The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

I think that sums up the the last few weeks pretty well…

The Good? Well, Kop Hill climb of course; I posted about it last year and although I don’t want to be too repetitive, may I say what an utterly excellent weekend that is, and it’s all for charity, folks… But there was also the Brooklands Great War 100. Unfortunately this one off event made us miss the Sunbeam Club’s Romney Marsh Run that we enjoyed so much last year, but it’s always good to support Brooklands and this was a nice idea that  attempted to recreate the 1915 Combined Services Meeting.

he day drew There were around thirty 1915 and earlier bikes and  the point was made that this could be the greatest number of bikes of that age at Brooklands since the original event.  It is always a bit of a surprise to me that my 1915 Blackburne is now a century old. I still imagine a 100-year old bike to be made of wood and chuffing steam but that’s because even I have been here longer than I remember…but even so, time has not tarried…

The event wasn’t solely for motorcyclists, there were a few cars and some Great War re-enactors with an assortment of military equipment so there was plenty for visitors to see and best of all the sun belted down all day

Dammit, dogs are supposed to be forbidden at Brooklands but this one seems to have got in under Red Cross protection! Hmmm, since Irish Terriers were used as messenger dogs in the Great War maybe Finbar wouldn’t have had to stay at home if I’d slung a satchel around his neck…

Brooklands had a tough time during both wars and, indeed, failed to survive the second. It is said that the effect of solid-tyred military lorries trundling around the banking caused much of the circuit’s infamous bumpiness but in truth it probably had more to do with the primitive concreting technology when the track was built in ’07. Still, a solid-tyred lorry turned up for old time’s sake…

This rather fine thing was a recent purchase from France and I’m pleased to say the owner will be putting it on the road as near as possible to how it is.  The original All-Khaki meeting had been suggested by Lieutenant F.M.C.Houghton, a man who if nothing else should be celebrated for the fact that his Rudge sported a headlight of a size seldom seen outside an anti-aircraft battery.

The above is a photo of Lt. Houghton from the Stilltime Collection and I strongly advise you to check out their website, if you haven’t already. They hold a massive collection of the original glass plate negatives from the Motor Cycle magazine which have kept me occupied for hours.

The idea of the all Khaki meeting was initially rejected on the grounds that the circuit as a whole was in too bad a state for such an event to be practicable but before long the idea to come up with something other than an outer circuit race took hold. The Railway Straight was still available and could be used for a series of half mile sprints, there would be a hill climb using the famous Test Hill and how about a Gymkhana with assorted entertainments such as a spark plug changing contest (with a hot engine of course). The event worked and its 100th anniversary paid tribute to the gymkhana with a ride around some bollards arranged near the race bays; I guess this time the plug change was rejected on health and safety grounds that would have seemed less relevant for men about to face the Western Front…

Typical! When I went looking for the mem-sahib to see if she got any pictures of MY gymkhana performance, I found her fraternising with a dashing despatch rider!!  Luckily the fella turned out to be a decent sort and the matter was resolved without recourse to fisticuffs, or more fortunately still his sidearm…

In the afternoon there was a mock sprint comprising a run up the start/finish straight and around under the members’ bridge onto the banking. This was even more evocative although the uphill gradient was a tough call for the single-speed veterans and riders soon learned to start well back and take a run up. No such problems with the three speed Sturmey Archer CS box on the Blackburne. This gearbox was prototyped in Summer 1914 and announced in the press in December. Mine has the serial number CS22, making it the 22nd made. These gearboxes were subsequently fitted in their thousands to various machines in the vintage era and WW1 Triumphs in particular. I was interested to notice that the gearbox on Peter Birkett’s 1916 bike above, although of the early pattern like mine, had a number in the 5000s.

Thanks to Frank Staig visiting from Down Under for this smashing shot of the Blackburne at speed on the banking. The bike had some justification for being at this event. By the end of 1914 when it was made, company founders Cecil and Alick Burney had departed for France, despatch riding with their Blackburnes; well Cecil anyway, Alick’s bike had fallen victim to being run over by an artillery convoy on a September night. Production at Blackburne stopped in 1917 and any remaining bikes were impressed for military duties so bikes like this were on active service. Indeed in the book ‘Adventures of a Despatch Rider’ by W.H.L.Watson, the Blackburne is greatly applauded. Recent discoveries by my friend and VMCC OEC/Blackburne marque specialist Martin Shelley reveal that the Burneys, amazingly, are among the characters described in the book. I managed to find the text to download on the Internet. It’s a fascinating description of life behind the handlebars during the early part of the War and like many early-War testimonials makes quite chilling reading for we who were not there but know just what was to come…

But with its military credentials and semi-TT pattern handlebar I felt the old bike cut quite a dash…although with hindsight, maybe the lemonade box on the back looked a bit out of place…

After the Service meeting, originally held on August 7th 1915, there was just one more similar event before the track closed for the duration and the World sank ever deeper into all-enveloping and terrible conflict.

Which leads us neatly on to The Bad. Last month my aged laptop caught something nasty off a toilet seat and threw in the towel. Most of my stuff was backed up but all emails went west with it, so if you have been in touch through here – or even through Classic Bike – and haven’t had a reply, please try again. I’ve got a list of contacts but have lost all the messages, so anything that has been pending will pend for ever more if you don’t jog my memory I’m afraid.

And the Ugly? Well, I had to go and buy a new computer didn’t I? It doesn’t get much uglier than that. Computers seem to me a bit like slow torture or prolonged illness. Just when you think it can’t get any worse and begin to accustom yourself to the suffering…it gets worse than you could ever imagine – you have to buy another one. I solved my dislike of modern mobiles by treating myself to an ancient LCD Nokia from Ebay, aah, back to a screen you can read in daylight… But sadly computers are not so simple. I walked into Computer World and looked at a load of flat boxes. I made my choice based on a combination of ignorance and disinterest, slightly reassured by the thought that whatever I bought I would want to smash it to pieces within ten minutes of getting it out of the box at home and I wasn’t disappointed. To be fair I hated the last one but after seven years we had come to a sort of mutual respect…

Well, now’s the bit where I press ‘publish’; let’s see if I’ve got it right!

Cheers Rick