Bike Finds of my Youth

[Iron Head]

Apologies for the slightly random topic but I was reminiscing today about the 60's and the amount of motorcycle ‘stuff' that used to get abandoned (dumped) in the countryside and the massive attraction it had to me from about age 12 onwards. Was wondering about other members recollections?

I recall bringing home most of a completely dismantled Villiers twin with my mate and learning a lot about attempting to put it together. Later we also found a pair of pretty much complete (except engine) Italian Berini mopeds in the woods - which we rode as bicycles around a field we had access to. Later still we found a rigid grass track frame with forks wheels and handlebars and bolted a Villiers 197 into it, bicycle rack for seat and Bluecol antifreeze bottle for petrol tank and off we went round the field. No exhaust at all and my first experience of a motorcycle and never to be forgotten! Remember too seeing many scooters (and unbolted sidecars) going over the wall at the local tip.

Iron Head

[Eamonn]

Mid-seventies I collected a 150cc Bantam in a wheelbarrow (all in bits) for free, had it in the shed for a couple of years and never did anything with it. Eventually gave it away to someone else who would use it more than I.


Bought a Navigator 250cc for £5 in 1974, engine had been disassembled but put back together although never run. There was no front tyre so instead of wheeling it home (about 1.5 miles) and damaging the rim, I pushed it all the way on the grass beside the road. That was heavy going...
Once I got it home, Dad took one look at it, checked the price of a new tyre and tube and advised me that since the price of the tyre and tube was going to be £18 it wasn't worth it. So I had to wheel it back to the seller (along the grass again) and got my £5 back. Wonder now if I should have insisted I kept it....

[Iron Head]

Good bit of exercise for you then Eamonn! Of course a fiver was a lot of money then. I remember a work colleague of mine saying he had an old Ariel Red Hunter standing in the front garden forever that his parents were getting sick of and his mum flogged it to a passerby for half a crown whilst he was at school?!

[Cjay59_LAPSED]

In the early seventies, when we still got snow on the ground and hard frost, the hill on our village common, Peppard, used to be our destination for winter sledging, hundreds of people used to participate. One year when the bobsled team were doing well in the Olympics we found a sixties sidecar dumped in the woodland next to the slope, I can remember thinking as we hurled down the hill how dangerous all the metal trim would be if we rolled it. It took about six of us to drag it back up the hill each time, and three could go back down.

[Rob Harknett]

I brought my first bike age about 14, from money saved doing my paper round. It was a German W.D. DKW. I brought a number of prewar and 1940's bikes for very little. Just 8 shillings ( 40p ) for a 1948 BSA B31. Even in the mid 1980's, you could walk round an auto jumble and buy enough bits to build a 125 c.c. Bantam or LE Vello for £10.

[Iron Head]

Amazing coincidence Clifford as Peppard was my childhood sledging destination too from the mid-sixties onwards. I remember all kinds of ‘stuff ‘ going down from skiers to dustbin lids. Not sure your sidecar doesn't ring a bell in fact!

[clive]

Expecting plenty of mockery but my first bike was a Lambretta LD 150 bought before i could take it on the road. Our drive was about 3 cars length plus a garage. My friend and i could not get the hang of the clutch and we kangarooed up and down the drive. Eventually i thought i had it sorted and told my friend to get on the back. Of course it did not pull so well two up so i opened up the throttle. We shot into the garage where i found the oil drips on the floor (from the car!) did not improve the braking. We shot straight out the back door. Unfortunately it was closed at the time. On my 16th birthday i rode around never going more than 2 miles from the house in case of breakdown but still managed to cover over 100 miles on the first day.

[Cjay59_LAPSED]

Iron Head, I remember the skiers, and the dustbin lids were fast, but difficult to control, people would spin around and mow people down walking back up the hill. I used to go up with my brothers at night when the ground was frozen solid, vaseline the runners on our sledges and flydown as fast as possible, such a shame kids can't do it now (they would all be off skiing now anyway). You probably raided the same dumps as me, one was called the Badgers Pit full of old Morris Eights and other stuff, we started off putting moped forks on our push bikes and lay out tracks in the beech woods and gravel pits, then old Cottons and BSA's stripped down to thrash around, we would push them up the woods and hope the local copper wasn't out, then cheap Bultaco's and Montessa's, finally I bought my AJS Stormer Enduro, I worked at the Royal Berks Maternity Unit, it would wake up all the babies every morning, but great fun on the country lanes around Henley and Reading. Small World.

[Iron Head]

I can relate to your Stormer's cacophany Clifford my road registered Bultaco Sherpa could be heard about 3 miles away! My ‘66 Greeves Challenger used on our field had some ‘bark' too. Great bike but dogged with a jumping 4th gear on the Burman box as I recall. Bought from Windsor Comp Shop - now there was a place to drool over bikes!

Another thing I remember is virtually wearing out my 1972/73 MCN International Motorcycle File books I looked at them so much. Still have ‘em with ticks against each bike I had seen in the metal.

[JAH]

Windsor Comp Shop was owned Colin Moram who also owned Sid Morams in Slough. When going to Windsor College of Further Education in 1965 I was in there most lunch time talking to Pete who was the shop manager who also rode scrambles . I knew Pete as he was also a member of Farnham Royal Motor Cycle Club, as you said all bikes were scramblers and trials machine.

JAH