Triumph Daytona 2003

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Anstey's Winner.

As a regular Monday Volunteer I get the chance to look through he magazines that are lying around and over the past few weeks I have found a couple of interest. From a 1984 Motorcycle there was a test report on a Triumph TRW, notably logged for future reference and an intriguing picture of a 1926 Panther TT that had been suitably modified for sprinting published by the VMCC 1969. 

We have a Panther 650cc model in the Museum attached to a Watsonian sidecar. The modern version still retains the distinctive style that Phelon and Moore came up with so many years ago. 

Continuing with the magazines the latest Nacelle, Triumph Owners Club magazine, March 2016 featured the 2003 Triumph Daytona. The 600cc four that Bruce Anstey raced so successfully at the Isle of Man that year and winning. Nacelle have done a feature on this bike with a full page of pictures. If you want to see the real thing it is in the “Home of Triumph” hall at the Museum.

 This last Monday with the weather forecast to be dry I rode the Valiant to the Museum to give it an airing and find out what lack of use has done this year. Battery charged and it fired up after a few kicks, much better than I expected which was a push start. It was fortunate that this Monday had visitors that were interested in Velocettes in the late morning but the surprise of the day was early afternoon when a family arrived straight off the plane from Heathrow with luggage in tow. Our shop area was full of bags and Chris had nowhere to sit. There was Mum Dad and four daughters. They had flown in from Mexico! The daughters could all speak very good English and with my modest vocabulary of foreign technical terms we managed to have an entertaining afternoon. Dad has a collection of vintage motorcycles and with the daughters translating the salient details of the bikes and the stories that go with them. I think that they had a good time too because I certainly did and wish them an enjoyable stay in the UK.

I have sped my way through another book "Full Circle" as I hibernate from the cold. I did manage to do just under a hundred miles the other day visiting an old friend at Chieveley. The book encompassed the world of climates and was the trip made by Richard and Mopsa English on their four and a half year marathon covering over 90,000 miles in their quest to see interesting places and people. No back up only their own determination to see it through and keep their Triumph 650cc Thunderbird pulling their coffin shaped sidecar. Needless to say we have this one at the Museum too!

March Kempton fund raiser

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LMM at the March Auto-jumble

Kempton Park.

It certainly was cold! Early morning fog chilled everything and did not clear until early afternoon. Fun for the punters to brave this morning as Frank, Peter and myself set up the stand at seven in the gloom. It seemed an odd day with fewer people coming and going. Everyone was supporting us in our efforts to keep the doors open at Ravenor Farm. As usual you are not able to stayed glued to the spot and need to take a little walk for refreshments. On the way thee are always some interesting machines. I like to see some of the foreign bikes that are around with strange names. 

Some look from the “Dark Ages” and others surprisingly modern for their year. The Ducati that was there in January appeared again but there was a lot more new stuff. I did like the Douglas T35, a late forties Mk 1 but what prompted me to take a photo was this Gold Star Sealey. Having the wooden Matchless G50 Sealey on show I was drawn to this model. 

The day ended in warm sunshine, I could do with a bit more of that. This winter has got the cold into my bones and I want to get warm again. I had lost my voice from talking too much. A very warm feeling came from the collection boxes. With the sale of a special bike helmet of £100 the tally for the day was £370.38p. A Very Big thank you to all who contributed. A reminder that if you present your flier with the pound off for Monday entrance you will get your pound back!

I was at the Museum on Monday riding the LE and we had a visit from the VMCC. There was much discussion about the bikes we had, what they had and who they had raced with! The Museum is more than just a collection of bikes. My voice was not good to start the day and went again later in the day. I need to rest it. Tuesday I did just that and finished off reading the second book on Despatch Riders. The first one was Adventures of a Despatch Rider by Captain W.H.L. Watson and he covers the start of World War One from 1914 to 1915 and the retreat from German advances. 

Note: Sergeant Simpkin is on  a Triumph model H. His comment was that it was much heavier than the Douglas he took with him when he enlisted.
















The second book Despatch Rider on the Western Front 1915 to 1918, The diary of Sergeant Albert Simpkin. This concludes the war and is a good narrative on the major events that brought the war to its conclusion. I have great admiration for what these guys did to get the messages through against the hardships of freezing cold, rain and snow that turned the cratered roads into a quagmire while being shot at, bombed, shelled either blown to pieces or cut to pieces by shrapnel in the dark with no lights! How these men survived it all is amazing. It was not all about blood and guts, although featuring heavily on the atrocities of war there were some good time too at riotous Christmas dinners where food and drink were in plentiful supply, rest periods when pranks and tricks helped pass the time of day. The Despatch Riders were almost a law unto themselves as the freedom of the motorcycle gave them opportunities to take time out and explore. I found both books fascinating reading. One thing I did read is that the Germans had Gotha bombers. One was very large with 124ft wingspan and four engines. The aircraft had a crew of eight and a small engine and dynamo for supplying electricity to the wireless, the engine was a direct copy of that used on the Douglas motorcycles of that time. I wonder who made that engine? Could it have been Bosche or BMW or was it just borrowed? Something to search for when I visit Germany later in the year.

The sun is still shining this week and I'm getting warmer following the exploits of Richard and Mopsa English with their around the world adventure on a Triumph Thunderbird with Squire sidecar. More on that to follow.

Starter problem on the Valiant

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Look Mum! No Teeth!

The other Monday I had a plan to head off to the Museum on the Valiant. It was at the front of the garage and ready to go, as I thought. This didn't happen as when I tried to start it the engine would not turn over. I was left with the sound of teeth knocking each other but not engaging then the mechanism locking up only to be released by selecting a gear and wheeling the bike backwards. The delights of trying to use a 59 year old bike. 

My project for the week was to fix it. I have a stock of LE spares and found a serviceable quadrant in a box and in another box a brand new oil seal. I had not planned to replace this but I had an oil leak around the clutch area and need to cure that. It didn't take too long to split the engine from the gearbox and get it out of the frame. The starter quadrant is located within the engine casing and it was easy to see why things were not working. I also discovered that the oil leak was from the starter shaft. The oil seal was loose in the housing. 

No leaks visible from the clutch or gearbox shafts. I did fish out the bits of teeth from the sump with a magnet on a stick and change the oil. Everything back together in a day but on the test ride the clutch was slipping. The new gaskit fitted was thinner than before with no adjustment left on the cable I had to adjust the eccentric bolt on the fulcrum at the back of the gearbox. Easy enough to do on the bench, not so easy with swing arm in the way. It required loosening the lock nut, turn the bolt a fraction to create more play to have some adjustment on the clutch cable. I did this laying the ground and working upwards, fiddly and awkward. Lastly, lock up the nut and ready to go. It now starts much better now having a quarter of a turn on the kick starter rather that a tenth. I know Velocettes never have enough travel to give it a “good kick” but this had gone too far!

Out on the Sunday with a “Back by one run” with the club on the Sunday morning. All this on the Kawasaki ER6F, now I have heated handlebar grips on it. Off to the Museum on the Monday on the LE with some interest from the visitors for it. Chris had brought in a French Motorcycle magazine  Moto Revue Classic March-April 2016 that has done a six page feature on the Museum. It was a good article with some good photos too that I have taken the liberty to show you.

If you have visited the Museum you will have seen all of this but not in French!

It is great to know how other people see us. I do hope we get more visitors from France.

More on Bike handling

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Centre of Gravity

After searching for Photos of Greeves Silverstones from the Off road bike show December 2015 I cam across a picture of an Ariel Arrow that sported an alloy tank and clip-on bars! It looked well done with extensions to the front forks upwards to take the clip-ons.

I look at what people do to their bikes and frequently think that the manufacturers should have done this. Harley Davidson have always supplied after market parts for you to customise your bike to your taste. British manufacturers left it to people like Britax to supply universal parts that did not fit anything that well. Very little was available in the 70's and 80's to customise your machine. Things are now better than ever and you are almost able to get exactly what you want for the exact model of your machine. I follow the Bike Shed and what people do to customise their machines. Few are doing chops and most are slimming down their machines getting rid of the bling and plastic. Some manufacturers get it right and there is little needed to get the bike right for you. I particularly like this Ducati Scrambler from the 80's.

This is John's bike from the Wey Valley Bike Club.

Back to the bit about centre of gravity, how much does it affect the bike? At the upright position, not much but increases with the angle of lean. How much does your position on the bike affect it? Consider the handling of an adventure bike against a sports bike. Both can handle really well but the adventure bike has a much higher centre of gravity and does not facilitate the knee down riding style so would there be a difference in cornering ability assuming equivalent engine power and tyres? Another point is that on an adventure bike you are further away from the road to start with so to get the same angle of lean you have to move a greater distance and psychologically feel your are leaning over so much more. The tyres are still within their limits of adhesion and the angle of lean is no different. Being higher on and adventure bike gives you more leverage to be able to make the bike change direction. Much of this is do with the speed of rotation of the wheels and engine. Wheels have an immense gyroscopic action much less so for the direction of rotation of the engine. The closer you are to your wheels the lesser the effect of moving your body and legs around. Even if you are quite heavy the impact of your weight is much less than you think. It is only your upper chest and head that move the centre of gravity higher. The rest just adds to the weight of the bike and is relatively low. It is a dynamic weight that moves and is part of the bike. For reference when you add luggage to the top box or seat bag and the bike feels much more top heavy and that is because it is a static weight. It is there and does not balance itself unlike you as a rider it is also the difference between a good pillion and an inexperienced one.

The real difference is in the individual and how and where they position on the bike. It is about the psychology of the rider and about what he or she perceives or feels and do they feel good on the day!

My thought on this is that there is not a great deal of difference so to prove the point, and I do hope that Triumph will take up the challenge, take a 1050cc Tiger and a Street Triple with the same tyres and engine performance and rider and see what happens on the track where all this can be carefully filmed and analysed. One thought is that perhaps we should use a Robot rider for this exercise?

Wooden Matchless G50

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If you can't get the real thing........

Exactly that! We would love to have a Matchless G50 in a Sealey frame to display but so far no one have donated one. This is unlikely as such masterpieces of racing history are still out there being raced but we are ever hopeful. Next best thing has arrived and will be with us for the next few months, so come to see it while you can is the full sized wooden replica. It is a work of art and taken some 700 man hours to complete. The detail is incredible down to the cable ends and the allen bolts that adorn the crankcase. The controls look so real you feel that if you pulled on the front brake lever the brake would actually work. Not something to do so it is view only and don't touch! Previous experience by the artist with a Norton has resulted in a number of broken levers! I have taken a few pictures to whet the appetite!

Now moving on and we still need more income and the best way is come and pay us a visit. While we have the Matchless the 500cc Gold Star racer is in the little barn and will come back later. As we are still in winter and there is not much going on I have a chance to look at some of the old bike magazines and found a technical article on the Greeves Silverstone engine and fitting a Dolphin like fairing to a Velocette LE. I remember this when it was first published in Motor Cycle on 20^th August 1964!! 

I'll not bore you with all the details but I thought the development by Greeves of the 197cc Villiers engine into a competitive product that was enlarged to 246cc was amazing then when they felt they could go no further designed their own engine out of the trials and tribulations of racing along with a great deal of thought to build a successful competition machine.

These two Greeves were at the Off Road Bike show Kempton Park December 2015

Silverstones Mk 1 and 2

I do get out occasionally and last Thursday left Museum fliers at Ryka's before heading off for the day on a ROG's Run with the Wey Valley Advanced Motorcycle Club. It was a very pleasant outing clocking just over 200 miles on my Kawasaki ER6F and not too cold! That's because I have fitted some R&G heated handlebar grips!

My project for the coming week is to get the kick start on the Velocette Valiant working correctly. It feels like the teeth on the 60 year old starter quadrant have stripped and I will need to fit a replacement and may be the starter pinion too. Can't wait to get it fixed as there will be shows to take it to. Southern Classic bike show on 21^st May at Kempton Park is usually my first one of the year so I do have plenty of time.