First bike memories
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lcrken
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Yes, it was Daniel. This is a picture of the bike in a display of some Nortons from his collection, a temporary show in the Santa Paula Oil Museum back in 2015.
Ken
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In about 1965 I was given a motorcycle. It was a Villiers-powered Waratah, which was, I think, a re-badged Francis-Barnett. It was complete except for a missing magneto. I had seen it leaning against a shed whilst looking over someone’s back fence.
I pushed it home, a distance of 3 miles (not the last time that I engaged in this wonderfully thorough form of exercise). My father had given me to understand that there would be dire consequences if I brought a motorcycle home, so it was with some trepidation that I wheeled it down the drive. I stressed to him the fact that it was a non-runner. Soon after that he sat me down and told me about the motor cycles that HE had owned (including a new TT Triumph bought in about 1927, and chosen over a new Norton because it had a stylish saddle tank rather than the Norton’s old-fashioned flat tank).
The kid across the road started my riding career by letting me ride one of his bikes along an abandoned railway track, He had a Villiers powered Malvern Star Autobyke, a moped, and I convinced him to swap the magneto off it for a bicycle (maybe my brother’s). I removed the magneto carefully and installed on the magneto-less recipient. Miraculously, it ran.
I have been riding motorcycles ever since.
I sold the Waratah to a school friend. A few years later he broke his arm coming off his cousin’s Norton Dominator. Its tank was a lovely ice-green fine metallic colour, probably Polychromatic Green. He also has been a motorcyclist ever since, and the last I heard of him he had a (silver) 650SS.
I had the Waratah about a year then sold it and bought my first road bike, a plunger-sprung D1 BSA Bantam, for the sum of seven pounds and ten shillings. Reg. No. FG-205. I rode it illegally at night until I was 16 years and 9 months, old enough to get a learner's permit. The Bantam often sported a set of home made "Ace" handlebars from my mate's cousin's Suzuki, and the speedo was a bulky device from a Vanguard car, held on with leather toe straps. I wore a long leather coat. After the Bantam it was onward and upward, at the peak I had a Vincent Rapide, a short-stroke Manx Norton and a 7R AJS, all at the same time.
First new bike was a BMW R75/5 in September 1971. Price was a little under $2,000. I was told I was crazy, I could buy a Volkswagen for that much. It turned out that a VW would not cruise continuously at 100 mph. It was also the first bike that I had that I could ride wearing my good clothes.
"How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished." 2 Samuel 1: 25-27
I pushed it home, a distance of 3 miles (not the last time that I engaged in this wonderfully thorough form of exercise). My father had given me to understand that there would be dire consequences if I brought a motorcycle home, so it was with some trepidation that I wheeled it down the drive. I stressed to him the fact that it was a non-runner. Soon after that he sat me down and told me about the motor cycles that HE had owned (including a new TT Triumph bought in about 1927, and chosen over a new Norton because it had a stylish saddle tank rather than the Norton’s old-fashioned flat tank).
The kid across the road started my riding career by letting me ride one of his bikes along an abandoned railway track, He had a Villiers powered Malvern Star Autobyke, a moped, and I convinced him to swap the magneto off it for a bicycle (maybe my brother’s). I removed the magneto carefully and installed on the magneto-less recipient. Miraculously, it ran.
I have been riding motorcycles ever since.
I sold the Waratah to a school friend. A few years later he broke his arm coming off his cousin’s Norton Dominator. Its tank was a lovely ice-green fine metallic colour, probably Polychromatic Green. He also has been a motorcyclist ever since, and the last I heard of him he had a (silver) 650SS.
I had the Waratah about a year then sold it and bought my first road bike, a plunger-sprung D1 BSA Bantam, for the sum of seven pounds and ten shillings. Reg. No. FG-205. I rode it illegally at night until I was 16 years and 9 months, old enough to get a learner's permit. The Bantam often sported a set of home made "Ace" handlebars from my mate's cousin's Suzuki, and the speedo was a bulky device from a Vanguard car, held on with leather toe straps. I wore a long leather coat. After the Bantam it was onward and upward, at the peak I had a Vincent Rapide, a short-stroke Manx Norton and a 7R AJS, all at the same time.
First new bike was a BMW R75/5 in September 1971. Price was a little under $2,000. I was told I was crazy, I could buy a Volkswagen for that much. It turned out that a VW would not cruise continuously at 100 mph. It was also the first bike that I had that I could ride wearing my good clothes.
"How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished." 2 Samuel 1: 25-27
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