THIS TOO WILL PASS

Members’ Enclosure was interesting and very relevant (to me) this month. Since I took early retirement some years ago, my motorcycling has taken two dimensions. One was to sell my Commando, which I’d had for 20 happy years and used to travel all over Europe and the UK, and to buy a modern replacement – a 955i Hinckley Triumph Tiger. The other was to embark on a programme of buying and rebuilding a series of those bikes which I’d never had but always quite fancied.

The first dimension progressed, via a V-Strom 650, Honda SLR 650 and Honda 400 Super Four to a 1982 Moto Guzzi V50. A model which, oddly enough, I’d owned and enjoyed in the 1980s. Although 35 years old and classed by many as a ‘classic’, this is my ‘modern’ bike. There is a theme here – as I get older, bikes seem to become taller and heavier, so I have progressively moved down the weight and height parameters. And I’m most unlikely to take on any more of the 2000 miles in a week tours I once did.

The other dimension started with a Velo Viper (uprated to a Venom) which I had to have as I live in Hall Green. It then continued with a BSA A10, Matchless G80, Triumph 5TA, the 1931 Sunbeam recently featured in RC and currently an Ariel Arrow (which has proved a far nicer bike than I feared). But I always had a yen to return to the early post-war Norton singles with which I really started my riding in the early 1970s, so a 1952 ES2 has now joined my now rather crowded garage.

Hopefully the Arrow will find a new owner before long. The Norton, which is exactly the model I was looking for, with plunger rear end and lay-down gearbox, is very complete but needs a fair amount of fettling.

I feel as though the Guzzi and Norton will satisfy my motorcycling and tinkering needs for some time to come. It has been a delight to fish out the Edgar Franks Norton book (a Christmas present in the year of my birth to my father) as well as the other literature I still have, to re-acquaint myself with the bikes and rejoin the NOC.

Oddly enough, my very young self spent many hours in a child/adult sidecar attached to a pre-war Model 19, as seen here. So maybe the beat of the Bracebridge Street cylinder impressed itself on my early brain…

Thanks for an always interesting mag.