From Bantam boy to Speed Twin tearaway: part 5
The final part of Peter Jenkins’ memoir brings us up to date, but does he still have the Speed Twin? Read on to find out!
As I said last month, we have enjoyed the TOMCC’s yearly Landmark Rally, but one of the first long trips we did started badly with heavy rain on the M60, followed by a rear wheel puncture on the M61. We had to be recovered to our home, where I fixed the puncture, and we set off again the next day. The route took us over the Hardnott Pass in the Lake District which was quite exciting as it was still raining (August again!) and with poor visibility in low cloud most of the time. With misted-up goggles and with having to keep the revs up in first gear to avoid stalling on the really steep bits, we were lucky to stay on the tarmac round some of the hairpin bends. We stayed in a nice hotel in St Bees and soaked in the bath and drank tea to warm up while we tried to get off the black which the rain had soaked out of our leathers and on to our skin. Sometimes you wonder why you ride a bike!
Happy landmark trips
We particularly enjoyed visiting landmarks in the North East, often with friends and their wives who had modern bikes – or, as I called them, my back-up team. We had two happy beery nights in Seahouses and visited Lindesfarne over the causeway, which caused my friends to worry about the salt rotting their bikes. Also in Northumberland, the engine cut out while on a level crossing on the East Coast mainline and a friend had to push me off it quickly. The fault was traced to a dodgy fuse.
Three of us boys without our wives stayed in a town centre pub in South Shields one Saturday night. The bar was packed and one mate got trapped at the bar talking to a huge local lad for an hour or so. We asked him later what they’d been talking about for so long – he said he hadn’t a clue, couldn’t understand a word he said! On another boys’ only trip in the Lake District, we had just started to tackle one of the narrow passes when we came up behind a camper van. Desperate to get past before we were stuck for miles, I pulled out to overtake without spotting the jogger coming down the hill towards us. He reacted pretty swiftly and jumped in the ditch, before shouting and gesticulating at me. My pals following behind nearly fell off laughing!
It was always a good idea to leave a safe space between the old Triumph (usually leading) and the modern bikes. Once while we were overtaking a line of cars on a two-lane road the engine cut out – cue swearing and frantic fumble to turn the fuel tap to reserve but luckily the engine picked up quickly!
Chris and I were riding through Nottingham on a landmark trip one day when the rear wheel slid all over the place as I pulled away from traffic lights. I looked down and saw that the petrol pipe had come off the tap and fuel was pouring over the hot engine and on to the road, causing the skid. I turned the tap off quick and I’m very glad to say that it didn’t set on fire, but it was one of our more worrying moments!
560 miles in one day
The longest distance I have ever ridden in a day was on a landmark trip on the old Thunderbird with the usual companions. We set off at 6am on a Sunday summer morning and were at the first clue in the Lake District before 8am; over the Hardnott Pass in glorious sunshine for once and then up the A74 into the Scottish borders. The last landmark was the Royal
Yacht Britannia at Leith, and we were on our way there on the A702 (I think) zapping along at about 65mph when my bike had a massive backfire, blowing oil, carbon and smoke over the two bikes following behind! After this spectacular ‘fart,’ it continued as if nothing had happened, but my friends weren’t amused by the oily deposits on them and their bikes. We got home tired but happy at about 9.30 after covering 560 miles.
The Thunderbird served us well for 15 years (with one good rebuild) and, except for the puncture, had always got us home. Eventually its reliability started to worry me; the engine would get very hot sometimes and it was no longer happy cruising at 65 or so with a passenger and luggage. The crunch came when it let us down on the way back from a weekend in Aberystwyth when the battery boiled due to overcharging. It finally gave up on the Northwich bypass, 20 miles from home, outside Roberts Bakery so we spent an hour or so watching the loaves going around the production line through their large display windows while waiting for recovery. The fault was soon fixed with a new Zener diode and a new battery, but we had decided to get a more reliable modern bike.
The old makes way for the new
We used the old Triumph as part payment for a lovely green and gold Bonneville T100 from Youles in Salford. It was a 2007 model with carburettors, not fuel injection and the styling was similar to that of the old Triumph – I just had to get used to the left-foot gear change/ right-foot brake (good job the front brake works so well on its own!). The Bonnie had only done 4000 miles in its first seven years of life but it’s averaged at least that every year since.
The modern Triumph has taken us on many memorable landmark trips. We even ventured to the south coast on a week’s holiday visiting places we’d never been before. Chris is good at finding interesting (and cheap!) places to stay; a sort of ‘new age’ motel near Cambridge, an eccentric B&B in Hastings with a large double bed in a small room, and, on the Isle of Wight, we stayed on a converted Second World War motor gun boat – still afloat but without its Merlin engines. We’d not visited the Isle of Wight previously, and we found it delightful, with oldfashioned seaside resorts, Osbourne House and a cold war rocket engine testing facility near the Needles. We called at the Sammy Miller museum (a long-held ambition), Glastonbury and Cheddar Gorge on our way back north.
Over the years, the landmarks rally has allowed us to visit many aviation sites of great interest to me, such as RAF Duxford, the Shuttleworth Collection, Coningsby, East Kirby and Elvington.
We’ve even managed to get 20 or so landmarks ticked off in the plague year of 2020 when the restrictions were relaxed during the summer. We had a great trip to lowland Scotland, collecting five landmarks and discovering new places. We stayed next to the Bannockburn battle site at Stirling for two nights and had our first taste of wonderful Arbroath ‘smokies.’ We saw the Falkirk Wheel – a modern engineering feat to rival the Victorian Anderton Boat Lift – and the majestic Kelpies. The return journey was via Coldstream and a night in Newcastle with some great roads.
Reliving our youth
The longest trip we have done on the Bonnie (so far) was to Italy in 2015, reliving the trip made in our youth 37 years before. We took the journey at a more leisurely pace, spending a week on the way there and back, with a relaxing week in between on the sunny Adriatic coast near Ravenna. An overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam gave us plenty of time to see Arnhem on the way to an Ibis hotel in central Cologne. Following a look round the cathedral in the morning, we left to follow the Rhine south via Bonn and Koblenz to Kaiserslautern, a warm and scenic trip. That night was spent in prison! Chris had found a hotel in an old jail, called Alcatraz predictably, and we spent the night in a cell with Chris in the top bunk and me in the bottom like Fletch and Godber in Porridge. No porridge for breakfast though!
We did our longest run of 362 miles on the following day, mainly on the autobahn. I thought I travelled fairly fast but some of the German drivers frightened me – I’d look in the mirror, think it was safe to pull out to overtake, and then a second later there was a BMW or Audi right behind me! We rested our ‘numb bums’ by taking the train to Salzburg and spent a wonderful day seeing the cultural sights (it was Corpus Christi and a bank holiday) and also soaking up the sounds and aromas of a classic car rally/race round the city centre. It was great to see a lot of famous British cars, Bentleys, MGs, Jaguars and Minis roaring past. Light relief was provided by a 1960s French police car with its distinctive siren reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau. A grand day out.
The next morning we visited Konigsee and were impressed to find lockers in the car park for motorcyclists to leave their gear; a great idea, I hope it catches on here. Then, it was over the Gross Glockner pass – very scenic but I was scandalised at having to pay 24.50 euros for the privilege! I also added to the cost with a 35 euro speeding ticket! We spent the night at a B&B run by a friendly young family and continued to the Adriatic via Slovenia on lovely roads and with coffee and petrol cheaper than Italy.
The self-catering flat we had booked (near the town of Comacchio) was as good as we had hoped and the site had a good-size swimming pool and lots of other amenities.
After a day or so relaxing by the pool and on the beach, we started to explore the area.
Eel be seeing you!
Comacchio is a pretty place with canals like Venice and excellent museums, one with a Roman boat and lots of artefacts, and one about the local eel industry, which led to me having eel for the first – and last! – time for my evening meal. We had a day exploring Ravenna (the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century) which was full of wonderful buildings and mosaics, and we clocked up another country by visiting San Marino one day, very ‘touristy’ but full of interest and eccentricities.
Remembering our failure to visit Florence on our trip to Rome all those years ago, we had booked a two-night stay in a city centre hotel. We had a lovely ride through the Apennines via Forli, but I’ve never got so hot and bothered as when I was looking for the hotel in Florence! One-way streets, pedestrian areas, 30C-plus temperatures and full bike gear conspired together to cause severe overheating. We abandoned the bike and walked to find the hotel in the end, and then had to find a parking garage for the bike. Once in the room, we stripped off and drank four cups of tea to cool down. Florence was worth the effort, though, with marvellous art and architecture and we really enjoyed it despite it being crowded with tourists like us.
And so we set off for home and to remind us of our destination it rained! We had a night near Lake Como and enjoyed the scenery in the mountains. We crossed the Alps via an amazing little pass and entered Switzerland at Splugen. We followed a bike with Australian plates over the pass, and chatting to them later, found that they had shipped the bike over from their homeland.
Riding through Switzerland was a little disconcerting, I hadn’t bought a motorway permit and there seemed to be police cars everywhere! We paid a brief visit to Liechtenstein (now we were ‘collecting’ countries, so even the smallest count!) and then into Germany.
We stayed in the picturesque medieval town of Lindau on an island in Lake Constance and travelled on through the Black Forest (excellent gateau!) to an overnight stay at a very posh truck stop in France near Strasbourg. They didn’t see many English people and were very friendly to ‘les deux Anglais’ with free red wine and snacks! The Moselle valley led us through Luxemburg (tick off another country!) and to a hotel in Liege for our last two nights. Knowing that it was the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo, we had arranged to meet friends who were beginning a touring holiday there and we were able to spend a long and interesting day wandering around the site and watching spectacular re-enactments which seemed to have as many fully equipped and uniformed participants as the original battle! We left quite late, got lost in the outskirts of Brussels and had to ride fast down the motorway to get back to Liege in time for a meal. Back to Rotterdam for another overnight crossing to Hull and then home after visiting 12 countries and clocking up just over 3000 miles.
Worldwide fame for the Speed Twin
During the years of the Speed Triple, Thunderbird and the Bonneville T100, my daily transport continued to be the 1963 Speed Twin. Over the decades, the bike had gained a certain level of fame or perhaps notoriety locally. Neighbours would use the exhaust sound as an alarm clock in the morning, and a few Poynton MCC members commented on the local Poynton online gossip site about the old bike with skinny tyres being ridden through the worst of the winter weather. One called it a ghost bike, possibly because I wore my oldest bike gear for work, including an open face helmet, goggles and an exarmy large pack made in 1942 to carry my sandwiches. (I’ve used just three of the 1937 webbing large packs through all my working life, they are incredibly hard-wearing).
An amazing example of the bike’s local fame came during a trip to Australia in 2003. Chris and I were sitting in a hotel bar in
Sydney when we spotted a couple that lived in Poynton and who we knew slightly. We had a few drinks together and I was staggered that they not only recognised the bike but could tell me the registration number as I overtook them in the traffic every morning! Speaking of Australia, we hired a Harley-Davidson for a couple of days while staying in Melbourne. We took it along the Great Ocean Road to the Apostles and inland to Ned Kelly country. It was good fun but I wasn’t impressed with the riding position and it vibrated as bad as an old Triumph. No oil leaks, though.
Apart from a few months after the skip incident, my riding style hasn’t changed much over the years. I’ve always been a little impatient; I’ve had many speeding tickets and I tend to treat roadworks traffic lights as only advisory if I can see it’s clear to go. A good instance of my not having grown up (what an idiot) happened a few years ago. On my way home from work, I overtook a line of traffic waiting at the main traffic lights in Poynton, now replaced with ‘magic’ roundabouts. There was no room to pass a pedestrian refuge on the left as a white van was next to it, so I went around the other side as nothing was coming. Through the lights and shortly afterwards, I noticed flashing blue lights behind me, I pulled to the nearside and waved it past thinking it can’t be after me, I’ve not done anything! The flashing blue light continued to follow me, so I stopped when I found a safe pull-in. Three policemen got out of the van, all with revolver holsters on their belts – oo-er! They gave me a telling-off about going round the pedestrian refuge on the wrong side and I didn’t argue with them!
A necessary modification
In 2017 I had to modify both bikes to accommodate a modification to me! My left leg was taken off below the knee as a result of problems arising from the accident in 1993. The new leg wouldn’t bend far enough back to use the existing left footrests, so on the old Triumph I fitted a new footrest off the front engine mounting and extended the rear brake pedal so that I can operate it with my heel. On the Bonnie, I fabricated a footrest mounting off the frame downtubes and extended the gear change linkage using new parts as fitted to the Bonneville ‘America.’ I am pleased with the neat job and it has done many miles since. A quick technical note about prosthetic legs; as the stump shrinks over the first few years, new sockets are manufactured to fit and the permanent one I have now is fixed to the stump sleeve with a notched rod/pawl arrangement. I picked up a new socket/leg one morning and then returned to work. Leaving work that evening on the Bonneville T100, I found it wouldn’t change up into second gear. I tried again and my new leg fell off in the road! I managed to stay upright, got the bike on its side stand and hopped back to pick up the leg. The notched rod had come unscrewed so it was easily fixed and secured with Loctite when I got home. It must have looked quite impressive to any spectators!
I have no idea how many miles the old
Speed Twin has done, but it must be a lot since it started life as a police bike and it has been used almost continually since. Modern replacement speedos don’t last long – 30,000 miles or so – and I lost one when the bracket snapped due to vibration! The bike has been repaired and rebuilt so many times it is now like ‘Trigger’s broom’! Chris and I have always ridden motorbikes and they have played a big part in our lives. We’ve met some lovely people and found great kindness from both friends and strangers. Every journey can be enjoyable, even just going to work; give me a dry country road with no traffic and I can’t help grinning. We’re both looking forward to another long European trip before we get too old and decrepit.
It was never my intention, but, as the years went by and I continued to use the Speed Twin nearly every day, it gradually became a matter of principle to use it until we could both retire. A conceit perhaps, but worthwhile when we both finished work in June 2020. No more cold, dark and wet mornings with the bike getting covered in salt and mud, the Speed Twin is now having its final rebuild and it will go out only on sunny days in the future!
There is no sport on this earth that is like drag racing and sprinting motorcycles down the quarter mile takes that thrill a step further. But the true glory days of two-wheeled drag racing were back in the 1960s. This bike was right there. Blue picks up the story with photos by Michael Lichter.
Back in the 1960s motorcycle drag racing was something of a fledgling sport. Yes, since someone bought the second-ever motorcycle, there were races to be had, but, while circuit motorcycle racing thrived in the first part of the 20th century, drag racing on a purpose-built quarter mile strip was the province of cars. However, in the 1950s and 60s, as a wider range of models became available, there was a growing swell of riders keen to see just how fast they could go on a bike, whether stock or modified. The drag racing community gradually began to accept bikes and the
1960s ushered in a new generation of drag bikes. It was a time before sponsorship, before big money, when experimentation was king, a time of the likes of EJ Potter, the ‘Michigan Madman’ on his V8 Chevy-powered machines and Clem Johnson and his Barn Job Vincent, the first drag bike to go 150mph and the first to break the 10-second barrier. It truly was a golden era.
One of those drag bikes which would electrify audiences in both America and Great Britain was this double-engined Triumph, ‘Stage Fright.’ In the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Triumph dominated drag racing, although just one engine was the norm! In 1958, aerospace engineer Max Kelly (who would later work with Carroll Shelby on the Ford GT40 project, as well as being crew chief for the winning 1966 Ford GT at Le Mans) built this bike as a supercharged, double-engined gasser.
Although Max raced the double-engined bike, running low tens and speeds of 140mph according to a feature on the bike in Hot Rod magazine in November 1959, he doesn’t seem to have kept it for long in favour of his next drag bike, a Vincent Black Shadow called ‘White Lightning’; despite not having been raced for more than 50 years, White Lightning still exists and was sold at auction six years ago for just over £63,000.
After removing the two engines, Max sold the bike to Agnew ‘Scotty’ Scott in Los Angeles for $50. Scott shortened the frame, making it handle better he said, and fitted two pre-unit Triumph engines, a T120 at the front and a T110 behind it, which were connected with Ariel Square Four timing gears. The supercharger was forsaken in favour of four Amal GP carburettors and the forks replaced with a pair originally fitted to a Triumph Tiger Cub. A Harley primary chain was partnered with a Triumph clutch to which extra teeth were welded. The gearbox ran a single gear, the power and torque in the motors meaning that it could cope with only having fourth gear.
The Triumph was also one of the first – if not the very first – drag bikes to have an aluminium frame. That chassis was drilled to lose even more weight and, without the rider, the whole bike weighed in at around 320lb.
Now, although Scotty was a pretty good rider and had ridden drag bikes, he never rode the Triumph, admitting that it scared him. Instead, that honour went to Priness Perry. Perhaps the most unusual thing about this pairing was not the double-engined bike, but that both Scotty and Priness were African-American (or ‘gentlemen of colour’ as Cycle World put it in 1967) at a time when that was almost unheard of in racing circles. But, once the Triumph was fired up, none of that mattered.
All that anyone was interested in was what a performance the Triumph would turn.
That wasn’t always guaranteed. The drag bike acquired its name of Stage Fright partly because virtually every drag bike of the time had a name – Dick Rios’ ‘Two Timer,’ Bud Hare’s ‘Dübble Trübble’ (the very first dual-engined drag bike), Sid Biberman’s ‘The Rattler,’ Tommy Grazias and John Melmizuk’s
‘The Parasite,’ to name a few contemporaries – but primarily because the Triumph had a habit of quite literally developing stage fright! As a magazine of the time reported: ‘When the bike runs, it runs strong, but unfortunately something always seems to happen at the crucial moment … Both Perry and Scotty are real enthusiasts and a lesser man would have thrown in the towel a long time ago.’
But when Stage Fright ran well, it really ran well. In 1965, along with a number of other racers, Scotty and Priness took the Triumph to race in the second International Dragfest in England, held by Drag Festivals Ltd and the British Drag Racing Association. Curiously, when he raced in the UK, Priness was called Lawrence Perry (Lawrence was his middle name). The American organiser of the trip, Lynn Wineland, thought that the British would find the name ‘Priness’ a bit strange and so had renamed the rider Lawrence!
The trip was a mixed success for the pair. The first race meeting at Blackbushe was a washout
(the financial losses would lead to Drag Festivals Ltd going into liquidation and the demise of the International Dragfest), but the following week saw better conditions at RAF Woodvale in Lancashire. With Stage Fright running well, Perry made the fastest terminal speed of 150mph, the fastest time ever recorded on a British drag strip. However, he was disqualified for being late on the line for his semi-final run-off with Alf Hagon and was understandably upset. However, Stage Fright would go on to run a time of 9.70 seconds and a speed of 151mph, making it then the quickest drag bike in the world. However, it wasn’t as quick as some people thought! On his way to a drag meet in Fontana, Perry and his friends heard a radio advert on a coffee shop radio. The announcer exclaimed, ‘See Scott and Perry’s Stage Fright run 170mph!’ Having never been over 150, Perry said to his friends, “I wonder who Scotty has riding the bike tonight? I’m sure as hell not running 170 on that thing!”
While when it was quick it was very, very quick, the constant litany of problems suffered by
Stage Fright were a constant source of frustration. The frame was prone to cracking and was repaired on a number of occasions. Then, in around 1967, they blew the engines up. Whether it was due to lack of finances or enthusiasm, that was the end of Stage Fright’s racing career. For the next 40 or so years, it disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving only a few photos and memories behind.
But this wasn’t the curtain call for Stage Fright. The bike had been taken to a motorcycle shop and then ended up at Scotty’s nephew’s house where it was parked in the back yard for years. Enter now one John Stein, a man for whom drag racing is a passion and who began collecting drag bikes around 25 years ago. (If you have the slightest interest in the sport, get hold of a copy of his fabulous book, Motorcycle
Drag Racing: A History.) He was convinced that Stage Fright still existed and he spent years searching for it, trying to track down Scotty or Priness (who died in November last year). Finally, Denis Manning of the exhaust firm BUB Enterprises and builder of several Bonneville land speed record bikes put him in touch with Scotty, who was now in his eighties and looking for a home for Stage Fright.
The years had taken something of a toll on the legendary drag bike, so John enlisted the help of Wes White of Four Aces Cycles in Pacoima, California, who restored the machine (and yes, had to weld up the frame), even down to finding a period Olympia beer can to act as an oil catch can, just as was fitted back in the day.
When it was finished, Scotty – who had become good friends with John and would remain so until his death in 2014 at the age of 91 – finally got to sit on the Triumph, commenting that he had no idea how Priness ever rode it! Now, when it’s not on display in exhibitions or at museums, Stage Fright can be found parked in John Stein’s living room where he says: “I’m always happy to look up at it and think how special and how wonderful it is.”
From his own private collection, Gypsy John has sent us some more pictures [Pic.1] of his old boys’ books (that’s old books for boys, not books for boys who are old, although they probably are both these days!), all of which feature sidecars. The Tiger annual at the bottom of the picture dates from 1960 and unusually covers the front and back. The Hobby annual appears to be of a scrambles while The Jolly Book uses lovely soft covers and John says it’s likely to have been published in the 1920s. He hopes you all will enjoy them as much as he does and I think we can say a resounding yes to that!
Mr W Pritchett has written in concerning the BSA Gold Star seen in Feedback in OBM440 [Pic.2]. Andrew Claridge had contacted us for help in tracking down his dad’s old BSA 350 Gold Star, registration NMW 651. Mr Pritchett believes that the Goldie is in a private collection on the Isle of Wight. He adds that he knew the three previous Isle of Wight owners, so it has been on the island for some time. Quite rightly, Mr Pritchett doesn’t want to disclose further details but suggests that Andrew sends a letter for publication in the Isle of Wight County Press which might bring forth more information.
Meanwhile, Mr Pritchett is also himself on the trail of a photograph of a 1959 BSA Gold Star 500 with the registration number 423 GKJ. He sold this motorcycle in 1964 and unfortunately lost the only photo he had of it when he moved house and would very much like another. The Gold Star is currently on SORN so it is out there somewhere…
This handsome young man [Pic.3] is Mick Skeates’ dad, Robert, on his much loved 1925 two-speed Scott. The photo was taken somewhere in Surrey in the mid-1930s (we believe the XY 3788 registration would have been issued in London). Mick would be interested if any readers remember him or the bike, from any period. Robert also had a brother, John (known as Jack) and he had a slightly later three-speed machine – both gentlemen were great Scott fans.
Now here’s a rather interesting one. While at a car boot sale, Paul Whitton came across this crankshaft [Pic.4] which was marked up as being a Wooler. Paul was sufficiently intrigued to buy it but since then has been unable to find anything out about its origins. He says: “I could understand someone putting a label on it saying it might be a vintage bike crank, but to say specifically Wooler?” He would like to know if any reader might recognise it; the big ends and mains are all 13/8-inch diameter and it has six 5/16-inch
BSF tapped holes in the end while the big end journals are quite wide for the size of crank. Any ideas, folks?
Trevor Durrant asks if anyone could identify this bike for him [Pic.5]. The photo was taken on an unknown date in Watford, Hertfordshire, and he adds that the young lady in the picture was born in 1934. Now, we know better than to try and guess a lady’s age – that way lies madness! – but we reckon the photo probably dates from around 1946-1950.
John Runnacles has solved another mystery for us – and also left us a little red-faced at the same time! In OBM442, Gary Morgan asked for information on a photo which featured his great-grandfather and a friend. John pointed us towards John F Bridges’ excellent book, ‘Early Country Motoring’ [Pic.6] which not only has this very photo, but the added information that Gary’s great-grandfather, Bill Driver, was on a 1926 3.5hp Triumph, while his friend, Bert Pryke, was astride a 1923 Villiers two-stroke Carfield ‘Baby’. Both men were from Bramfield in Suffolk (the Triumph was registered in East Suffolk and the Carfield in Ipswich) and, while the fate of the Carfield is unknown, the Triumph was lost in a fire in 1930. Why are we red-faced? Because Mr Bridges’ book is one of our favourites on the OBM Shed bookshelf – it really is a wonderful account of motoring in Suffolk from 1896-1940 – and we failed to spot the picture!
William Shortall sent us some photos of his friend Geoff Tattersall’s 1959 Triumph T110, registration number 691 XVP, which Geoff recently finished [Pic.7, Pic.8]. It has, he tells us, a Norton crank, four plug heads and was built from parts. But does anyone know of this particular bike’s origins?
Chris Hawkings is trying to track down any information on this Harley-Davidson sidecar outfit
[Pic.9] which belonged to his friend’s grandparents. The Harley was registered in 1921 as FB 2487 and sold by the family in the Bath area in the 1980s. It appears to have last had a change of logbook in April 2012. Can anyone identify the model (we believe it’s a JD) and do any of you know if it’s still on the road?
Chris Doyle wonders if anyone knows the whereabouts of GLM 514C, his AJS 250 CSR 14 Sapphire
[Pic.10] which he owned in 1966-1967.
Finally, we have had a lovely email from Sandra Bargery to confirm that yes, as Sandra Lord, she was the young lady on the left of the OBM440 cover picture
[Pic.11]. Sandra was a member of the Isle of Man Scooter Club and was herself crowned Scooter Queen for her performance in the 1963 Manx 400.
Like us at the OBM Shed, many of you may find that you’re always short of storage space (and it is a truth that you will always expand to fit a given space, no matter how big – and if you’re like us, overflow it!). One helpful solution, Sealey’s Multipurpose Storage Hook Kits, can be fitted almost anywhere to give you extra space, and tuck away those things that you’re always falling over – like, for instance, brooms.
The kits are powder coated to prevent oxidisation, PVC wrapped to avoid damage to tools and equipment, and are very easy to install and relocate. Each of the hooks can hold up to 20kg and the overall maximum load on a single 610mm hook rail is a huge 110kg. The kits are available in either a four-piece (as seen here) or the large 10-piece version. The four-piece kit contains a wall mountable hook rail with predrilled mounting holes, three multipurpose hooks consisting of a dual utility hook, double prong hook and a large J hook, while the 10-piece kit contains three wall mountable hook rails and seven multipurpose hooks consisting of double S hook, two single hooks, two double prong hooks and two large J hooks.
Both can be found in the Sealey catalogue at www.sealey.co.uk or at the many Sealey stockists nationwide. We’re just pleased that we now have a way to stop George the Classic Labrador from running off with the shed broom!