Kop Hill 2017

www.london-motorcycle-museum.org

Kop Hill Climb 2017

Kop Hill Climb, held over the 16^th and 17^th September, is now an annual event that was resurrected some years ago and has now become a fixture for the London Motorcycle Museum to attend. This last one had us along with the 1927 Raleigh, 1929 Triumph SOHC racer and Frank’s Mitesse. 

Weather was not so good as last year with it being not very sunny and the days peppered with rain storms and feeling cool. I was there on the Sunday riding the Buell through a rain storm to arrive well before 10am and the start of proceedings of the day. We were near the Velocette Club, the Shuttleworth collection that I have on my list to visit soon and the VMCC. A great collection of enthusiasts and motorcycles. I was impressed by one guy who was riding around on a genuine motorised scooter the Stafford Mobile Pup from around 1919. Nothing is new! 

I was impressed with the Parilla Wild Cat an OHC 250cc single that sounded really sporty when it was ridden around the field. One of technological favourites is the NSU Max also a 250 with novel rod operated overhead cams. 

Frank did his best to draw crowds by firing up the Raleigh, then the Triumph then the Mitesse. The Raleigh was reserve for a climb and was at the start on Saturday and stalled then refused to run. It turns out that old age has affected the petrol tank and flakes of rust were blocking the fuel line. Something to sort out before the next event. All in all a very interesting day with lots of support being pledged for the Museum along with promised attendances. I escaped the rain on the way home. Back at the Museum on Monday and one of the visitors was from Queensland in Australia a member of the Historical Motorcycle Club. As we have rotary engines at the Museum we some interesting discussions about technology and how it was used. This included the rotary engine and every one thinks that it was Wankel however it seems that someone from Australia thought of it first as I have a copy of a share certificate from 1937 for a Rotary Engine Company.

 I know that Granville Bradshaw was designing all sorts of odd engines that were not reciprocating but not quite what Norton managed to make so successfully. Norton rotary engines ran very cool and the liquid cooling system was more to keep the induction pipe warm as the the flow of air was so fast that they frequently iced up. This leads me on to a book that I had borrowed from Peter “Motorcycle engineering” by Phil Irving fifth edition from 1973. A great engineer and designer he worked for Vincent, Velocette and AJS working on the famous Porcupine. After reading the book and thinking of the speed at which air is so fast that it causes ice to form on the induction tract this happens on the Velocette LE too in cold weather. He writes about an inlet velocity of around 300ft per second and can be calculated quite easily from the inlet port diameter, piston diameter, stroke and the RPM. Although not exact it is a good correlation to what is practically seen. 

This then leads me on to what is happening in modern engines to get so much more performance and does this equation still hold true? Any thoughts?