An addition to the previous essays I forgot the other bikes I almost, or did have, if only for a short while (thinks of quote from LOTR but it isn’t quite aposite).
Long long ago, I knew someone from when I had been a Scout Leader. His father had a New Hudson autocycle that had been in his shed for many years. I saw it, liked what I saw and agreed to take it off his hands. Unfortunately, at the time I had nowhere to store it and, due to a misundertanding, the bike was scrapped, just as happened to Robin, who worked for the MOD and who had both a Vincent Rapide and a Comet. A friend of his had a Norton Inter in his mother’s front garden for many years. Robin suggested he take it on and renovate it. His friend kept saying “no no, I’ll do it myself in due course” Shortly after, Robin saw the bike missing from the garden. He later discovered that the mother was so sick of the moldering heap in her garden that she gave it away to the rag-and-bone man!
Same sort of thing also happened to me when I suggested to a Venture Scout that since his father, despite his protestations to the contrary, was never going to rebuild his Brit twin with Sidecar, I should make an offer for it. Dad still said he would rebuild it. It is either still sitting there or has been disposed of, for all I know.
When I was living as a lodger in Honor Oak I could see from my window a small BSA motorcycle in the backyard of the next door ‘we buy junk, we sell antiques’ shop.
I quickly found out it was a Dandy 70cc moped with a hand start lever!.
Having purchased it for a nominal sum, it became clear that the (solitary) 2-stroke oil seal was leaking (overhung crankshaft!), though spares were available from a m/c shop in Notting Gate. It was unusual, having a preselector gearbox, amongst other details. Before much could be done, however, the thing was stolen – from the garden, no less! They at least left the MZ.
My friend Richard, most of whose offerings were poisoned, gifted to me a MZ 125/150 with (he said) a stiff gearbox gear. I got my usual MZ dealer to strip the engine and he reported the damage was more serious. I gifted the entire machine to him and he repaired and sold it. The new owner didn’t like it and I saw it later back at Kickstart M/Cs before it was sold on again.
As an aside, those of you who know MZs will remember that the TS250 series had a petrol tank that rose vertically just in front of the saddle. I once saw a TS250 that had had a full frontal collision. There were two small circular dents in the back of the
tank. - OUCH. Reminds me of the Triumph tank rack, known to all and sundry as the
‘de-bollocker’.
In Holland, our 2nd next door neighbour had a Velo (Solex) mouldering. I suggested to Chris I get it working for her to use but, since she wasn’t interested the idea lapsed and, not long afterwards, it disappeared from his rubbish heap!
Finally, (shouting) MY MZ ETZ 250 IS NOW POST VINTAGE!!!
(assuming the rules are still the same)
