The
Baughan.
Harry
Baughan was an interesting man. He first made a light car 1919 in
Pinner in Middlesex then, in 1921 moved to Stroud. In 1923 he gave
up making cars and went over to making motorcycles and sidecars using
Blackburn engines. The company made over 50 motorcycles and 3 with
sidecar wheel driving. As there was no differential the set up had a
straight on complex when driving. The shaft drive to the sidecar
wheel was engaged via a dog clutch.
To
get around this Harry patented a differential but that never went
into production. I know of a few manufacturers who did this, in
World War 11 it was BMW and Zundapp, Norton also had a design and
more recently the Russian Ural.
You can just see the bulge on on the casing for the shaft drive to the rear wheel on this BMW.
The Ural has a 30/70 split on
the differential to even out the drive for better cornering
abilities. out the drive for better cornering
abilities. design was very successful
in sidecar trials winning many competitions going where no outfit has
gone before but also excluded from many others. The company moved to
larger premises in 1937 and made aircraft parts during World War 11.
Harry kept his interest in motorcycles becoming a prominent trials
organiser. The sole surviving example of a Baughan is to be found at
the Museum in the Park in Stroud in Gloucestershire. Museum web site
www.museuminthepark.org.uk
It is a Heritage
Museum that shows the history of Stroud from the Jurassic to the
present day with lots of interesting bits in it including examples of
the first lawn mowers! Cutting the grass was changed forever and we
now have the legacy of this most Sundays during the summer months.
Doing
my bit to support the NHS to stop more cuts in services I attended a
march on Saturday. It was so underplayed by the BBC with only seconds
of air time. I was very disappointed with this as I had spent most of
the day at this rally and some 200,000 people had kept me company. If
you know Shaftsbury Avenue the column of people filled the road as
far as the eye could see. I could not see the beginning of the march
nor the end. It took more than an hour and a half for the crowd to
assemble in front of the Houses of Parliament. The BBC only reported
tens of thousands taking part not tens of tens of thousands!
However
I did encounter a very nasty animal in Tavistock square where the
march assembled. Spotted here, camouflaged, and tripping everyone up
were a complete family of trained orcas ready to catch unsuspecting
pedestrians sending them sprawling. Beware of Tavistock square and
its’ cycle lane marking!
Back
at the Museum more fun on the Monday bringing my Velocette LE out for
its’ first spin of 2017 it was a delight to have 27 children from
the local Primary School visiting us. They were challenged by looking
for the motorcycle that has a dog on the tank. Their final request
was to hear a motorcycle running. Nothing noisey was available only
the LE.
My LE didn't look like this originally!
As people may know it was used by the Police and many a
person has been caught by the quiet approach. It is one of the
quietest motorcycles around. Nothing to scare the kids who kept
requesting more as I blipped the throttle. How can you say no to
that?
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