OLLIE’S ODDJOBS
Once upon a time, cyclemotors were a stepping-stone from pedal-power to motorcycles. Maybe they will be again…
Once upon a time, cyclemotors were a stepping-stone from pedal-power to motorcycles. Maybe they will be again…
‘ I clocked it at 23mph on one of those speed indicator signs. It wasn’t much fun though.’
Joe wheeled the 1950s Cyclemaster that’s his regular transport into the sunlight. I’d been told about Joe by my mate Nelson. ‘You need to go and see him. He’s got all these mopeds and Cyclemasters and stuff. He’s only 22.’
Joe had indeed got a collection of mopeds and stuff. A couple of Raleigh Runabouts, including an exotic and sought-after RM9, with front suspension, two-speed gearbox, drum brakes and proper lights. Joe’s RM4 Runabout had never been out of the parish since it was bought new in 1967. His collection includes a D1 BSA Bantam, 1970s vintage Honda C70, and several old bicycles.
‘I like restoring stationary engines too,’ said Joe, and then waved vaguely at a Morris Minor and a 1976 Ford tractor. ‘That’s the newest vehicle we’ve got on the farm,’ he said, with not a little pride.
The Cyclemaster, for those few that don’t know, is a 32cc two-stroke engine with a petrol tank, clutch, and reverse pedal brake, all built into a hub and attached to a 26-inch bicycle wheel with a slightly wider profile tyre. They were designed by a team from the old German DKW factory who were sent to Holland to help rebuild the Dutch economy in 1948 and were then sold in Britain by Cyclemaster who asked EMI in Coventry to make them.
You could slap a Cyclemaster into pretty much any conventional bicycle frame, as long as you bent it a bit to make it fit. And because it wasn’t a complete vehicle, and thus luxury goods, you didn’t pay purchase tax on it. It’s got a clutch of sorts that is operated on the left-hand bar with a lock on it. This sophisticated bit of equipment means that you could keep it ticking over if you rolled to a halt. Setting it up is a bit of a challenge, as engine, wheel bearings and clutch need to be set up together to the correct tolerances and manipulating a tiny stub on the end of the axle is part of that.
With chains whirring around inside and a Wico-pacy magneto, it looks like the kind of machinery that will take the skin off your knuckles if you mess with it. Parts are surprisingly easy to find, according to Joe. The carb is an Amal, as used on lawnmowers for decades. You tickle it and pedal away to start it. There’s a flap that operates as a choke. Or you can just put your hand over the inlet to restrict airflow until it warms up.
That auxiliary petrol tank on the bike’s top tube isn’t connected up. Joe says the previous owner fitted it because he always fancied a flat-tanker but could never find or afford one. The ‘back pedal brake’ was introduced by Cyclemaster after it was found that a copious amount of oil could spew from the engine and the exhaust and would plaster the rear rim, making the idea of the bicycle rod brake actually slowing you down a purely theoretical concept.
Joe’s dad comes over to ask if he can use a Runabout to go and feed the chickens, and burbles off across the yard, as Joe introduces
me to the Power Pak. This is a different bit of post-war engineering. The Power Pak is a 49cc engine that is mounted above the cycle’s rear wheel. You cut a slot in the rear mudguard, and a rubber wheel connects with the tyre through the slot you have cut, driving you along. As long as it doesn’t rain.
The engine was on the right-hand side with the cylinder pointing downwards and the cast alloy body of the Power Pak was clamped onto rubber sleeves around the seat stays of the Rudge bicycle’s frame. There were several different designs of clamping plates to fit different sizes of bicycle. A stay from the bicycle’s rear axle was secured to the rear of the Power Pak via a rubber bush. A lever on the left moves the engine up and down. This meant you could simply pedal the bike without the engine doing anything, or drive the rear wheel, or, in an emergency, drive the bike with a flat tyre on the Emergency
Notch. Of course, if it rained the wheel would slip all the time and many riders would use the Emergency Notch to increase pressure, which would cause the engine bearings to disintegrate.
It doesn’t have a clutch, so if you need to come to a halt you have to use a decompressor to stop the engine and then pedal start it again to get moving. That beautifully sculpted petrol tank looks like that for entirely practical reasons. The bit at the back holds the reserve, and you just lift the back wheel of the cycle off the ground with its special handle and slosh the petrol over into the main part. Apart from the fact that you can’t use it effectively in the wet, the Power Pak is the more elegant bit of machinery, with big chunks of moderately well-cast alloy and machined stuff on it. I particularly like the exhaust, which has the air of something Dan Dare would use to dispatch one of The Mekon’s Treens.
Joe prefers the Cyclemaster as the Power Pak has those ‘can’t use it in the wet issues’, and is a bit top heavy. It does have a major advantage over the Cyclemaster, which is that if it conks out you can simply lift the drive wheel off the tyre and pedal it home. You can also use the Sturmey Archer bicycle gearing on it. You can still pedal the Cyclemaster, but it’s a bit more of a challenge.
It is faintly astonishing to think they made
100,000s of these little power units, and even more that people used to ride the machines bearing them around on wet cobblestones and tram-lined high streets without being crushed by a Standard 8 and bleeding horribly into a gutter. These machines were eventually killed off when the taxman decided that Purchase Tax should be paid on them at a whopping 33⅝ percent, making them much less desirable.
Back in the 1950s an intrepid Power Pak owner, Peter Lee-warner, took a Power Pak and rode it to Australia. Having got there he decided to carry on, riding it around the world, crossing the USA and getting back home again. A journey of 15,501 miles (not counting air freight and boats) that took six months. So far Joe’s Cyclemaster has only managed a journey of 20 miles under his custodianship.
He says: ‘I won’t ride it further than I can pedal it back…’