A
visit to the Haynes Museum
As
I was in Warminster collecting a gearbox for my next four wheel
project and was close enough to Sparkford I spent a day at the Haynes
Museum primarily to see how they had displayed the Robin Spalding
scooter collection but to see what else they had.
I was amazed at the
Speedway bike collection and the variety of engines used. It was
said that many of these bikes were from Ivan Maugher’s collection.
I thought most were in the collection at the Paradise Wildlife park
but there must be more than would fit in there.
A great day, this
visit I took the guided tour by Roy that concentrated on Triumph.
Little about the bikes and much more on the development of the cars.
Interesting anyway. As you may know John Haynes began it all by
writing about his building of an Austin 7 special while still at
school. Can’t do things like that now, too many Elves around. Roy was
very knowledgable and, as he owned some of the Triumph cars our group
had a very intimate look at them. Closer than most people are allowed
to get. There was not enough time to spend looking at the displays in
detail and I have to have another visit perhaps later on in the year.
There
are a few things going on as it is now MOT time for some of my bikes
and that means some servicing to be done. I do a great deal myself
but I see it is as sensible to get someone else to check them over.
I
have read the recent issue of “Road” the MAG magazine and there
is a short piece on Mark Holmes and his around the world trip on a
Triumph Rocket 3. I remember Mark from his visit to the Museum in
the early part of 2017 before he set off on this epic adventure in
April. That was also mentioned in “Road". This adventure had
an unexpected outcome and I think I will need to read the book from
tales of sadness that set him on his way to finding love and marriage
by his return. Don’t we all like a good love story but not
necessarily with your bike?
You can look him up on www.markholmes.me
I say it in imperial as that was what was used at the
time. Metric was only on the foreign stuff. I must admit the foreign
stuff of that era had class, style and continence. My usual
description about the British bikes in the museum is that along with
age comes incontinence and most have nappies under them except the
LEs. At some point it will be completed the work but it is good
enough to be on display.
In
between other things, having some spare box section I created an
extra bit for my bike trailer. Bike gear takes up a lot of space so I
came up with the idea of finding a way to strap suitcases, with the
gear in, along with a bike so I don’t fill up the car. I’m not
sure how well this is going to work but when I have tried it out I’ll
let you know.
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