Motorcycles

I originally thought about this post after reading the blurb on an episode of “Timeshift” This talked about the thriving UK motorcycle industry with a diversity of brands. In fact when I watched the TV programme it is more about the 1960’s and the café racers. This isn’t at all my interest so I’m going back much earlier to the late 40’s and 50’s.

I was interested in motorcycles because our family owned one. These were motorcycle combinations ie, a motorbike and sidecar. A combination was ideal for a family of three, rider, pillion and sidecar passenger. Generally sidecars were built for one person although double adult sidecars also existed but were uncommon.

Motorcycle layout was essentially a heavy duty bicycle with an engine in the V of the frame, driving the rear wheel by a chain and with a fuel tank wrapped around the top bar. Our first combination was with a side valve Norton with a “spring frame”, ie the front wheel was sprung a by a cantilever of coil springs at the head end while the rear wheel was unsprung. Our second combination was again a 500cc single cylinder Norton now with over head valves and the front suspension by hydraulic forks. Again the rear wheel was unsprung. The side car was an open Watsonian single seater with folding hood.

This was our family transport. My father had a solo AJS before he married. A motor cycle combination was within his means and so we had these second hand machines. I can’t say our travel was very ambitious. The very unusual journey was to go on holiday to Southsea. More usually we visited mothers family near Coalville and also in Coventry. However one fairly regular trip was to go to motorcycle grasstrack races at Kirkby Mallory. At that time this was a former horse racing track which was later extended and surfaced and renamed Mallory Park.

Sometimes we went with second cousins Joan and  Stan and their two daughters who were just a bit younger than me. Although they had graduated to a Ford Anglia car Stan was a great  motorcycle enthusiast. Essentially the track was a slightly squashed oval with a large grassy bank by one straight which had the start/finish line.

There was a slightly amateurish air about the race organised by the Leicester Query Motorcycle club. We would generally go on a Sunday morning arriving mid morning as practice was underway, have a picnic lunch with the race card in the afternoon.. During the lunch break I would go with my father to the motorcycle parking area. There was a dazzling variety of makes, Velocette, Matchless, BSA, AJS, Norton, Triumph and Ariel. All were made in Britain in fairly modest numbers. The most exotic was a Vincent Black Shadow; the 1000cc machine being the fastest on the market. Just about the only foreign machine was BMW which were distinctive in having a shaft rather than a chain drive and with horitzontally opposed cylinders. Generally the British bikes were either single cylinder or inline twin.

The racing was by specially adapted grass track machines in 4 classes depending on capacity, 250cc, 500cc, 650cc and 1000cc. The hero of the day was often Dick Tolley winning the higher capacity solo machine races. Particularly exciting were the sidecar races. The sidecars were little more than a platform with a wheel. Now combinations are inherently asymmetric so the passenger would move his weight to compensate , hanging over the rear wheel on left corners and as far out as he dared on right hand. Bill Boddice was the sidecar racer par excellence. A favourite race to end the  day was a side car handicap race, 250cc off first then 500, 650 and 1000 cc at intervals. If judged correctly all would come together at the final bend. Very exciting!

Sadly that plethora of brands didn’t last and the British motorcycle industry collapsed in the 60’s and 70’s. A lot of prestige was attached to racing. A particularly Britsh example was the Tourist Trophy races on the Isle of Man. In the 50’s the race had been won by single cylinder Norton bikes ( they branded a premier machine as the Manx) but they were swept away firstly by Italian premium bikes like Gilera and then later by Japanese brands such as Honda.

Regrettably it wasn’t just conservative design, but quality and reliability were lacking. There were some imaginative attempts such as the Ariel Leader an all enclosed machine which went some way towards the cleanliness of scooters. It wasn’t just the bikes themselves which lagged but accessories were also not reaching the standards of the foreign bikes. The jibe “Joe Lucas, prince of darkness” had a smidgen of truth for Lucas, the near universal electrics supplier..

As the British motorbike industry withered it wasn’t helped by clumsy state intervention in the Meriden factory of Triumph. That factory closed in the 70’s but a completely different operation still using the Triumph brand is about the only British manufacturer standing today. The new Triumph appears to be doing OK but the industry is now dominated by the Japanese giants, Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda.

A footnote is deserved by the brief Hesketh brand, intended as a superb super premium machine but underdeveloped and so with problems. It was built in small numbers by an organisation led by Lord Hesketh. Unfortunately that folded as he just didn’t have the resources to continue. Resuscitation attempts subsequently were unsuccessful.