Jampot Mag

[chris goldson]

Really enjoyed the last magazine and the article on the lightweight really got me thnking about the 250's that were available in that era.

Having passed my test on a C12 BSA and went from that to an arrow I remeber the times well, although if I'm honest the 250's of the time were not regarded by many as being particularly good but then again most were pretty much ruthlessly thrashed without a deal of mercy.

A friend had an SS80 which went pretty well and although the arrows were a revelation (and forerunner of the Yamahs and Suzuki's ?) they had a real tendancy to rot out in the body section and pull the footrests out of the crankcases whenever the bike was dropped and the silencers often fell appart around the end caps. The cubs (although not a 250) as I recall broke crankpins on a regular basis and this trauma seemed to be shared with the AMC lightweights, hence my fascination with the article expecting the same fate to appear somewhere in the text but not so!!

I had some experience with an RE five speeder and still wish to this day I had not attempted to right the problems with that particulr gearbox. The villiers powered bikes were OK but looked upon as a tad old fashioned at the time but another friend had a Greeves which was probably one of the best, if I recall right. of the mixture of the bikes we all had between us from time to time.

Perhaps best not to mention the Jubilee.

Little suprise then that we all wanted to get the test passed ASAP and move onto bigger and better, but as a good mate often reminds me we should not look upon bikes of that era with rose tinted glasses because unlike a good wine the memory should not neccesarily get better with age!!

But again we must not forget how hard they were worked with strong right wrists.

Keep up the good work with the club and mag.

[Iron Head]

I was lucky in that in ‘74 £60.00 bought me the best engineered best handling bike I have ever owned an early 60's 250cc Ducati Daytona. Italian electrics however certainly took the shine off it!

Iron Head

[Eamonn]

In '74 a friend sold me a Jubilee 250 for £5. It had been dismantled, but put back together loosely and it needed a new front tyre and tube.
As a teenager with a NSU Quickly, the Jubilee was a "real" bike and a bargain as well!

I had to push it a mile and a half from his house to mine with no front tyre, so I pushed it along the grass verges to prevent any damage to the rim. When I got home, I showed Dad the new acquisition and he said nothing, until an hour later.... He had checked on the cost of a new front tyre and tube and pronounced that as a new tyre and tube were going to cost £18 it wasn't worth it and I should take it back to get a refund of my fiver.

Being of an age when you didn't argue with your Dad, I carefully pushed the Jubilee back the mile and a half, again on the grass verge, to get my five pounds back.

I'm still not sure whether I had the right advice....

[Rob Harknett]

In '74 a friend sold me a Jubilee 250 for £5. It had been dismantled, but put back together loosely and it needed a new front tyre and tube.
As a teenager with a NSU Quickly, the Jubilee was a "real" bike and a bargain as well!

I had to push it a mile and a half from his house to mine with no front tyre, so I pushed it along the grass verges to prevent any damage to the rim. When I got home, I showed Dad the new acquisition and he said nothing, until an hour later.... He had checked on the cost of a new front tyre and tube and pronounced that as a new tyre and tube were going to cost £18 it wasn't worth it and I should take it back to get a refund of my fiver.

Being of an age when you didn't argue with your Dad, I carefully pushed the Jubilee back the mile and a half, again on the grass verge, to get my five pounds back.

I'm still not sure whether I had the right advice....

I think it was a fiver I paid for a Jubilee back in the late 60's, it was delivered to me in a tipper lorry. I was tipped on the grass verge by my house. I only had to push it in the shed.

[SPRIDDLER]

We had a wonderful evening when a couple the Plumstead testers came to a section club night.
Someone asked which bike was the worst that they had to test. I think it was Alan Jones who replied:
"The Jubilee. I was going full pelt up Sydenham Hill, chin on the tank and bum in the air when I was overtaken by a trolley bus".