Big bore Cub
Thank you for a great article on Ernie Hall (August 2021) and his career and his friendship with Graham Bailey especially, as I have a link to both.
In 1971, when I was racing a formula Tiger Cub in the BFRC, and was told by John Milligan (who ran the club) that Graham Bailey had a 239cc Tiger Cub for sale, I contacted Graham and agreed a price of £50. When I went to collect it, he told me the barrel had been brought from the USA as a keepsake by John Surtees (the barrels were used on the indoor short tracks by the likes of Gary Nixon, I found out years after they were called Texas barrels).
Graham said that the engine had been built for him by Ernie Hall and often wonder if he remembers building it as it was a one-off over here at the time. It was the smoothest Cub I ever rode. I used it in 250cc races, but the highest I got was ninth at a Stars of Tomorrow meeting at Brands. When I picked the Cub up from Graham’s, he was working on the Dunstall Kawasaki that was mentioned in the article and I was at the TT when he got the 10th place in the Senior.
I bought a 250cc Ducati for the 1974 season and sold the Cub on to Chris Hopes, who in turn sold it after two seasons and then it was apparently blown up in a big way so the engine is no longer in existence, which is a shame. I did see the rest of the bike in the 1990s at a Cadwell meeting, with a standard Cub engine, and there is a bike on Pinterest which has an alloy tank and seat very similar to the subsequent ones I made – would love to know if it is. The picture is with the first tank and seat I made for it and Ducati forks with Campagnolo twin discs, which I added.
It’s great to see Ernie active and well at 90.
All the best and keep up the good work with interesting articles. Ian Gittins, via email.