Beasley Manxman mystery
Reading racing motorcycle history, I’ve found yet another annoying inconsistency. The copy states Doug Beasley competed in the 1948 IoM Lightweight TT riding a 250cc Excelsior Manxman with bore and stroke measurements of 68x68mm. Why this error, when Excelsior factory literature states the 246cc Manxman has bore and stroke dimensions of 63x70mm? Rog Downing, email and telephone.
Coventry engineer Doug Beasley (Douglas St Julian Beasley) was both gifted in the workshop and on the racetrack. He was arguably better known for his development of 250cc Velocettes, using much modified MOV or KTT bottom ends for track work and there are marked development similarities for both marques.
When Doug Beasley started the reengineering of his Manxman is unclear, but it had its finest moment at the 1948 Lightweight TT you mention Rog, when he finished third at 67.88mph behind the factory-developed Moto Guzzi of Maurice Cann (75.18mph) and the Pike Rudge of another brilliant engineer Roland Pike (71.86mph).
Although Beasley finished 23½minutes behind Cann, his third place was well earned, as his home-workshop-developed machine completed the distance in a tough race which saw only six of 25 starters make the chequered flag.
The history you read, Rog, is accurate. Indeed, the standard 250cc Manxman has dimension of 63x70mm but Doug made a new bottom end for his machine with revised flywheels to give a ‘square’ engine with a 68mm stroke which along with barrel revisions yielded a 68mm bore to give 247cc. And here the similarity with his work on the Velocettes appears.
Velocette was in 1951 the only British factory to build a 250cc dohc single cylinder engine with dimensions of 68x68.5mm (almost 249cc). At about the same time, Beasley – along with fellow racer Ron Mead – developed his own take on the Velocette engines with again modified crankshaft and modified cylinder head and barrel to suit again the almost-square dimension of 68x68.5mm. Ron Mead was a racer/ engineer who also developed his own machines, including a 250cc Velocette.
It is thought both Velcoette’s last 250cc racing engine and the Beasley/Mead examples were as a result of Ron Mead’s third place finish in the 1950 Lightweight TT aboard his own modified KTT, reduced to 250cc. Doug Beasley didn’t enjoy good health and when ‘forced’ to retire from racing he concentrated on building approximately 10-12 (ish) Beasley Velocettes – with his own frame and telescopic front forks – of which a handful survive and in period were raced with success by up and coming riders including Percy Tait and Bill Lomas.
Back to the Beasley Manxman – when first seen, the Beasley-revised engine was fitted in a swinging arm frame with BSA telescopic front fork and was raced like this until circa 1950, when the engine appeared in a light alloy duplex cradle frame built by Ernie Earles, a Birmingham specialist who was well known for his bespoke frame building in the period and his front fork designs. In this form the machine enjoyed little success, partly due to Doug’s soon apparent move to Velocette engine development.
Doug Beasley IoM TT career, all Lightweight class 1948 Beasley Excelsior third 1949 Beasley Excelsior retired 1950 Beasley Excelsior retired 1952 Beasley (Mead)
Velocette retired Ron Mead IoM TT career 1948 New Imperial, Lightweight, retired
1948 Norton, Junior, retired 1949 Mead-Norton (redeveloped to 250cc), Lightweight, retired
1950 Mead Velocette, Lightweight, third
1951 Beasley (Mead) Velocette, Lightweight retired
1952 Beasley (Mead) Velocette, Lightweight seventh
1952 Norton, Junior, 22nd
*As they knew each other well, it’s reasonable to suppose there was cooperation before the Beasley Velocettes were developed.
BMW enthusiast Steve Bauer of New York has contacted
TCM, via his friend and BMW Club DVLA officer Robert Freeman, with photos of a large, single-sided cast aluminium drum brake mounted to an Enfield hub. It measures just over 12½in across its extremes and the braking diameter of its sweated in steel brake band is just under 11in. Huge, when one considers many large capacity British roadsters fitted seven inch drum brakes to front and often rear wheels, and the BSA Gold Star and Triumph 8in brakes were considered big.
However, larger diameter front and sometimes rear brake drums appeared well before the Second World War, including the cast iron drum brakes fitted to a built up Rudge I used to own. And there were a number of specialist drum brakes sold as aftermarket items and often used by racers, special builders and fast road riders, including Tickle brakes made by John Tickle (1936-2000, Tickle Manx Nortons from takeover from AMC to 1973, many sporting/ racing motorcycle components including five and speed-speed gearbox, yachting components and the Tickle nose clip for swimmers), and Jim Robinson, who made a number of drum brake designs in the 1960s and early 1970s including from c1969/70 eight and 9in doublesided twin leading shoe front and eight inch rear brakes.
Yamaha manufactured 260mm (10.2in) leading shoe full width hub brakes for overthe-counter TD, TR and TZ models and even larger, more complex front drum brakes for factory racers. Italian makers Oldani and Ceriani regularly supplied in period 230mm (approximately 9in) twin leading shoe full width hub brakes, Daniele Fontana began making his specialised drum brakes in sizes up to 250mm (9.8in) from 1964 and Grimeca provided specialised racing brakes alongside their regular ranges.
However, I think your 10in front brake predates all of these and by its style was more likely to have been made in the 1950s or before the Second World War, perhaps in a small engineering/ race shop or by a bespoke home racing engineer.
One imagines patterns were made for the drum and brake plate, which, after casting, were machined to accept spokes, pivot, anchor and axle points to brake plate and a steel band was sweated into the drum for the braking surface. Then the whole lot was bolted to its Enfield hub, bearing the patent number 21048/11N.
So far, so good… But I haven’t a clue who was responsible for this impressive brake. Hopefully, our readers can help Steve, Robert and myself.