Fact or Fiction in the World of Old Bikes (2015)

Perhaps it is just me getting more sensitive as the years go by but I get a growing sense of a “holier than thou” attitude being taken by an increasing number of Journalists writing for the various (and numerous) magazines dedicated to old motorcycles. In the eyes of some it seems that it is absolutely taboo to even consider any change from a manufacturer’s original specification while others seem to take gross exception to any changes that a previous owner might have made, even to the extent of ridiculing personal choice colour schemes and use of non standard fasteners etc, even when those same journalists might have done exactly the same sort of thing when working for other magazines and before being “converted” to the classic bike “religion”. I remember reading on occasions where an article looking back into the archives of the motorcycle magazines of the past ridiculed the tips and alternative ways suggested in those old magazines in order to help keep motorcycles on the road, some being damned as ridiculous, or even dangerous. Is there really so much money “sloshing about” in the classic motorcycle world these days that everyone has forgotten that it was a lot more difficult in the pre-internet and autojumble days to keep a bike on the road when, contrary to a growing belief, there was not a vast amount of “friendly” dealers with huge stocks of parts for obsolete makes and models on every street corner. Why does everything have to be restored to the factory specification in any case? and why is that “original specification restoration” assumed to be either better, or even safer, than a modified bike? After all we are not talking about irreplaceable “old master” paintings by the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, but a mass produced means of personal transport engineered to cost controls and intended to be used regularly and eventually ridden into the ground. Or is it now all about the eventual value and investment potential? Whatever, but the impression sometimes given is that if you cannot afford to do it “our way” or choose to do something different, except, apparently, to a bike with no sort of perceived status value, then you are not really “one of us” but only playing at it. Well if that is the case then I have been “playing at it” for over fifty years now – and I am still enjoying it.

I am lucky enough (or some would say mad enough) to have a huge collection of the two main motorcycle magazines for the 1950s and early 1960s (plus some either side)

and regularly look through them for reference. What is clear from them is that money was very tight for a large number of readers and those hints and tips were meant as ways of keeping people mobile when the option was probably no bike at all. Road tests, although now denigrated as being too close to what manufacturer’s wanted to advertise and not critical enough, were at least presented in a factual way, and this was presented the same no matter whether the bike was the cheapest moped or the most expensive sports model. Whatever the tester personally thought of a particular bike he might not have liked his personal views never came across in the report, only the facts, and care was taken that there was no hint that the purchaser of a moped was in any way an inferior being to the purchaser of a top of the range sports model, although this didn’t always apply to the wording used by advertisers in the magazine. Words such as “entry level model” were never used, as pride of ownership of any new bike was important to a prospective buyer no matter what the bike – and as someone who had little money at the start of their riding days I find that approach refreshing and is partly why I prefer reading those old magazines to the modern ones. So, being that for many riders money to spare for their motorcycles was in short supply in those days I think it is rather crass of journalists now to castigate owners of past years for bodges that they carried out in order to keep their bikes running and to remember that if they hadn’t done so then those bikes would have gone for scrap years ago and not still been available for restoration now.

It is also as well to remember that before the classic motorcycle was invented following the inspired publication of the first Classic Bike magazine in about 1979 (as a one-off edition initially and then quarterly at first) old motorcycles were considered as just that. You only had them if you were emotionally attached to them by long term association through family interest and ownership connections etc (as in my case), or if you couldn’t afford anything better (meaning newer), which also applied to me. It should also be borne in mind that when the Vintage Motorcycle Club was formed, to try and save at least some of the older machines from the scrap yard, most of the bikes concerned were not much over fifteen years old and the very oldest only about forty, and yet there are many “classic enthusiasts” now who think of a forty year old bike as “modern”. Such is the way people’s thinking has changed. Post second world war most enthusiasts aspired to a brand new motorcycle of whatever type they could afford while only a few cherished the old ones and the impoverished made do with whatever they could keep running. Now though, a new bike is often a cheaper option than a good useable classic that is able to keep station in modern traffic and any old bike now seems to have aquired an elevated status which would have seemed ludicrous in the 1950s and 60s, but at least until recently those more utility type of bikes at least allowed those who did not have the money for the more desirable machines to still get involved. So just why is it so important to pay huge sums in order to have exactly the right parts for any particular model when it doesn’t do anything to improve the riding experience but tends to make things even more expensive. Also, being that a full restoration of any motorcycle will involve much the same amount of work and expense but the end market value is vastly different between the top echelons and the utility bikes it can never be a really sensible option to carry out a perfect restoration on a utility type bike unless it has some great sentimental attachment for the person carrying it out. So provided that it is kept mechanically sound then why not just enjoy it for what it is and get the pleasure of riding it rather than the pain of spending more and more on supposedly the correct parts, which probably need restoring themselves before being in a fit state to use.

Only someone who has studied a particular model carefully would notice anything that was not as fitted by the factory and whether they approve or not doesn’t matter. To use the words of a friend, now sadly no longer alive, to someone who was criticising some part or other of his bike at an event, “It’s my bike and I like it the way it is and can do whatever I want with it. I can even set fire to it if I felt like it and if you don’t like it then you can just walk away”. Just walk away wasn’t exactly the words he used, but you get the drift. How a bike is enjoyed is entirely up to the person owning and riding it and magazine writers who feel inclined to “preach” their own views to all as being the only proper way to approach things should remember that.

Years ago in the mid 1960s I bought a 500cc BSA A7 Star Twin. A 1954 plunger framed model, it cost me very little and although running quite well it had obviously led a hard life. After paying out a huge sum (to me) for essential clutch parts it only then needed a trip to a bike breakers to find a rear chainguard and toolbox from something (don’t know what) that could be modified to fit. With that done and leaving the already fitted alloy blade mudguards in place the bike was ready for long service. It stayed like that for the sixteen years I had it with the only changes being that I had to replace the headlight cowling with aftermarket headlamp brackets and homemade speedo bracket after the cowling got damaged when the bike fell off its side stand and a replacement magneto at some stage. I also changed the alloy guards for aftermarket steel guards when they finally cracked at their mountings. Totally unoriginal, that bike gave myself and two brothers (each of whom changed the colour scheme to their own fancy) sixteen years of reliable pleasure without huge expense and I do not remember anyone ever saying to me, “that’s not original”, because even by 1982, when I sold it, old bikes had still yet to become “historical artifacts”. Just as well really because I probably could never have afforded to have got on the road in the first place if they had been. When I had to buy a new headlight switch for my Francis Barnett from the Lucas counter in Woodford it cost me five Pounds sixteen Shillings and that was an entire weeks wages for me as an apprentice, a crippling blow and if I had to pay that sort of price for original parts every time then I could never have kept going. When one rear suspension unit of the Francis Barnett leaked all its oil I bought just one replacement unit, it was all I could afford and it kept me on the road. Writers these days would criticise me for doing that but they didn’t back then, they knew that many of us were hard pushed to keep our mounts roadworthy.

Of course not every enthusiast for old “classic” motorcycles is involved for the riding experience and I know some who love restoring old bikes but who rarely, if ever, ride any. For them the enjoyment is in the work of bringing back to life a bike which previously was only destined for the scrap yard. Knowing the work that has been put into them, done as original or not, I know that they will ride well and last long. I would love to have quite a few of them but cannot because I already have more than I really can realistically use and, in truth, bikes actually do not wear out very much with the sort of mileage I now do when shared amongst them all. When I first retired (or really before I did so) I visualised myself with endless time available to spend riding my bikes day after day on long journeys. Well life doesn’t always turn out the way that we envisage, other things in life get in the way and my riding days are somewhat more limited than I expected for one reason or another. My love of bikes is undiminished though and most of my bikes I have had a long time and although I keep them mechanically sound they are all unrestored and nearly all have some modifications away from the original to suit my own preferences. In all the years that I have been riding I have had very few criticisms of any modifications and most who notice them are interested to find out why I have done them. Having said that though, I have never entered any of them into a show and thereby invited scrutiny from “originality experts” eager to show off their knowledge. Most enthusiasts I meet are just happy to chat “bikes” no matter what their own particular interests are.

Not entirely to original specification !!!

Just recently I was reading a 1950’s issue of an old motorcycling magazine where the editor commended the work of an enthusiast in still riding and maintaining an old bike which was all of fifteen years old. Such was the attitude then, when even a journalist who was enthusiastic about vintage bikes said that he would never choose an old bike for daily use if a modern one was available. This was said in the late 1950s and the “old bike” he was speaking of was a just pre World War 2 Rudge. At one time in the 1950s or early 60s journalist Vic Willoughby carried out a restoration on a pre-war Calthorpe (1936 model I think). Even with his contacts through the trade he had great difficulty in getting any parts and had to make several modifications in order to get it running again. In those pre internet and classic bike autojumble days it was a lot harder to find things than many people today assume, so many bodges and modifications from original were essential and modern journalists would do well to remember that. I am not speaking about things done specially in order to deceive buyers about the condition of a bike, or with deliberate intention to defraud. That is of course despicable and should be rightly condemned, but I speak of those things done which, although not a perfect solution, still did the job needed in order to keep a bike on the road when it otherwise would have had to have been scrapped. Or something altered from original in order to give a previous owner a better riding experience. Not everything done by factories when a particular model was produced was the best option for all owners either then or now and surely the most important thing of all is that we enjoy riding the things. After all, isn’t the riding experience itself and the enjoyment of it the whole reason we become motorcyclists in the first place?

A rather drastic modification perhaps, but it obviously gave its builder enjoyment

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