I got so excited about getting the reconditioned magneto into my A10 a couple of weeks back (long story) that I recklessly entered it in a local classic show. Major error of judgement, there being no prize for ‘Best Rat’. Now, there are several advantages to putting your bike in a show as opposed to… Continue reading Best Rat
A Ghost Story for Christmas It was Angie – or ‘Angelique’ as she now styled herself – who first figured out that the old watch house on the Spit would make a great venue for a Christmas party. An early adapter to acid house, she loved beach parties in the summer and warehouse parties in… Continue reading The Watch House
Coming of age in the early-80s could be a pretty miserable experience. I was eighteen when I left school in 1982, clutching three useless ‘A’ levels, having been rejected – mostly without interview – by every university to which I’d applied. (Unless you were grammar school, which I wasn’t, you weren’t getting in from a… Continue reading It’s never too late to have a happy childhood
As I sit here contemplating the intermittently sticking throttle on my BSA, I find myself wondering why I still do this to myself? I can fix it of course. It ain’t the cable or the spring, so I probably just need to clean up the carb. If that doesn’t work, I might have to dress… Continue reading The Early History of Flight (My First British Bike)
Following on from my previous point about the lack of serious films covering any aspect of motorcycle racing, here is one of the good ones, if not the best. Once a Jolly Swagman is a 1949 British film about the rise, fall and redemption of a speedway champion played by a gorgeous 27-year-old Dirk Bogarde… Continue reading Once a Jolly Swagman (Review)
No Limit (1935) is a British musical comedy starring ‘The Lancashire Chaplin’, George Formby, much of it shot on location at the Isle of Man TT (the year Stanley Woods won the Senior for Moto Guzzi, after an epic battle with Jimmy Guthrie on his Norton). Unless you’re a big fan of Formby, it’s a… Continue reading No Limit (Review)
Well, almost… I was five when I first felt the magic. It was a lazy summer Sunday and my parents and me were driving home from the seaside along the old Acle Straight in Dad’s twitchy Singer Vogue. I don’t remember the day, other than it was warm and sunny, but Dad was wound up.… Continue reading Born to Ride
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