Monthly Archive: August 2014

Smoke and sunshine in the Peak District, it’s the Scott Rally at Abbotsholme School. It is said that part of the lateral thinking that characterised Alfred Angas Scott’s attitude to design was fostered by an education at Abbotsholme. The man behind the unorthodox Scott motorcycle was both a student and a master for a time at Abbotsholme, a forward thinking establishment that has always encouraged its students to learn life skills, animal husbandry at the on-site farm for example, rather than simply ramming their heads…

For the past year I have been working on two Martinsydes; this is the other one… This is 1921 680cc belonging to an elderly friend, Peter Adorian. He bought it in the early 1950s as a hard-up agricultural student and the old bike took him regularly and reliably from his Sussex home up to Cambridge University. He sold the bike and then re-purchased it many years later. It was then dismantled ready for a restoration that never happened. In the last few…

It does what it says on the tin… The IWKR is an annual event held in Kent by the West Kent branch of the VMCC and always attracts huge support from across the channel, making a truly International event. This year I took the recently-completed BSA L28 and, after the farce of Banbury when it was running too weak and kept trying to tighten up, I am delighted to report it ran faultlessly despite taking a bit of a hammering chasing after bikes considerably its junior. This event is…