Article written for the BSA Star Magazine

15th October 1999

I read the Editors article in the October Star and it is amazing how one thing leads to another. I know how difficult it is to get material for a magazine, and this led me to thinking about how my interest in bikes developed.

I suppose that my love of motor bikes started when I was about ten years old. My elder brother being about nineteen came home with a BSA Goldstar of 1950’s origin and I watched in awe as he tinkered with it. This was my earliest experience as I tried to kick it up and found out what many others already new, and that was how to fly as the kick back launched me over the bars. I spent many hours looking through shop windows at Triumph’s and BSA’s until six years later when I had started work and was old enough for a licence, and so started my first restoration project. My mother had bought a Triumph Tina scooter on which eventually the frame had broken, and I got an agreement to have it if I could replace the frame. I managed to pick one up from the dump and painted it grey, not following in BSA tradition, but this was the only paint I could lay my hands on and in those early days when I was only paid three pounds and fifteen shillings as an apprentice.

This love of mechanical things was to lead me to my next love, my wife. At the time I had made a friend at work and between us we were building a control line model aircraft. As he did not have any transport I arranged to visit a model shop and pick up a silencer for the motor on my way home from work. Weaving down the back streets to avoid the traffic a young lady nearly became my first passenger as she walked out across the road. Later that Friday evening this same person came to the youth group having recognized my scooter to let me know what she thought about my driving prowess, and I fell in love. We went out for several years before getting married at an early age of almost nineteen, and being one of those who had been brought up with respect for my parents and a healthy fear of the law I used to meet her in the evening and we would either both use the bus, or I would push my scooter to the bus stop and follow her back home. Now the scooter I had was not the easiest of beasts to get started and as it was an automatic you could not bump start it, but then this was not always a bad thing as it gave us extra time to spend out on the street when it came to going home at night.

Seven months later and I passed my test first time, mainly encouraged by my wife who was fed up with catching the bus. I remember hearing ‘Leapy Lee singing Little Arrows’ on that wonderful day in 1968. Now you recall my friend at work, well he was to encourage me to embark on my next bike. He was younger than I and had decided that he was going to buy a 50cc Suzuki off another lad at work, and so we went down to have a look at it at lunch time. He asked me if I would like to try it out and so I rev’d it up and dropped the clutch. My first wheelie lasted for about twenty feet although it seemed like miles, frightened me to death, after all it was not even my bike, but convinced Oxo that he should buy it if it could perform like that. He then started going on about me buying one, and so a visit to a local dealer revealed a similar bike. I arranged finances through my dad and went down with him to make a purchase, but my dad encouraged me to go for the 90cc Honda C200 instead. This little beauty taught me several lessons and took my girl and I many miles needing only a rebore and new big end. I remember dropping it twice and was glad that we chose to wear Jet Style helmets at a time when it was not compulsory. The first when going around a round about where the road was surfaced with gravel in the tarmac and it had just rained after a long summer and the oil had risen to the surface, Carol my wife to be, damaged her knee and banged the side of her head and we ended up at the infirmary where a police woman encouraged her to get back on the bike as soon as possible, and so we rode home that night with her leg sticking out as she could not bend it to get her foot on the peg. The second time, again on an island taught me the value of putting all the bolts back after a strip down. I had two bolts left and it just happened that they held the steering yoke to the forks, which now operated on the friction between them at the steering pin, needless to say I found out where they went as I came to go around the island and had a blow-out in the front. When I picked the bike up the handle bars bore no relation to the direction of the front wheel. Having got home I refitted them, but also suffered a none to serious knee injury. The most important lesson that I learned was with regard to driving down the outside of a queue of traffic. As I came to the end of the queue I realized to my horror that the car at the front was about to turn right and I could not stop. Fortunately we swung round the front of his car and missed him by the thickness of the paint.

Having survived our youthful years on the bike we decided to get marriage and the bike went being replaced by an old 1951 Ford Popular. Between us we only earned twenty pounds a week, but some years later when we had our first daughter I was able to get hold of a Raleigh Wisp to commute to work, and this led to me buying a Honda CD175 which served well. I then bought my only brand new bike which was a W reg Honda CB250RS, and it was a dream. I had always said that if the Japs brought out a good old 250 single I would by one and here it was. Polished to excess, it was reliable, smooth and not only took me to work each day, but also took myself and our eldest daughter to Donington Park to watch the Korkie Ballington and Barry Sheene racing for position. Sadly all things come to an end and I let the bike go as I had got into cycling mode once again and used to ride twenty four miles to work and back each day, this lasting until I was gone forty.

The desire never leaves you and at the age of forty five I started thinking about another bike. My brother-in-law offered me his Suzuki GS750, but it looked a monster and so I declined. Then another friend influenced me, as Brian who comes from the Isle of Wight, wanted to buy a BSA Shooting Star. He asked if he could come and stay for a few days, so that we would go to the Classic bike show at Stafford in 1998. I agreed and remember looking at the bikes and thinking how nice it would be to own something like them. Towards the end of the year he place a wanted add in the magazines and as a result in February we hired a van from Portsmouth to fetch his beautiful 1970 Shooting Star from Birmingham. About a week later, he rang me to say that he had had an offer of a BSA B50SS, was I interested. Several phone calls later I went down to Surrey with my wife to view this potential purchase. Crash helmet at the ready, I took it out for a spin, and my wife knew I was going to buy it by the grin on my face. A week later and transport arranged I drove down again and brought my new possession home, and then spent numerous nights in the garage rewiring and fixing various bits that I felt were untidy. We went to the classic bike show again, but this year looking for a work shop manual for my bike, which my wife spotted on a stand and twenty pounds lighter walked away with an original (prior to this find I used to email Rickard Nebrer in Sweden on a regular basis for information, and many times he would send back diagrams scanned in from his manual to help me out). A new carb was called for as the tick over was none existent, and the carb that was fitted was one off a Rocket 3, some polishing work undertaken, and I was back on the road. I still can not get rid of that silly grin when I go out for a spin.

Next my mate Brian asked if I could help him build a web page for his business. Having gone from engineering as a lad to Computer Manager my current job, we sat down and started to find out what was involved. I then thought how I could apply this for myself, and started to build a Web Page of my own (www.squibby.freeserve.co.uk) which had details of my bike and links to others with similar interests. This has gradually evolved and has also given me hours of fun.

It is now autumn and I am preparing to strip down the bike completely for a general refurbishment. The frame needs painting, the rear wheel rim has lost its chrome and so I am going to strip off the rims, repaint the hubs and have new chrome rims and stainless steel spokes. The tank and tin wear will get a coat of paint in a burgundy colour, and the engine cases will be polished up, I may even get the head and barrel sand blasted. All of the work apart from the wheel building and sand blasting I will do myself, and it is my aim to have it back on the road for next Easter. The colour I have chosen was quite accidental as I was not sure what colour I should use but Brian emailed me a picture of the B50SS from the 1972 sales brochure which was purple, and when I printed it out it came out looking burgundy (possibly the recycled ink cartridge) but it looks good.

This love of bikes has led me back to a hobby which has many aspects. I am able to ride a bike again, enjoy the restoration work and information gathering, built a webpage and I am now in contact with people in Sweden as well as this country.

www.classicbikes.org.uk