My favourite motorcycles (Part 1)
This is the first in an irregular series of posts about my favourite motorcycles. There will be two separate themes to this series; motorcycles I've ridden and motorcycles I wish I'd ridden. I'm not going to go into any sort of technological analysis of the bikes; there are people better equipped than I am who are doing that already. Since a lot of these things work in chronological order and because I thought that I'd better start off with something I'd actually ridden - Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Model H Triumph.
Images enlarge
My association with a Model H was brief. When I was still living at home, doing my apprenticeship with Dad, a veteran and vintage bike run came through our town. One of the bikes - which was trailered into town - was a Model H. The run was on a Sunday, so we were closed, but the bloke who owned the bike knocked on our back door asking if we could have a go at getting his bike going again. I was the only one home and I was keen for a play with a piece of history so I opened the workshop and we had a look at the bike, which had stopped due to the
carburettor flooding.We fiddled around with it a bit, then decided to take the carby off and dismantle it. It turned out that the float had been vibrating against the body of the carby and had worn a little hole through it. Radiators were tricky enough to braze up for me at that stage, but the float was paper thin - and probably extremely difficult to source a replacement for - so I was fairly nervous as I attacked it. No wuckers, though, got it right first time. We put it all back together and away she went. Old mate who owned the bike asked me how much he owed me and I thought about it for a while - an hour and a half at the going rate or... "Giz a ride!" Much to my surprise, he agreed, and after showing me the controls...
...(The top lever - from memory - is for advancing and retarding the magneto, the bottom lever is the throttle and the reversed lever is the 'teens equivalent of Barkbusters - maybe....
...On the other side we have the clutch and choke controls (maybe)...
...You also have to manually operate the oil pump...
...I was reminded that the brakes were not all that effective and then I was off. Up the road out of town to the footy ground, a lap of the footy ground and back again; about four miles all up, which took about twenty minutes. I probably hit about twenty five miles an hour, kept it running reasonably smoothly all the while and had just about as much fun as a teenage boy can have by himself without endangering his eyesight.
I told Dad about opening up the workshop on a Sunday free of charge and he got pretty cranky with me - for not contacting him so that he could have a turn, too. "But Dad," I said "Mobile phones haven't been invented yet!"*
*No, I didn't.
The Model H Triumph.
Images enlarge
My association with a Model H was brief. When I was still living at home, doing my apprenticeship with Dad, a veteran and vintage bike run came through our town. One of the bikes - which was trailered into town - was a Model H. The run was on a Sunday, so we were closed, but the bloke who owned the bike knocked on our back door asking if we could have a go at getting his bike going again. I was the only one home and I was keen for a play with a piece of history so I opened the workshop and we had a look at the bike, which had stopped due to the
carburettor flooding.We fiddled around with it a bit, then decided to take the carby off and dismantle it. It turned out that the float had been vibrating against the body of the carby and had worn a little hole through it. Radiators were tricky enough to braze up for me at that stage, but the float was paper thin - and probably extremely difficult to source a replacement for - so I was fairly nervous as I attacked it. No wuckers, though, got it right first time. We put it all back together and away she went. Old mate who owned the bike asked me how much he owed me and I thought about it for a while - an hour and a half at the going rate or... "Giz a ride!" Much to my surprise, he agreed, and after showing me the controls......(The top lever - from memory - is for advancing and retarding the magneto, the bottom lever is the throttle and the reversed lever is the 'teens equivalent of Barkbusters - maybe.......On the other side we have the clutch and choke controls (maybe)......You also have to manually operate the oil pump......I was reminded that the brakes were not all that effective and then I was off. Up the road out of town to the footy ground, a lap of the footy ground and back again; about four miles all up, which took about twenty minutes. I probably hit about twenty five miles an hour, kept it running reasonably smoothly all the while and had just about as much fun as a teenage boy can have by himself without endangering his eyesight.I told Dad about opening up the workshop on a Sunday free of charge and he got pretty cranky with me - for not contacting him so that he could have a turn, too. "But Dad," I said "Mobile phones haven't been invented yet!"*
*No, I didn't.
posted by Dirk at 8:59 am
5 Comments:
my dad loves telling me a story about an old lee enfield he rode once. he reckoned that once you got going in top gear it was only firing at every guidepost.
then he starts going on about harleys and we tell him to shutup :-)
You might want to ask your Dad why he rode a rifle; Royal Enfields were/are quite nice plunkers, lee Enfields were standard issue to the army from about 1900 to about the start of WW2.
There was a young bloke in the town where I grew up who had an old Ariel Red Hunter that used to fire once every telephone pole.
mmm. how's about Bultaco's. Or that weird arse one they only make in spain that seems to merely be a leaky device in which to carry oil.
Can we start a bring back the Vincent Black Shadow campaign, can we, can we?
woops, he probably said royal enfield and it got lost in translation
Dollop,
are we talking Montesa? Ossa maybe?
I'd give my left nut to ride a series c Black Shadow, both nuts if they let me keep it. It will star in a future episode of MFMs.
Rat,
I'm trying to remember if it was Royal Enfield or BSA who had the slogan 'Built like a gun.' One of them.
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