ALL FOR
SPEED
AND SIDECARS
Speed 6
Chapter 6: Ton Up
- John
Around 1968 I visited my old high school in Wigston where our Kirby Muxloe contact who had stayed on to the 6th form had to go off to a lesson leaving me in the 6th form common room in the company of Peter who was also heavily into bikes. Peter and I became greater friends than the Kirby Muxloe contact (who was more into cars) and I had ever been.
At the time Peter had a Triumph Tiger Cub which he let me ride in the school car park with Peter riding pillion. We nearly cleared up Chippy Smith the woodwork teacher who demanded to know which one of us had a full licence. I said Me! Mr Smith and I had been old adversaries at school and we didn’t like each other at all.
After he had passed his bike test Peter bought a rigid frame BSA B31 350cc OHV single of 1948 vintage which had been genuinely and most effectively “tuned” by its former owner who had been both a bike enthusiast and an engineer.
Peter’s B31 had a Gold Star straight through silencer exhaust and a professionally handmade racing seat. The compression ratio had been raised as was the top speed which was a genuine 90 plus. Acceleration was also impressive and in terms of performance the B31 could easily have been passed off as a sporty 500cc single.
In later years Peter and I stripped the B31 own to bare essentials and removed the tail of the Gold Star silencer to make an open megaphone with the intention or dream of entering the bike at a “post vintage” racing event at Mallory Park. It didn’t come to that and the bike was put back on the road and was sold. It was soon pulled over by the police who insisted the new owner fitted a legal exhaust system, which he did but lost the character and performance of the B31 in the process.
Before Peter and I modified the B31 we rode out on it to Earl Shilton for Peter to look at a BSA C12 250cc pre-unit construction bike with swinging arm rear suspension which Peter thought he might like to buy.
The C12 was in a wooden garden shed and when the juvenile owner kick started the bike the blast from the open megaphone exhaust blew the shed door wide open. Peter was so impressed he bought the C12 for not very much.
Peter and I took it in turns to ride the B31 and C12 back to Wigston and found that there was little to compare between the two bikes in terms of performance, or exhaust note.
Having parted with both the B31 and C12 Peter then moved on to a 1961 Velocette Venom 500cc high camshaft single. This was the first and only bike on which I travelled in excess of 100 mph (as a pillion passenger) as Peter rode us out along the deserted A50 way beyond Kilby turn heading South.
That was quite some experience but it did occur to me at the time that if we lost control at that speed and crashed along the relatively narrow tree lined road we would surely both end up dead, which lead me to stick to 90 mph after that.
I rode Peter’s Velo once around the block near to the City General Hospital; down Broad Avenue, left into St Saviours Road, left again into Nansen Road and finally left into Gwendolen Road where I accelerated up Gwendolen Road hill back to Peter who was waiting patiently on the corner of Wakerley Road.
The rate of acceleration and sheer pulling power of the Venom, even uphill, impressed me no end.
Peter next bought a BSA DBD34 500cc Gold Star single and he offered to sell me the Venom as I liked it so much.
Peter asked £40 for the Venom but as I didn’t have the cash (and never did have) I rode it for some time “on approval”.
Solos have their devoted followers but I always felt safer and more confident on 3 wheels than on 2 so I attached a sidecar chassis to the solo geared Venom which didn’t seem to complain performance wise. It did however adversely affect the handling and the first time out on the road the steering got into a “tank slapper” and I had to abandon the outfit on my Dad’s driveway and ride my pushbike to work.
At the weekend I visited Petty’s who told me that “they all do that” and that I would need a friction steering damper which they duly sold me for 30 bob and which when fitted to the bike solved the problem immediately.
Velocette singles had a flat belt drive Miller dynamo, which on Peter’s Venom did not charge the battery. I carried a set of Ever-Ready bicycle lamps with 3 volt twin cell batteries to provide get-you-home-at-night emergency lighting. Anyone who has ever owned or ridden a Velocette Venom will know what a ritualistic performance it is to get one kick-started in the first place.
Is it any wonder that the British motorcycle industry lost out to the Japanese? When the BSA factory closed an American auctioneer was flown over to sell off the standing machinery. The auctioneer was on the TV news saying that if he had been told that some of the machinery dated back to 1908 he would have stayed at home.
Peter and I dreamed of racing a kneeler sidecar outfit around Mallory Park with me driving and Peter leaping around on the chassis; applying his bodyweight over the back wheel and the sidecar wheel as we imagined negotiating the two left hand and three right hand bends around the circuit interspersed with four straight sections.
Our dream “kneeler” would have to be powered by a Triumph parallel twin as that was the only design of 4‑stroke engine we knew of which allowed for the complete reversal of the cylinder head for the exhaust pipes to exit from the rear, with no awkward bends and the twin carbs to stick out the front for better breathing. Of course the camshaft gearing would have to be reset.
We can all dream and that was all it ever amounted to.
Nevertheless we did some practice on the Venom outfit on public roads with me driving and Peter perched on an old pantry door which Peter had donated and I had fitted to the chassis. Looking back Peter must have been very brave and trusting as he was perched on the pantry door performing gymnastics as we turned from left to right to straight on around a housing estate.
We got it wrong on one right hander and ended up mounting the footpath via a dropped kerb, just managed to squeeze the outfit between a low garden wall and a lamppost and got back onto the road at the next dropped kerb with Peter still on board. A passing dog walker looked at us gone out and well he might.
Fitting the blanket box to the chassis box provided greater stability and load carrying possibilities.
Arriving late for work at a car body repair garage I was working at in Stonebridge Street Leicester the Glaswegian foreman panel beater was standing in front of the front doors with his arms folded and wearing a stern look like old mother hen.
He watched as I roared past him on the Venom outfit and threw the outfit hard right in a controlled 3 wheel slide into Beeby Road where I parked the outfit and walked back around the corner to greet the impatient Scotsman.
“Did you see that?” I asked, referring to my expert manoeuvre.
“Yes; and you’re late!” was the curt reply.
- John Ellis
with thanks to Jean-Francois Helias for the illustrations