One of my flatmates at Uni bought one of those. But he just could not get the timing right, one or the other pot always overheated.
Eventually he checked the valve timing and found the camshaft was effectively twisted (How? Bad regrind maybe?) such that the left pot was about 20 degrees late.
A new camshaft fixed this, and transformed the bike, for all of ten miles, until he hit a pothole at about fifty, bent the forks, skinned his leathers and gloves and cracked his crash helmet.
He found a backstreet engineers that would “straighten” the forks, and then he touched up the dents and scratches in the paintwork and immediately sold the bike, reckoning it was jinxed.
My dad rode bikes from the thirties, and many different makes including a Vincent and a Gold Star. In his sixties he rode my Honda 500/4 and said it was the best bike he had ridden as he could just get on and ride it. These days my Suzuki 650 V strom spends more time in the garage, as the MX5 is such fun. I will never sell it of course as it took me around the world in 2018-19.
Ah the good old Kent Custom show + the Bulldog bash, The ■■■■ in the Grass Rally, Rock and Blues show and many more. Spent many summers and winters here and on the continent doing Biker events. Travelling as far as Faro in Portugal. One of my favourites used to be the St Nicks Rally in Ostend on the first weekend of December, that was one great bash, what I remember of it ( if you get my meaning ).
Yep, good times we also used to go to the Condom rally up on Mersea island Essex back in the 90s , don’t know if they still hold it.
But over the years we all got married had kids bought cars etc , and we’re all pushing retirement age so now it’s just down to sending bl**day Xmas cards to each other , but we’ve all kept our jackets ! , It’s in our blood
Yeah in the past I’ve been on the organising clubs of both the —— in the grass & Condom rallies at East Mersea. Been 20 years since I was in that scene and over 10 years since owning a bike
The only problem with some those rallies was the toxic portaloos if you could take more than 4 minutes locked in one of those on a Sunday morning, you could take anything
Not mine,unfortunately. Similar to mine though Mine wasn’t genuine though, had an A10 lump in a Goldstar frame built by ANON.
Early 70’s I swapped a unit construction 650 Triumph for it. I’m sure ive posted about this elsewhere, previously. Main differences to mine were, twin pipes instead of Siamese, chrome oil tank and battery cover,2LS front brake but not quite as beefy as that one. I never took any pictures of it (kick myself now) had an RRT2 gearbox, Borrani rims, TT100 tyres, lovely machine that it was, I almost got killed on it when a car pulled out on me from the right and smashed both my tibia and fibula on the right leg. Still have the lower section of leg ‘not quite aligned’ Was very lucky I do like to see and read of other folks experiences in ownership etc though. It was quite an era back then!
Despite my first bike being a Velocette 350 MAC with a chair, I lived and breathed BSAs in my teens, I even got accepted by BSA for block release for my engineering course at the Lanchester in Coventry. Sadly, 2 things happened to scupper this. First, the company went bust. Second, I failed my required A levels, due to spending all my time fiddling with my A7s instead of revising. I ended up in the music business instead.
The Laverda was a beast. It only all came together when riding at 9 tenths, the rest of the time it was bad tempered, ill mannered, and a pain to ride. Crazy fast for it’s time, and very Italian.
My uncle had an Aerial Square Four, that he was always going to rebuild. Complete and in boxes. It was intended that I should inherit it as a family heirloom following his death. Sadly my auntie sold it as a box of bike bits and I never spoke with her again.
The elderly husband of an old friend of SWMBO had an immaculate original 1961 (I think) Royal Enfield Bullet 350 he bought new. He rode and cherished it for many years, always kept it garaged and polished and ready to go out on, and he promised me several times that he would give me first refusal if he ever decided to sell it.
His health has been failing rapidly for the last couple of years and one of his few remaining pleasures in life was to be able to escape to the garage and fondle the bike, clean and caress it with an oily rag and some polish, and relive a few happy memories.
One day not so long ago, when he was feeling very ill indeed and not at all with it, she paid a scrappy to come and take it away! The shock of discovering this almost killed him.
That bike was worth £2000+ all day long, and when she discovered she had paid £50 instead of being quids in from someone like me, she also came near to expiring. Seeing her face when she realised what she had done was his only consolation.
we also used to go to the Condom rally up on Mersea island Essex back in the 90s , don’t know if they still hold it.
, It’s in our blood 
if you could take more than 4 minutes locked in one of those on a Sunday morning, you could take anything 
Mine wasn’t genuine though, had an A10 lump in a Goldstar frame built by ANON.