2016 Off Road Bike show

www.london-motorcycle-museum.org

Off Road Bike Show

2016

December already and I still managed to get out for a ride on the Buell the last Thursday in November. It was an interesting ride out skirting towns with an amazing zig-zag route making a good day out of some 220 miles and it stayed dry! I was testing out my new Garmin Zumo, recording the route but when I needed some fuel and a direction to Cranleigh. It refused to allow me just to get to the town centre and I gave up on it. It relies on you knowing the address to enter and if you are out on a run and not knowing where you are or any of the local street names Tomtom has that advantage of being able to get you at least somewhere you know of. The other problem was that it didn't recognise where home was by the most direct route so it was trying to send me off in the wrong direction. I guess I will need to work out what to do from using it.

Brian on Display.

Still cold on Saturday morning as I was up at the crack of dawn to get to Kempton park for the Off Road Bike Show to be on the Museum stand. Another good day handing out fliers and talking to people about bikes and on my wanders I went to a stand that had a Seeley with the tank off so you could see the cross over top tubes and now more information about the design of the frames to try to clarify what had been made. The mark 1 frame has a full cradle that runs under the engine and beyond the pivot fork mounting, not much different to the mark 2 that has an incomplete cradle. The mark 3 may or may not have a cradle but could have front down tube supports depending on the engine used with the crossover behind the headstock having the top tubes on the outside and a cross frame support under the seat. The mark 4 has the top tubes on the inside to make it easier to manufacture. Frames made for Suzuki and Yamaha engines did not have a crossover behind the headstock. It may all be a little clearer from this photo I took.

I took more photos on interesting bikes and this 1927 172cc Francis Barnett Brooklands Track Special recently restored by Brooklands is a gem with additional pannier fuel tanks so it could keep going for at least six hours and in doing so collected many of the small capacity records in the late twenties. The Villiers engine has some interesting features in that it has plain main bearings lubricated by an auxiliary hand pump that is not easy to operate being just in front of the saddle.

Our Museum bikes created quite a bit of interest with Des Heckle's 50cc Moto Minarelli engined sprint bike, the 1927 Sheffield-Henderson Brooklands sprinter, Jim Tebby's speedway bike and rounded off with an unusual Police Rickman Mitesse. Next stand to us were “Reflections and Rust” two ladies who do original oil paintings and prints. One of whom used to ride an ex-police Rickman Mitesse. How about that for co-incidences? The art work is excellent and not to expensive to have you steed captured and preserved on canvas. www.facebook.com/TalanaGamahArtwork

Last but not least Zoe Cano has another book on sale Southern Escapades and her adventures around Florida. I'll report when I have read it. I was in Florida at Daytona for the October Bike Fest in 2003 and it is a place that is just a fantastic Bikerama! I visited the racetrack and had a test ride on a Harley dresser FLT. I had a 1340 shovel 5 speed FLT at the time that I think I should have traded it being that I had it from 1981 from new. It was heavy at 330kg but that is a lightweight compared to the modern dressers at 430kg!!!! Not good for filtering on London's roads. My 1981 FLT.