Hairy Bikers and Other Petrol Heads

[Osgood]

What is the world coming to?

I was just looking for a video of a diesel shunter idling, to show that classic pall of idling Gardner 8LW smoke, to illustrate what most diesel shunters did all day (https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/threads/info-needed-on-the-daily-workings-of-a-diesel-shunter.9795/ ) when I came across this:

Yes - 12 hrs of some bloke's B Series Cummins idling.
He starts it up, but does he shut it down after 12 hrs?
Oh no, the video just ends abruptly (I fast-forwarded, honest).

Really - what is the world coming to?

 

[Eastsidepilot]

It did a passable impression of a medium sized, slightly startled rodent, which didn’t prevent the blind b******d in the Transit pulling out on me. Happily there was room…. Why do bike makers fit such useless horns? You don’t want to have to use it, but if you need to, you want something with the effect of a Dumbledore spell…


Simon

I didn't bother using the horn, as there not that effective, I found that the motocross boot with 6 buckles down the side dragged down the side of the offending vehicle often made the point

Col.

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Twenty years later and up to retirement I spent one or 2 days a week working in Birmingham and have no trouble with the varying accents now, the tricky bit in a large office was figuring out which were Villa and which were City supporters , getting it wrong on a bad day could cause mutiny.

This is going to sound like the start of one of those jokes but I was once sat in a ristoranti in Varigotti on the Italian Riviera with three other truck drivers , a Scotsman, a German and a Dutchman, neither the Scot or German could understand my Essex boy accent, the Scot thinking I was a Cockney anyway, the German couldn't understand either of us although he spoke English. The Dutchman could understand me as he spoke good English and I could understand what he said but non of us could speak Italian, well not fluently, but I knew enough then to chat the waitress up and order food because the others couldn't make her understand with out pointing at the menu and without really knowing what they were ordering . This got up the nose of the others ! because I kept making her laugh at my attempts to speak Italian and I could understand her broken English we got on fine.
Between us we all managed to have a laugh over a few beers..........the waitress ? well that's another story I might tell another day .

Col. ex. Italian Job.

 

[Osgood]

Do remember the arguments about helmet laws .....

I sometimes rode pillion on a mate's bike around Derby in the mid 70s - he insisted on the wearing of what looked like tartan flat caps, but they had a kite mark in them - most times we went out the plod would pull him and they'd have a standing argument.

I wonder if this chap gets pulled over much?

 

[oldravendale]

This is going to sound like the start of one of those jokes but I was once sat in a ristoranti in Varigotti on the Italian Riviera with three other truck drivers , a Scotsman, a German and a Dutchman, neither the Scot or German could understand my Essex boy accent, the Scot thinking I was a Cockney anyway, the German couldn't understand either of us although he spoke English. The Dutchman could understand me as he spoke good English and I could understand what he said but non of us could speak Italian, well not fluently, but I knew enough then to chat the waitress up and order food because the others couldn't make her understand with out pointing at the menu and without really knowing what they were ordering . This got up the nose of the others ! because I kept making her laugh at my attempts to speak Italian and I could understand her broken English we got on fine.
Between us we all managed to have a laugh over a few beers..........the waitress ? well that's another story I might tell another day .

Col. ex. Italian Job.

My similar experience was in Ireland but sadly did not involve a waitress.

For many years we had our holidays in Ireland and for the first, in about 1980, we stayed close to Tralee. My cousin and I went in to a bar and sitting in the corner was an old wrinkled retainer who started to engage us in conversation - he could see we were tourists and there'd be a drink in it, wouldn't there? So he kept talking an we kept nodding without understanding a word. Then the barman heard what was going on. He'd been to Dublin, so was well travelled and translated for us. The old chap's name was Nicholas, he was a labourer and had never been out of County Kerry. He listened in amazement when we described getting to Tralee by the M4 - three lanes of traffic all running in the same direction! - and ship - he had us on a bit of string and knew it. So did we but it was great entertainment for the price of a Guinness.

That's when I learnt that you have to wait for a Guinness to be poured properly. It gives time for the whiskey, but we didn't know that at the time.

When we went back there with some other friends there was Nicholas, in the same seat, and we bought him a Guinness...... I even introduced him as n old friend.

Brian

 

[Allen M]

Hi all
A follow up from a few posts back. My scooter passed the MOT with clean bill of health. However it has got to go. You may remember I mentioned a van reversing out in front of me. Well it was short way from where I live on the only road in & out so got to go past it every time. OK in the car but on a bike, no way, I've lost my bottle, and at virtually 80 I am retiring from riding so it is up for sale.
If there is anyone interested please contact me.

Regards
Allen

 

[simond]

Sorry to hear that Allen.

 

[Allen M]

Sorry to hear that Allen.

I have to be sensible about it. If not relaxed then more likely to make a mistake (or not spot one by someone else). Also about 6 years ago I had a lot of pain in the base of my spine. Xray showed disks out of line and may need to be fused. However the went back but I was warned to be very careful, any twinge stop at once and rest.
A bump on the car is controlled by seat with back support, seat belt and air bag so less risk than a bump on the bike and a hard stop even with the proper cloths.
Had a good innings so mustn't' grumble. I can still walk, climb a ladder, do a bit in the garden & house DIY. And there is still plenty of modelling left in me for myself and the Colonel Stephens Museum.
Regards
Allen

 

[Osgood]

I have to be sensible about it. .......

I guess if you can be sensible about it then you are a long way towards embracing such inevitable change - and good that you can be so open about it.
I suspect I might be struggling to come to terms with some changes!

 

[simond]

I recall some 33 years back, turning up at my parents’ home on my just-purchased Moto Guzzi - mum said, “Oh dear, I thought you’d grown out of those things”, to which I replied, “I’m aiming to be riding it when I’m 80”.

17 years to go. Hopefully I’ll still be able to do it, and hopefully I’ll still be able to afford whatever passes for 4* in 2038…

getting old is a bitch, but it’s better than any of the alternatives I’m aware of.
Keep well
Simon

 

[King Crab]

My father tried to teach me the rudiments of driving in the family car. That was a bad mistake as it was his pride and joy. I was very nervous, and after I stalled it twice, he went white and said through gritted teeth, that it was the end of any lessons. We went home and he announced that if I wanted to learn to drive I could get myself a bloody motorbike. My poor mother promptly burst into tears, saying that I would definitely come to grief on a motorbike.

I got a factory job over the summer, and made enough to buy my first bike. A second hand two stroke BSA Bantam. This was on the advice of my father who was a BSA fan from the 1930's and had no experience of Japanese metal. It was a sore disappointment to me, but I could just afford it.

I rode it all over the Lancashire moors in the evenings, but it really struggled to get up any speed and belched smoke going up inclines. I didn't have a helmet, only goggles, because that was all my father had ever used. Well apart from a flat cap.

One evening I came over the brow of a hill to see a wonderful steep straight road going, seemingly, all the way down into a valley and up the other side. Ideal for a burn. Couldn't see the bottom, because of trees, but I wound it up and tore down that slope. Unfortunately what I couldn't see was the road took a sharp left over a stone bridge at the bottom. I didn't make the first bend and demolished a dry stone wall. There was also a single strand of barbed wire at the top which I collided with head first. The barb embedded itself in my eyebrow, just above my eye, and I ended up dangling on the wire. So that was the just the start of my biking career, as my mother predicted....

Peter

 

[Max M]

Ooooo...that last paragraph made my bottom go all funny!

My second bike was a Bantam (didn't have the mechanical nous to maintain a 250 Enfield ).
If I rode it now I would probably realise how awful is was but at the time it probably saved me from myself by not being the fastest thing on the road...better brakes would have been an asset though.

 

[Allen M]

My father bought a brand new Bantam from Copes of Dudley in, I think, 1948. It was one of the first when just announced. He used it for travelling for work as a maintenance carpenter for the local authorities and answering fire calls when the siren went. He also had a car, a 1932 Morris Minor for family use. He kept until about 1965.

My younger brother and me testing it,

Regards
Allen

 

[Joe's Garage]

My first bike was a BSA Bantam D14/4, lovely bike taught me a lot both how to ride and my mechanical knowledge. Registration PDP 69G, still got the front knife edge plate but not the bike.
Wonder where it is now?
Lovely stories in this thread.
Julian

 

[King Crab]

Anybody who ever drove an old bike, inevitably ended up with lots of stories!

Peter

 

[Allen M]

Old bikes & stories. My first at 16 in 1957 was a Vincent Firefly 'clip on' engine fitter to a Rudge bike which I had for about 2 years when I got my brand new Phillips Gadabout.
The Firefly was designed by H Miller & Sons, Birmingham who's main business from about 1900 was motor cycle lighting then electrical equipment. The Firefly was then built and sold by Vincent until about 1958. The Miller business was sold in about 1960 and possible went to India and renamed.
Just on 30 year ago I met my now wife and was introduced to her cousin and her (now late) husband, Bob Miller who was the son of the last controlling family member in the business, he was only with them briefly just after leaving school.
I paid about £10 for it but saw on on the Internet a little time ago offered at over £2000.
If it was our old bikes, cars and/or Hornby, Bassett Lowke etc trains we would be on a fortune. But then if we all had them stored there would be too much and the price would drop.

Sorry if I've bored you all

Regards
Allen

 

[simond]

Bring it on, Allen!

 

[Peter Cross]

My first bike cost me £10 and came in 3 large cardboard boxes. When built it made up into 1 and ½ tiger cubs. I rode this all over the country. I then up graded to larger boxes which made-up into a T100T Daytona. Which once I changed the front end to a T140 one with a disc, was a bike that stopped as well as it went. This one was really great fun.

 

[Eastsidepilot]

.....and if you fancy a new bike in 2021 here's a few from the cheaper end of the market if your not into replica Grand Prix road bikes

I'm leaning towards the Enfield GT for some reason but, but they bolted the clip-ons on upside down the Triumph and Guzzi also appeal.

Col.

 

[Len Cattley]

I had a Triumph Bonneville 650 when I was 16 (1969). Which I still had it as it was worth over £2500.

Len