Micky Sparra and his Ariel Arra
We must apologise to Mike Woodley because we have had his wonderful tale of his life with motorcycles for far too long. But we are now delighted to bring you the first half of reminiscences with which we’re sure many of you will empathise.
Motorcycles for me started with a ride down a garden path after school in 1960 (I think) on what I was told was called a Cyclemaster, basically a push bike with an engine in the back wheel.
It was to be my first time piloting a motorised two-wheel ride and ended in disaster with the bike and this then 11-yearold ending up in a heap on the ground after hitting the garden fence. Fortunately, there was no damage to my friend’s dad’s bike, the fence or myself and it only had a slightly negative effect (I suppose understandably) on the friendship. But, as so often happens, the motorcycle bug had bitten and 61 years later I’m still riding, having only had a break as I reached my early
20s of three or four years of not owning a motorcycle in that time.
My first bike was a 98cc Excelsior with two-speed handlebarmounted gear change. From memory the gear lever resembled an advance/retire or choke lever and I’ve no idea what year the bike was. I think I’d probably just turned 14 and I purchased it with money saved from my paper round. Importantly, my mum never ever knew I actually owned a motorbike as it was kept in a friend’s dad’s shed on an estate about half a mile from the council flat where we lived in Woodford. Conveniently that was about the same distance I’d had to push it to and from the River Roding because what riding skills I was gaining originated from lessons learned riding on the river bank, along footpaths leading to allotments and across rough ground.
Eventually, as ability and skill increased, I’d ride across the back field of the estate, across the fields either side of Broadmead Road into Clark’s garage via the footpath and get petrol, a shot of two-stroke and then cross Chigwell Road on to a footbridge over the Roding to the river bank as and when I had the two shillings and sixpence needed.
The legal risks were never really considered and the buzz I got back in the day is remembered with thoughts of “Don't knock it till you’ve tried it.” As reckless and irresponsible as it probably sounds, no harm was ever done and I loved every minute. Should my two grandsons, aged eight and 10, be allowed by their mum to ride, I’d find them a couple of suitable mini bikes and repeat those off-road exploits as a spectator along with my son Daniel (well, initially anyway!).
The Golden Arrow enters my life
Eventually I got my first road bike on my 16th birthday, an Ariel Golden Arrow (or
Super Sport) which was purchased from Don Smith Motorcycles. It had the registration number 9952 MY and I still have one of the front reg plates fixed above my bike shed door. For a short while I ended up being called ‘Micky Sparra and his Ariel
Arra’ and the Arrow got progressively modified with an aluminium front mudguard and the registration plate mounted over the headlamp.
I fitted it with supposedly high compression cylinder heads that were given to me with the front mudguard. In my mind it made it faster as it now did 65 mph, three miles per hour more than the usual 62 on the flat. I'd never considered the accuracy of a speedometer and obviously chose to believe whatever the highest figure the needle reached sometimes believing it to be showing a bit slow. In reality, with modern sat navs, it would be interesting to compare indicated mph recorded to the actual speeds I travelled at.
Once a week I attended evening classes at Tottenham Tech’s annexe in Bull Lane just off the A406 North Circular and the engineering lecturer supposedly educating us had an interest in motorcycles, usually spending his coffee break chatting with us apprentices who had bikes. Obviously, I proudly announced my ‘self-inflicted’ tuning mods and he then offered to do a little work over a couple of evening class sessions on my Arrow.
Although I and most of the other lads didn’t have a clue as to what he was about to do, I arrived, as instructed, about half an hour early for class. He told me to remove the carburettor complete with its gasket, remove the spark plugs and bring them all to him. We watched in awe as he carefully opened up the fibre inlet gasket, matching it to the bore diameter of the carburettor. Then, carefully examining the spark plugs, he cleaned them up and set the gaps. This was followed by inspecting and cleaning the brass jets in the carb and then, with myself and a couple of other lads who were just as mystified as me following him, it was out to the bike.
A bit of tuning
We watched him adjust the height of the needle on the throttle slide and loosely screw the spark plugs back before telling me to replace the slide back in the carburettor, being careful to only gently screw the top back on and refit the carb to the bike and, once done, I was to take off the metal points cover. When I’d done all that one of the lads went in and told him, and back at the bike he used the shank on a drill bit, putting it in a hole on the case at the points and gently turned the engine by the kick-start lever until the drill went in a little further and adjusted and set the points. After checking the carb screw top and nuts holding the carb on were secure, he tightened the spark plugs down, put the HT leads on, fitted the points cover case on, turned on the petrol tap and ignition and, after a couple of kicks, my Arrow started up sounding exactly the same to me as it always had.
Running the engine for a while and telling me it needed to warm up, he adjusted the carburettor and then instructed me to go for a short ride, making sure I was wearing my crash helmet. In reality I didn’t have a clue why he was doing what he did and certainly didn’t understand if the things he’d done would make my Arrow any faster but rode off anyway. Back then the A406 from the Angel Edmonton towards Walthamstow had far less traffic on it than now, especially around eight in the evening.
Once clear of what traffic there was, I was seeing close to 60 indicated while in third gear. Although I’d never felt my Arrow was slow I was thrilled. So it was back to the annexe to excitedly tell the lads
(or those that were interested) how fast my bike was now, hurriedly thank the lecturer and then impatiently wait for class time to finish with probably only one thought in my head.
The result of his work was my bike would now indicate 80-plus, even showing a little over 60 in third, with me feeling I could now ride with the big boys on their Triumphs,
BSAs and Nortons and talk about porting and such like, whatever that meant! Being naïve, I didn’t realise that the two-stroke twin Arrow/ Leader engine could be a far more capable unit powerwise than mine. I’d started going down to Ted’s Cafe; if you’ve not heard of it – and many will have – basically it was a transport cafe beside what is still known as Charlie Brown’s Roundabout. It was one of the local cafes around the Woodford area where many of the then bikers used to meet on rides out visiting the cafes. But to this young 16-year-old, out riding on his own, the bikes and leather-clad riders appeared quite intimidating, so initially I’d just pass the cafe, looking over at the ‘Ton Up Boys,’ and when feeling confident I’d ride in and out, stopping occasionally to look at their bikes. Eventually
I’d stop and go in to get a tea or a Mars bar or something and that soon became the norm and I’d get to chat to a couple of the less threatening-looking lads.
Challenged to a race
It’s strange how your mind and imagination works when you’re younger, but I suppose the hype displayed in the papers at the time (i.e., Teddy boys, rockers, greasers, etc) created that image. One particular evening saw me confidently pulling in on my ‘super fast tuned’ Arrow. I was aware of starting to feel a bit conspicuous as I parked up among the big bikes and, as I thought about leaving, a couple of leatherjacketed older lads came over and started asking about my tunedup Arrow. Eventually the conversation was steered towards a stripped-down, scruffy-looking Ariel Leader sporting expansion chambers, and then
I was challenged to a race. Subconsciously I imagined I was on the route to local stardom and, given the race was against that scruffy Ariel Leader, I confidently accepted, knowing I’d beat that easily.
It was agreed we’d race from Charlie Brown’s roundabout, up the Woodford Avenue to the Gants Hill roundabout and back, with the loser buying the winner and his mate coffee and bacon rolls. That route had the reputation of being one of the Ton Up Boys’ circuits and
I’d ridden it many times, knowing I could hit around 70mph on the slight uphill and over 80 on the way back down from the Beehive Lane turn-off. So, on the arranged signal to go, we rode out from the cafe and started up the Woodford Avenue with me slightly ahead. The guy on the Leader gradually came up really close beside me and shouted across: “What gear you in?” I shouted back: “Third gear,” knowing I still had a bit to go before changing up. He shouted back: “I’m in second,” then accelerated away with a loud crackle from the expansion chambers and, as I heard him change up, I felt as if I could get off and walk even though I was approaching an indicated 60mph.
On the return ride down the Woodford Avenue it went through my mind to go home and lick my wounds instead of going back to the cafe but I imagined having a gang of rockers out looking for ‘Micky Sparra and his Ariel Arra’ and decided I was better off going back to Ted’s Cafe and pretending I was a good loser, which I definitely wasn’t.
An IOU for a bacon roll
Pulling back into the cafe I could see the Ariel Leader parked with its rider obviously waiting for me to do the “how fast does that go” thing in front of the small assembled audience (well, that’s how it felt). But pride stepped in and, trying to look as big and cool as a 16-yearold could, I reluctantly said: “I’d better go and get the coffee and bacon rolls.” At the counter I virtually had to beg for a little credit, and the man who ran the cafe showed me the wooden copper stick (remember them?) which was his usual dry humour response to the “Do you have anything for a headache?” Armed with two coffees, two bacon rolls and the raffle ticket ‘IOU’ for ‘one bacon roll’ I reluctantly did what I regarded as the walk of a loser – which I was – to face the “not so fast as you think you are” ridicule which, to be fair was done in good humour, but it still hurt.
I never did find out who Ted of Ted’s Transport Cafe was, so I wonder if any OBM readers out there know?
NEXT MONTH: From then until the present day – with many bikes along the way!