Tuesday 19 December 2017

Some Military oddities



Winter Studies


When it’s cold and frosty there is not much incentive to get out on two wheels to brave the elements and slippery roads so looking around there is always something lurking in a magazine to spark the interest. Sometimes the internet when Silodrome posted something about the Indian Papoose aka Corgi or from Facebook and some Italian charm. 



I have a wealth of photos to browse through and books to peruse I look for links between companies about who did what first and this leads me on to an article that I found about a Military Bike Club from Classic Bike magazine from June1994 and pick up on the Norton Big 4 outfit with the side car wheel driving set up. 



It did go into limited production for the army but it was not long before the Jeep came along and with all the other manufacturers doing something similar it soon lost favour. The strange straight on character of the sidecar wheel drive made it a hard machine to master so much so that when these were sold after World War Two the sidecar wheel drive was disabled as it was thought to be too dangerous for road use. Harry Baughan had his sidecar wheel drive trials outfit in the late thirties that Norton used unofficially. There are striking similarities in the designs. I came across another article about single trackers with some imaginative things that had handlebars and a saddle and could be related to a motorcycle like the German Kettenkrad.



There is a two wheel drive Raliegh special and a Douglas single track that would not turn and a twin rear wheel Triumph model P that had a track running over them like the modern snowmobiles. It also had a feature of leaf spring handlebars that I had only seen previously on a bike at the Old Timer Museum near Ostend.The photo is of an OEC and has a set of those interesting forks.













You can be assured that even BMW had their version of a Single Tracker. 







As for military bikes it seems that all the manufacturers did something in World War Two with mostly overhead valve engines being used but what people do think about about is the BSA M20 the main stay of motorcycling at that time when the Triumph factory was burned down taking Coventry Cathedral with it endingTriumph production for quite some time until the Meriden works was built. This leads on to what happened next and the TRW. I did see one at the Off Road Bike Show at the beginning of December but thought it unusual to have gold lining on the tank. Not something I think would be acceptable for the military use but looked well presented though.



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