By Nicholas Ryan
Warning: The author does not condone some of the practices mentioned in this story. He has since grown up.
Part 1 – Back in the day
My Triumph T110 was delivered to Walter Wragg in Leeds in May 1960 (the TOMCC sent me the register). I first rode the bike in 1974 when my brother came back with it from uni where he had bought it for £100. I was a 17 year old learner (on a Matchless G2 250) at the time. Alas I have few pics of my Triumph from back then (selfies were a long way into the future) but here’s me in 1973 on my Matchless G2 with my mum’s garden turned into a grasstrack circuit.
I took it for a quick spin. I recall now that the bike rode me and I just hung on. I had never been so fast in my life (or experienced such vibrations!). Some months later he sold it to me for £80.
With the foolhardiness of youth I removed the nacelle (the bathtub had long gone) and put on cow horns and megga’s – as you did. It even had rear sets and clip-ons as one of its incarnations. I then used the bike to travel to and back from uni which was 150 miles from Dorset to Birmingham and between term times rode with my friends on their old (even back then) British bikes.
Here is my bike and some friends in our garden at uni (setting a fine example for my kids).
And here’s my bike with cowhorns and Dunstalls, before the seat got ripped off (literally)
Like others I have the usual litany of stories to bore people with at the pub. Here are some of them:
Streaking round Oadsby: In 1974, while the bike was my brother’s, streaking was in the news – as it is sometimes. One night in one of those ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ moments of inspiration my brother and his friend streaked naked around Oadsby in Leicester on his Triumph much to the surprise of the locals. It was not all bad as they had crash helmets and boots for PPE. Luckily they did not fall off as they could have suffered some pretty painful and embarrassing road burns!!
Riding in winter: Winter gear was an old Airforce great coat and preparing for journeys with copious socks, sweaters etc. and with the coup de grace of wrapping arms, body and legs with newspaper for extra insulation (maybe that was a wartime tip?). I recall one trip to Birmingham in freezing fog and when I finally arrived there was ice on my knees and gloves and the gear shift and throttle had frozen up. In hindsight it was a near death experience as coming down onto the motorway in the thick fog I rode down the across grass and not the approach road onto the motorway. If there had been a culvert and I had fallen off I may just have lain there and expired from exposure.
My bike caught fire: In winter it was necessary to use the tickler (the choke was long gone) until petrol dripped out of the carb (on to the magneto underneath!) then start the bike with a hefty kick. On one occasion there were some Japanese bike owners with electric start bikes watching me. The bike kicked back and then the Japanese bike owners started pointing at me. I thought ‘they have probably never seen the ritual of starting a British bike before’ until I looked down and saw flames around my knees. I quickly patted out the flames with my gloves, started the bike and drove off. I still wonder if those Japanese bike owners thought that the carburettor catching fire was standard operating procedure when starting a British bike in winter. I can also see why ticklers are no more – at least one of the bikers at our local TOMCC has had his bike catch fire in similar circumstances. I am now extremely careful how I use the tickler but it sure gets the bike started.
My bike got stolen: At uni my landlady politely asked me to find alternative accomodation after coming back from the pub late one night and running into her garage door one too many times. Fair enough. My friends and I ended up renting an old house (since demolished) in Smethwick for £4 per week. It was so cold we all slept in one room around the coal fire with the mice except when we had girlfriends which, unsurprisingly, was not very often. One morning my bike had gone (these bikes had no ignition switch and very few people used locks). I contacted the police. They came round and said that a well-known car and bike thief just happened to live 3 doors down from us and- Copper like – that they would “ ‘ave a word with him”. Two days later my bike was back outside minus the top box – a lucky reprieve.
The university bike club: Inevitably going to Birmingham Uni meant we were the Birmingham University Motorcycle Society (the BUMS). My bike with registration UB was ‘Ugly B***er’. We used to ride our motley collection of bikes to the pub, drink beer and ride back spiritedly in much the way clubs do now. We made up a story for the students union about needing money to buy tools and a torque wrench and then spent the money on beer. When I talk to my children about how to behave at uni it is definitely ‘do as I say, not as I do’.
The Hanham link road corner: My home town, Wimborne, had a kind of race circuit. First of all you took off over the hump back bridge over the river, then negotiated The Square, then picked up speed to go round the Hanham link road corner as fast as you dared where your friends would be watching for the sparks from the footrests. One time my bike dug in and it ‘tank slapped’ for 100 yards before coming back under control. I never rode that fast again round the Hanham Link Road corner and now when I visit home I cannot help but look at a lamp post positioned in just the wrong place. Probably another near death experience. Though my bike still has the chamfered footrests under the new rubbers, my footrest scraping days are over.
Negotiating The Square with the skin heads on their ‘bean cans’: Our local Skinheads / Mods complete with Parka’s, red socks and beaver tails would congregate in The Square on their mirror bejewelled Lambretta’s. Sometimes on exiting the square there would be the angry buzz of the lads on their ‘bean cans’ and you would be surrounded. We would burn them off and they would circle back to hang out in The Square again. We used to fantasise about having a pillion passenger with bolt cutters to prune their mirrors when they were alongside. When I look back it was harmless fun though they did pin my friend down in ‘The Rec’ and cut his long hair. The ‘skinheads’, 40 years on, are still skin heads though now not through choice (J). They are back in The Square on Sunday mornings with their renovated classic scooters but now mixing with the renovated British classic bikes with a shared love of old machines and all, or most, enmity forgotten.
The Wimborne grease: The Wimborne grease a.k.a. ‘The Greasers’ used to hang out in The Smith’s Arms (now long gone). They were a long haired group who used to mainly shuffle around town – either their bikes were broken or they were banned – looking threatening in their leather jackets with badged sleeveless denim jackets on top. They had names like Wart, Weasel and Tomahawk and had the odd ‘rumble’. I don’t think they ever bit the heads off chickens but they made up for it with their embroidered ‘originals’ which had been bathed in unmentionable materials. We tried to emulate them to a degree by dragging our Levi jackets along the beach with our bikes to make holes in them which was kind of silly but how about nowadays when people buy brand new jeans with factory made holes in them! Like respect, holes in jeans should be earned not bought (IMHO).
A run in with the grease at New Year: One New Year having no tickets for our regular we ended up in a pub where the greasers were in the other bar. After some libation my brother (fresh back from uni and with fine new words) announced that he was going to talk to the bikers. A friend came in – “Nick your brother is upsetting the locals”. I went in and he was there saying things like “Japanese bikes are better than British bikes” and “your argument is purely subjective we need to look at this objectively”. I extricated him. Later on the way to the toilet we met the leader of the greaser’s girlfriend. She said to my brother “I remember you – you’re the loudmouth”. He said “Shut up you old cow” (probably not the wisest of answers). Within seconds she had him pinned against the wall and said “call for me boyfriend”. Soon I too was pinned against the wall. Luckily the landlord saved us. He came along and kicked us out for making trouble. I still remember him saying “what do you expect when the cattle barons mix with the cowboys?”
Racing a police bike from the lights: We used to ride to the pub passing a roundabout where there was a police station. One evening we were on our way riding in a ‘brisk’ manner till we got to some red lights at the top of a hill. We were revving our engines waiting for the green light. I was on my T110, a friend was on his BSA A65, another on a Triumph 500 and another friend was in front on his Bonnie 750. I looked alongside but instead of it being my friend on his Beeza it was a police Norton Interceptor! The lights changed and I watched as my friend on his Bonnie raced ahead. I could see his throttle hand wrenching through the gears as he raced the police bike down the hill. Every time he looked back he saw the police bike headlight and thinking it was me on his tail went even faster! I thought ‘this is not going to end well’. We rounded the corner and there was a police road block (the police motorcyclist had radioed ahead). The police pointed at us ‘you, you and you – over there’. They read us the riot act – racing on a public highway, recklessness, speeding, dangerous driving etc. Then one said ‘Nice bikes lads, that’s an old Tiger isn’t it?’ and we were soon discussing old bikes. The police motorcyclist chipped in ‘you could have been more considerate, I’m just running my bike in and it’s taken me 4 miles to catch you’. They then let us on our way and 2 weeks later we got warning letters listing our crimes and saying to be more careful. I wonder if our old British bikes helped us gain sympathy but maybe this is how it was back then. We did not mean any harm; the roads were empty and were just having fun. These days it would be a different outcome but then again these days I would not ride like that. My friend later went on to greater things – he managed to stove in the car door of the Chief of Police for all Dorset with his bike. He now owns a Trident, Rocket 3 and Harley XR but his days of racing police bikes from the lights are over.
A good chase up ‘The Bristol’: I went to visit my brother in Leicester and riding back got stopped by a police bike on the Bristol Road in Birmingham. I received a notice to appear in court and thought that it would be pretty interesting to witness the procedure. They asked me to stand up and to my surprise they said ‘in view of your speed we are considering banning you’. I quickly said that I needed my bike to go to the uni library and that my life would be ruined if I did not get a good degree (I didn’t). They gave me a £30 fine and 3 points. Afterwards the police biker who had attended court came up and said “thanks for a good chase up ‘The Bristol’”.
Falling off: I had a good run on my bike with only one major spill. The root cause was going too fast round a corner (would you believe) and not allowing for a bus coming the other way. I flipped the bike up but on leaning back down the footrest dug in and we skidded across the road, bounced across the pavement and ended up in the bushes. The crash happened near a cricket field and the cricketers came running out. At first I thought they were going to offer sympathy (are you OK?) but instead they waved their cricket bats at me and said ‘you maniac, you could have killed that poor girl on the back’. They were right. They then went back to playing cricket grumbling on the way. I pushed my bike home with my friend carrying the exhaust pipe and silencer that had been bashed off. I met her recently – she remembers ending up in the bushes still holding onto the seat which got ripped off during the accident and also stopping off to get patched up on the way home by a friend’s dad who was a doctor. I guess it was a memorable experience for her.
Mechanical problems: Anybody who had an old British bike back then would know they were, let’s say, not very reliable. They probably were when new but years of circulating fine sand, sludge and crappy oil round the engine takes its toll and we did not have the money (or the knowledge) to maintain them properly. I used to periodically get the odd re-bore and weld up cracks in the cylinder head (it was 8 stud) but did not have the facilities for changing bushes and reaming etc. Riding home from uni to Dorset one day there was a clatter and I stopped the bike. I stripped it down (you needed just 2 spanners to get the head off) to see that only one piston was going up and down. A con rod had broken at the top. My parents came and loaded my bike into their VW camper van and we took it home. I quickly sourced a second hand rod of no known provenance from a breaker which arrived wrapped in newspaper. After re-assembly (no torque wrench – just what felt right) I was back on the road. With knowledge now, which I did not have then, I should at least have looked for cracks on the second hand (I cannot bring myself to say ‘pre-loved’) rod. The repair lasted about a year until once again there was a clatter. A con rod had snapped but this time closer to the crank shaft and the barrels had lifted. ‘Lifting the barrels’ was a relatively common occurrence and along with ‘throwing a rod’ fairly common parlance for British bikes – my friends BSA A10 lifted the barrels after one of the crankshaft bolts let go for no apparent reason.
This is what can happen when the barrels get lifted – you get your own cutaway engine.
Later when I was renovating the engine I could not figure how the timing cover had a crack in it but having found this photo now I know. On the positive side the chamfered footrest verifies my Hanham link road corner story.
So a second hand crank case and another rod arrived wrapped in newspaper. The crank case had a very dodgy weld around the drive side main bearing but I was soon back on the road. The repair was good until I laid the bike up to go overseas.
Reading Bill’s T110 write up (Nacelle April18), with a similar level of reliability, I wonder just how many of the classic bikes on sale truly have matching frame and engine numbers. When I renovated the bike I should have stamped the frame number on the engine (which would have increased the value) and nobody would have been the wiser. The engine was original less the crankcases and a con rod so would it have been justified to stamp on the old engine number? As it stands the engine number is No.1 so maybe the cases were made as spares anyway. It still has the original gearbox number though.
In 1978 I got a job in the oil industry where my mechanical skills learned from keeping my Triumph on the road really helped. My bike was wheeled into my mum’s shed for an expected 6 months but ended up languishing there for 39 years. I spent 20 years in the Far East where I had a Suzuki GS750 for 8 years.
This was the old (less conservative) Singapore – we used to race up to Changi beach near the airport along the newly constructed ECP highway at 3 am to go skinny dipping after the clubs closed.
Riding gear for short rides was a T shirt, shorts and flip flops (madness). My only hairy experience was just missing a crazed water buffalo in the middle of the road in Malaysia at about 80 mph.
Here I am with my bike in very suspect shorts.
Note: The author definitely does not endorse the use of this type of motorcycle protective gear.
This article first appeared in Nacelle, the Triumph Owners Motorcycle Club magazine, in 2019, as the first of two parts.
To read the second part of this article, The Renaissance, click here