History
on Wheels.
Not
every week is plain sailing. After a good day at the museum meeting a
very interesting guy from Bermuda I had to trailer the Valiant home.
It was the first time I had taken it to the Museum this year and on
arriving I had trouble getting any gears so after much pushing and
pulling of the gear lever none were able to be found. It was going
nowhere. I stripped it down on Tuesday, ordered the part and got it
on Friday and reassembled it.
All tested out and working but I did
discover that all the screws on the ignition switch were lose so made
starting a bit difficult. Never mind, the fun of running old bikes.
The next was to sort out the Buell as the newish battery had failed
and was still under warranty so a replacement had finally arrived on
Wednesday and I collected it and fitted it with the proviso, that
next day, I would have the charging checked out to make sure nothing
else had caused the battery failure. This meant I would have to miss
my ROG's run. I did order a couple of Military Motorcycle books from
Amazon while I waited for the rain to stop. It has been a bit wet and
dry this past week. I get to Sunday and a choice of Wey Valley Bike
Club open day in the rain or a Citroen Car Club visit to the History
of Wheels Motor Museum in the car.
Main Hall American Paratroopers bike
This was a new museum to me and at
Eton Wick, not too far away. I found the collection of cars, Military
bikes, Military cars, tanks and memorabilia well worth the effort and
a reward for not staying too long in in bed when the hour went on. As
usual my interest is in the bikes that included a Norton single, BSA
M20, Royal Enfield “Flying Flea”, the James “Clockwork Mouse”,
a 1939 German 100cc DKW, a Gnome Rhone flat twin matched with
American paratroopers bikes to complete the line up.
100 cc DKW Gnome Rhone
The Gnome Rhone looks very much like the flat twin Zundapp of that era. Of more interest to me was the harness and container that the Brockhouse WW1was transported in. There is a WW1 there too to complete the picture. It was nice to see all the bits together that I had read about but not seen before in real life.
A point of note is that there
are a couple of bicycles from the late 1890's one has front and rear
telescopic suspension and the other has shaft drive. If you are
interested, bicycles have been far ahead of motorcycles in the quest
for a smooth ride and much can be found on the internet and the
history of bicycles.
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