Sunbeam Owners Club

www.london-motorcycle-museum.org

Another Ray of Sunshine.

It has been a little while since I did a presentation about the London Motorcycle Museum and this one resulted from doing some fund raising at Kempton Park last March. George Smith took my details and after a week or two I received a message about arranging a date. What was months away arrived on one of the warmest days of the year. At last I am going out on the bike with no threat of rain!! Perhaps, at last, the honour of Rheinmeister has been passed on and I can get a bike ride done in the dry! It is Monday 18^th July and I am on my way to West Kingsdown and the village hall to meet the guys and gals from the Sunbeam Owners Club. They are the business as they are the people who organise the Pioneer Run and the London to Brighton. Within the club are experts on pretty much anything. Would my meagre knowledge cut the mustard? I had left plenty of time to get around the M25 but a Tomtom failure to recognise the location left me 10 miles from where I should have been with 20 minutes before the meeting started. Fortunately I arrived just in time loaded with laptop, back-up memory stick and lots of fliers. All turned out well as I set up the laptop and projector, Screen arrived and within a few minutes I had launched into my presentation. I spoke a little about what I do for the Museum, all voluntary, representing them at events and shows and, when possible get out to bike clubs to promote the cause of getting people to visit us. The most recent thing is to try to raise funds to keep the Museum doors open for as long as possible. So far we are good until the new year. On this evening I was talking about the bikes at the Museum and some of the historic events that influenced the types of motorcycle produced. The presentation covered 1902 to 2003 starting with our 1902 Ormonde and finishing with Bruce Anstey's 2003 Super sports TT winner and lots of stories around some people who influenced the motorcycle industry like Harry Ricardo and Granville Bradshaw. 

1092 Ormonde

Bruce Anstey's 2003 TT winner

It was a very good evening with contributions from many people. One of the motorcycles, the 1930 OHC Triumph racer, that had expired at Brooklands a few weeks before was now running and I played the video of it being started. 

1930 OHC Triumph

A couple who had visited the Museum just the day before had a treat as Frank had had a modern technology failure and was not able to show them the clip on his phone. What an evening as each person in the club had something to talk with me about even down to the former owner of the 1915 Calthorpe that he used to ride regularly. I had a great time and I think everyone who turned up enjoyed it too. Their collection for the Museum added another £74.50 to keep us open a bit longer. I am amazed how generous the Sunbeam Owners Club are and more people have promised to pay us a visit especially on a Monday!

Some odd bits

www.london-motorcycle-museum.org

Odd bits for Now

Just received the July Newsletter from the BCMT and there is a bit about Moto Museo at Bassella! Somewhere that I visited last September and now it appears in the News. Another co-incidence? More people are visiting the Museum but the numbers still need to increase. The Haynes Museum gets 100,000 visitors a year. How much better we could do if we had that number coming through the door? What has peaked my interest and get me to go along to Sparkford is that Robin Spalding’s collection of British Scooters is well displayed there. Good for a visit on a rainy day later in the year (or August).

Moto Museo Bassella

Now back at our Museum and passing the 1927 Sunbeam I see spots of red stuff on the floor. No pools of blood visible anywhere, no body lying around so I guess it has come from the bike. Perhaps it really is a living thing that responds to the rider?

To me, it looks more like RedX the fuel additive, but why it should appear now? I have no reason as it has not been run for some time. Could it be a spiritual phenomenon? There have been many such things reported about tears from statues in religious quarters. So something coming from a revered motorcycle should that not be significant too?

So while I was having fun in Swindon and Chinnor Byke Dayz going on Frank was off at Brooklands doing the test hill. Having done it twice on the, one and only, 1930 OHC single It expired on the third attempt. Frank thought he had broken it so he spent last Sunday working away to find out what had happened to it. It turns out that the rockers have clamps on the bearing shafts. The spindle has no flats on them to stop the rocker arms moving so as things warmed up the clamps worked lose and the valves remained firmly closed. Once the clamps were tightened up valve operation returned and we, once again, have a running bike. It should be fine when it goes again at Kop Hill. Not sure what else will be at Kop Hill.

So here is the link for the short video of Frank firing up the Triumph after being fixed.

https://youtu.be/u199yteQ3Go

So far I am progressing slowly with the book on Granville Bradshaw, “The Flawed Genius” and when I have finished it I'll report back. It is very technically detailed and is requiring slow and careful reading. Little nuggets of information pop out. Granville did lots of work for lots of people and Zenith was one of them. Zenith had a factory in Lower Mill Road East Molesey and there was some production at Hampton so could the Gradua at the Museum have been produced at East Molesey instead of Hampton? Another thing is that the ABC works, now a housing estate, in Hersham was across the road from the Barley Mow pub and behind the Petrol station. Many of the ABC twins were produced in the Sopwith works at Richmond Road, Kingston-upon-Thames.

Further to that the Scootamota in 1919 was produced at the Hersham works but from later that year to 1922 it was made at Selsden Engineering, Brighton Road, Croydon. The engine is reputed to be half of the 250cc unit that was used to power generators in World War One and could produce 3bhp at 4,000 rpm and one was reported to have managed 10,000 rpm!!!!!! Even so, 4,000 rpm was a good pace for any engine at that time. More to come on Granville as I work my way through he book

Windsor Great Park Run 2016

www.london-motorcycle-museum.org

BEN Charity Ride

throughWindsor Great Park 2016

Normally I'm a bit sharper at getting things done but over the last couple of weeks I've been out and about quite a bit so computer time has been limited. Now it's catch up time having done the usual bike check for the run the little Velocette Valiant's exhaust crackled its way over some 63 miles on the Saturday, using not a lot of fuel but I think and equivalent amount of oil. Pleased I wasn't following me! The main delay has been getting the forty or so minutes of video down to something watchable without being too boring so now you can see what I've been up to

https://youtu.be/VWV3ms5Eysk

This time around I returned the “Bully Cup” awarded last year and now I have had to return it for someone else to win. This year the bike turnout was not so good and like most events like this the enthusiast is torn between which one to go to. 

Winners this year were a 1932 Francis Barnet in the pre 1945 class and the Rumi in the post 1945 class.

 Both deserved winners. The proceedings were interrupted by a heavy shower but other than that an enjoyable afternoon dishing out fliers for the Museum. An uneventful trip home kept the day sweet.

I was not sure if I was going to get to it, as rain clouds loomed again on the Sunday there was a fund raising event for the Museum organised by Dave Goddard at the Crown Pub Colham green Road Hillingdon. I turned up on the Valiant to hand out fliers and go around with the collection bucket. I met up with Francis Barnet man again and he won another prize for best bike! This day I got one too for the Valiant. There were some very nice bikes there and I was particularly taken with the bright blue RAC outfit. Our great thanks to everyone who was there and gave us some very generous donations making it possible to stay open a bit longer.

 Back at the Museum on the Monday but not able to get to Cassington in the evening, I had talked so much during the day that I had no voice left to do any more. However I had recovered enough to get the Kawasaki and Buell MOT'd during the week and got out to Chinnor Byke Dayz on the Friday evening to help put the welcome pack together and for me this meant putting Museum fliers along with a bike shop flier and voting cards into the program. After doing that I headed home not staying for the first bands of the weekend as I had to be in Swindon early next day. This year there were Seventeen!!!!! Non stop entertainment and well worth going along so time to put it in the diary for next year as the first weekend in July.