More from the Bristol Classic Bike show 2013

www.london-motorcycle-museum.org

I arrived at the museum this week expecting few people to attend, but when I was inside Brian showed me an e-mail that said 7 people are going to come during the day as well as a couple having their photos taken aboard a Triton that was done in Cafe Race trim. So it turned into an event filled day with another 3 people during the afternoon. Two of them had the pound off for a Monday fliers. This did not give me much chance to do any research about a couple of bikes seen at the Bristol Classic bike show.  I have always had an interest in Italian singles and the innovation they had on them so when I spotted this 250 Benelli I just had to have a closer look.

 It had been raced from 1936 and campaigned on French circuits. Most of the details are in French and if you are able to expand the photograph you should be able to translate most of the history yourself. I’ll do my best to give you the jist of it. First this 250 was derived from the 1931 175cc model the Bialbero. This went quite quick doing over 130kph. By 1936 the 250 had arrived and had 27bhp on tap at 9500rpm and would do 112mph.

 Obviously the DOHC design was very good but what caught my eye was the strange spring arrangement on the girder forks. I took me a little while to work it out. The spring attaches to the extra lever and is also connected to the friction damper so the further the fork travels up more leverage is applied to the damper providing a variable rate of damping on the front end. This mechanism was not only used by Benelli, I spied it on a Moto Guzzi 500 horizontal single of that era too.

On the same stand, and also for sale, was this 1920’s Indian grass track outfit. It had leaf spring front and rear suspension! I had seen quarter elliptical springs on the front end before with the Beardmore Precision but this type of spring on the rear was a surprise. Bill Crosby, founder of the London Motorcycle Museum, has ridden one! I’m sure that must have been fun with no apparent damping.

For the last couple of years the New Imperial stand has put on a good show but I think the number of people bringing their smaller machines out to show is increasing and I particularly liked the moped stand. Allot of people rode them for cheap transport and many of them were just an engines clipped on to a bicycle frame. Could there still be a market for something like this. The French seem to think so with the still continuing production of the front wheel mounted engine Velo Solex.

 Seeing so many 1930’s OHC Excelsior’s in one place and they still get them out on the road. The starting grid of so many OHC Norton’s was a pleasure to see. Having wandered around all day it was an impressive show that I will come again to.

 I have now receivd some information about a Triumph engined generator from the RAF archives that I have been waiting several weeks for so when I have read it you'll soon know about it.