A
slightly later one,
Dad is on the V twin on the right,
I think it is a Martinsde, and his pal
is on a Douglas in-line twin .
This
was the 'Boy Racer' of it's day, probably taken early 1920's. It is a 'Big
Port'A.J.S. 350
cc.note the dropped handlebars and straight through exhaust
with only a fishtail on the end.
Like the Flying suit? Probably W.W.1 !
After taking a bit off the cylinder head to raise the compression, it was
common to make extra clamps to stop the head blowing off!!
Another problem in trying to tune some of the bikes available then was trying to stop the outside flywheel from disappearing at speed. Dad used to show where they held speed trials against each other, and say that several flywheels were over there somewhere in the moss!! This was common on The Douglas in particular.
Dad was a very competitive rider, did everything from Trials, Speed trials, Speed hillclimbs, Scrambles , even tried Speedway, on a' Douglas', and the Wall of Death once at the Fairground.
Photo on the right shows him in a Speed Trial around 1933. Note the torn breeches with a rubber band cut from an inner tube holding them together. We still have the leather helmet, top style !! Like the Horn ??
Think the bike is an OK Supreme, quite fast but unreliable over a distance.
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