oil leaks? Quiet exhaust and electric start? It’ll never catch on.” Those I recall in the group were Brian with a two-stroke Adler; Dave who had anything that would run; Albert on a 600 Norton model 19 single and Keith who annoyed most of us by having a lovely ’61 Bonneville and Garrard sidecar (he got the girls, too). There was also Wrighty with his solo Panther 100 and Gary, who had an NSU Quickly – and I thought the Bantam was slow! Bringing up the rear was little Ronnie who madly piloted his battered green Norton Dominator 88. Our friend Pete was small, too. He had a BSA Super Rocket and always parked it against a kerb or wall so he could climb off. Imagine that motley crew on their way to the Ace; Dominator, Bonnie combo, Norton single, BSA Rocket, a big Panther, the Adler, Dave on an Ariel Square Four or incontinent BSA, depending on which was actually rideable. Donkey jackets and wellies with the tops turned down were more common than leather jackets and boots. Wrighty never fastened the chinstrap on his pudding basin helmet and, from the back, the flaps could be seen floating in the breeze looking like the ears of the Disney dog Pluto.
Gary on the NSU Slowly didn’t join us too often because he couldn’t keep up. That was a problem for me, too. The Bantam would get to the Ace at just about the time the others were setting off for somewhere else. While the others were L-plated on bigger bikes, I had fallen foul of the 250cc limit for new learners. My bike even had to have an MoT test. Was this the thin end of the regulatory wedge?
Bursting Gary’s bubble…
Fed up with the NSU, Gary bought an Isetta bubble car. He was with us when we rode home from Southend in torrential rain of the face-bruising variety. Gary was gleefully trundling along in his bubble, giving ‘V’ signs to us wet rockers. Arriving at stationary traffic not a word was said. But, as one, we left the bikes, picked up the bubble and put it carefully between two concrete bollards so that the front opening door couldn’t be opened. Then we rode off. Gary didn’t appear for a week or so. Apparently, the police had turned up and released him and his Isetta. Oddly, we lost touch with him after that…
If nobody felt like ‘going past’ at the Ace boredom would set in after we had finished our shared coffee. (No money, so one mug between two is how it usually was.) Then we’d be off to the alien territory of the Busy
Bee near Watford if petrol permitted. That’s where I came in. In the throes of trying to pay my friend Bill for a Vincent Black Lightning I had several jobs, one of which was as a petrol attendant on the North Circular Road at Chiswick. Strangely, when my shift ended, we would often need to dispose of a few gallons of fuel to make the pump readings match the takings. At this time of night there would be a ‘coincidental’ roar as a few of my friends arrived on the forecourt. Petrol duly disposed of, takings now miraculously a perfect match with the pumps and off we would go to the Ace.
Little Ronnie excelled at Going
Past. He was a trainee tool setter and, although his Dominator was very battered, mechanically it was pretty good. Opposite the Ace was a big green mound some 50 feet high. It had been created during the Second World War when the area was used as a dump for the remains of buildings destroyed during the 1941 blitz – not that we knew about that, for us it was simply a great place to watch the bikes going past.
So here came Ronnie! Great excitement as we heard the smooth roar of his Norton. Then came a deeper growl and another headlight. Triumph? A speed cop! It was like cheering on the winner at a Grand National. As Ronnie shot beneath the Ferodo bridge he was actually increasing his lead when we heard his engine falter into silence. We later found out he had run out of fuel. He was nicked.
We were back in the Ace when Ronnie appeared at the door. “I’ve had it with f ***** g bikes” he shouted, hurling his crash helmet across the floor. And he was gone, walking home to Chiswick. He had been warned after many speeding fines that one more and he would lose his licence. Somebody took the Norton home for him but we didn’t see Ronnie again for a year or so – and when we did, he was in a Ford Consul. Ah well.
For the rest of us, the irresponsibility continued much the same. One night we decided to mount an expedition to the 59 Club , at that time in Hackney Downs. We didn’t have much idea where that was, just that it was a very long way. The Reverend Bill Shergold who started the club had much impressed some of us when he had been brave enough to visit the Ace.
A flying Matchless
By this time I had progressed to a Matchless G9 and it was this machine which was involved in a multi bike pile-up on the way to the 59 Club where I met ‘Farver Bill’ for the first time. We had been riding down a narrow, dark lane when a pedestrian carrying a baby suddenly stepped out. The result was some heavy braking and an instant pile of bikes, arms and legs, fortunately all still connected in the right places. The G9 had gone over the top of an Ariel Arrow, bending it into a shape that resembled a banana. Despite being nice to the
owner the Ariel was written off and it was a black mark against my own insurance. At least I had some. Despite the damage to the Ariel the Matchless was unmarked. Luckily it had mostly flown over the carnage.
That G9 – which is still alive and currently living just a few miles from where I am today – did prove to be reliable transport. When it broke or blew up it was usually due to neglect and abuse. There was a steep humpback bridge on the way to work and if taken at about 60mph the bike would stay airborne before touching down at the traffic lights some 50 yards away … exactly where, one day, I forgot that just a brass nut was securing the only working brake. The back one. At the time all the other relevant parts were away being chrome plated but the bike was needed every day. The brass nut flew off when the brake was applied so I was blindly out into the passing traffic at undiminished speed. The Royal Signals White Helmets would have been very impressed by my impromptu filtering abilities.
Meanwhile, the Ace was for a short while known to us as the
‘Face’ after Brian had relined the front brake on his Adler. All was well until he reached the right hander at Hangar Lane station. Moderate braking resulted in instant front wheel seizure and Brian hit the deck face first. He had a bushy beard and the result over the next few weeks was not pretty.
We sometimes went to a café in Kingston. Brian was really fussy about locking up his rotten old bike. One evening, as we swept two or three abreast into Kingston, I noticed that Brian was sinking. As he stopped amid a shower of sparks we realised that the frame downtube had broken. He was pretty miffed but still went through his standard padlock and chain routine. About a week later we went to collect the bike to find that only the broken frame (and the padlock) was still there.
We knew an older guy who lived in Ham, near Kingston. We called him The Colonel and he had a
1937 Brough SS80 and sidecar which Brian bought after breaking his Adler. The Brough was brush painted and scruffy and Brian called it his “Rough Inferior”. It did okay though, until he decided to emigrate to Greece. We had a magnificent long party and saw his slightly dazed presence off on the Monday. So sad, we wouldn’t see him again… until he appeared at Dave’s place a week or so later. Sans Brough, of course. “Got to Southampton. Missed the boat,” he told us. He never did go.
During the hot summer of 1963, Dave of the Square Four and two others decided to go on a West Country holiday. Dave had a shotgun and said that they were going to live off the land. And off they set. This was a legend in the making – three scruffy oily Rockers piloting a dilapidated smoky Ariel, chugging off towards Kew Bridge lugging a ratty child/adult sidecar which resembled a misaligned hen coop. We were so impressed. That was until my phone rang late that night. “We’re in Sunningdale. Broke down”. On arrival the next morning the crew were found, having slept in the garden of a kindly bungalow owner. The shotgun was nowhere to be seen, so that was probably okay. The bike wasn’t fixable at the roadside so we decided to use the G9 to tow it back to Chiswick. There was no motorway then and it was about 25 miles away.
Square Four, sidecar, three blokes plus gear, towed by a nine-and-ahalf stone teenager on a G9... It took a while. The G9 clutch smoked and smelled awful and the crew had to get off and push on the hills, but we made it eventually. Oh, and the shotgun did work. A bit later Dave tested it by firing at the internal wall in his parents’ council flat. There was smoke and rubble everywhere.
A typical rider!
Dave had a brother called Albert. One sunny weekend we decided to join a Rights of Way run in Wiltshire organised by Ralph Venables. Albert had only got the bike a week or so before the event; however, he had removed many parts and given them to his dad to be plated. They came back looking smashing – except that the old man hadn’t said that he only did tin plating. It looked really glittery for about a week.
We set off on the trip and had a great day, watching Albert failing to brake, using a minute gap to pass inside a Royal Blue coach before shortly afterward stuffing the bike into a giant sandy hillock. He emerged with a massive grin but had severely reduced the rake of the front forks. He said it improved the handling.
To our surprise the next issue of The Motor Cycle featured Albert and his bike on the front cover. The caption read ‘A typical rider on the recent Rights of Way run’. Clearly nobody had told the author about Albert’s lack of MoT certificate, tax, insurance – oh, and driving licence. Or maybe that was typical back then. It had also been his first trip on a motorcycle. We thought he did pretty well even though we never saw him ride again after that.
There was a posh friend called Christopher. He did intelligent things and probably never considered himself a Rocker. He was an area organiser for the VES (Volunteer Emergency Service) which used motorcyclists for emergency blood deliveries between hospitals. I joined as organiser of the Hounslow area. Licensed speeding! I never actually got called out, though.
Christopher also roped me into going on the Rossendale Enduro. We used his Matchless G80 which had just been rebored. Under the weight of two, plus a bit of camping stuff, it would regularly seize during the trip and we got really good at whipping in the clutch when the motor slowed. Predictably it rained. Wow, did it rain! Pulling off the shiny new M1 at Toddington we couldn’t stop the waterlogged horn sounding – until the battery went flat. That was when we found that the dynamo wasn’t working, either. No worries, off we went on our adventure.
We did sign in at the start of the rally but thereafter it was all a blur. We ran over our map light at the start but there were no electrics anyway. It was Saturday night, dark and still wet. With no lights we waited in a small dip to follow the next bike along. As it approached, Christopher dumped the clutch and we roared off as fast as a 1951 G80 could go – behind an almost brand-new wellridden 650cc Triumph Trophy. After about 200 yards, he was gone. So, into the gloom we continued. That first night we slept in a barn and in the morning my camera was missing. Christopher explained: “I used yours because it’s cheaper than mine and I threw it at a rat.” Thanks, mate.
The second night we were refused accommodation in Wetherby police station but directed to a lorry drivers’ guest house close by. It was heaven! Straw mattresses in a top floor attic with a broken window and a massive breakfast the next morning. It was all we could afford, anyway. The chain broke on the moors somewhere not far from Leeds. Christopher stripped off (almost) and set off into the mist, running for help. Then I noticed an old wire staple on a fallen down fence which was a perfect replacement for the missing split link. I bashed the ends down with a rock and set off with all our gear piled on the tank, although the staple went ‘chink’ every time it passed the chainguard.
A few miles later, there Christopher was, still running. Together we rode the bike into Leeds where the staple finally wore through and the RAC eventually found a link for the chain to get us mobile again. The rally? Dunno. Must have ended by now…
Still with no lights we followed a lorry along the old A1 toward London until the driver stopped and warned us off. “Too dangerous,” he said, directing us to where a steam-hauled milk train was due at 04.30. And so it was, in the nice warm guards van, equipped with condensed milk coffee by the super kind guard, we were taken in blissful dry warmth all the way to Kings Cross.
With Christopher again, we entered the Everyman Rally, both on Matchlesses, he on his G80 and me on the G9. It was another fiasco but at least there was no more rain. Already lost during the first evening we were in company with equally lost others, an Ariel Square Four combo piloted by a nice gent plus his family, and two guys on a
250cc Norman.
Looking for somewhere to spend the night we came across a church in a wood. Approaching through waist-high grass in the graveyard and looking up at the moonlit façade, it was the one and only time in my life my hair actually stood on end. Terrified but not wanting it to show, I turned to suggest that we went somewhere else, just in time to see Christopher’s backside bounce in the air as he vaulted over the gate into the adjacent lane. They’d all beaten a retreat and left me to it.
We slept in a wood that night and never did mention that weird experience.
When my family moved to Hounslow, contact with the Chiswick/Ace lot was mostly lost. However, I did visit my good friends ex-cop Bill and Pam in Chiswick every Saturday night for a great dinner. It was always a bit alcoholic, so, at the end of the evening, Bill would push the bike and shout “Now!” whereupon the clutch was dropped, the bike fired up and shot off into the dark. Feeling totally sober within a few hundred yards, the next landmark was Brentford police station. The aim was to pass it flat out.
Never mind the traffic lights or 30mph speed limit, this was around 2am on Sunday morning and who was going to be around anyway?
Each time I rode past I would have a quick squint at the partially whitewashed police station windows – until the night when I was amazed to see a row of brown-gloved hands behind the glass doing synchronised waving. A subtle police way of letting me know they had their eye on me? I did tone it down a bit after that.
Many years later, maybe 2008, in the Shore pub in Laxey on the Isle of Man, another ex-police friend, Roly, was talking to some elderly local regulars. One had been a PC and, as we chatted it, turned out that he had been posted to Brentford police station a few months after the hand waving episode and had heard the story. The icing on the cake would have been to meet one of the cops who was actually there!