The Madness.

This weekend past was the MCN London Show at Excel; and yet again I really found myself enjoying it..

Because although there’s the usual combination of aggressive-looking, jabby bikes, crap music and visually-jarring colours from helmet and clothing stands, all bound up with a sort of force-fed, ‘all the fun of the fair’, there is an unusually upbeat atmosphere that gives me hope for the future of motorcycling in all its forms.

This particular show has improved immensely since I first visited – I should declare interest of course, it is a Bauer Production like Classic Bike – but that doesn’t mean I have to like it and I used not to. But effort has gone into it and been rewarded. The division into quarters for new bikes, adventure, classic and custom – with indoor arena events thrown in – presents a diversity that, together with the fact that the whole thing is incorporated into one massive hall, seems to keep everyone entertained and I saw no bored faces.

Best of all there are definitely more young people involved than there have been for a long time and the custom bikes particularly seem to be a big draw. To me the Custom Scene is the best thing that has happened to motor cycling in twenty years, maybe more. Regardless of what I, or anyone, think about the machines produced, it’s great seeing young blokes doing something mechanical involving bikes again. For too long it seemed that kids were just too sensible to get involved with anything dangerous like motorbikes and the madness would end but maybe not after all.

Here’s some of the madness: Larry Houghton of Lamb Engineering has created this 140cc Turbo/nitrous ‘moped’ that weighs 89lb and delivers an estimated 23bhp. How nuts is that?

Well, too nuts perhaps; let’s think ‘black and gold’ and go back to the much-loved name of Francis and Barnett. A humble Coventry manufacturer, destined always to provide transport for the working man – albeit with a little more quality than the average…

Well, admittedly, this is again a non-standard model. It’s a 150cc Villiers 30c engine in a bespoke chassis created by Rob at Twisted Spine Motorcycles. He also exhibited a Bantam in similar style. Now, FB fitted the 30c engine in their late ‘fifties Plover model. I had an ex-Plover engine about a century ago. It cost me £1.50. Should I be outraged that this hooligan has fitted the engine into a chopper?! Well, not really because I bought a James Cadet frame for mine and hatched a plan to build a James Chopper for a laugh, using a D1 Bantam tank and Honda CG125 forks, so maybe times are not so different…except that Rob has actually built his bike (and made a superb job of it). I just piled mine up to look like something, recognised that it was way beyond my abilities then and gave up… In my defence, back then you could still pick up a Triumph twin engine for £100, so if you were going to make the effort it made sense to expend it building a bigger bike. Clearly a huge amount of effort has gone into this Barnett; more madness, but then today Triumph twin engines are hard to find and very expensive. Isn’t it a cool thing that guys like Rob have still found a way to build a British-powered custom for less – and in doing so create something completely different to the customs of the past?

Ah, what have we here? A veteran Indian, judging by the ‘bars…

Dammit! Not another crazy custom bike!  This one, built by Piet Smits from Smits Custom Choppers of the Netherlands, features a glass tank and the 1929 JAP 500cc engine is about the only bit not created by the builder. Yes, of course I’d like to see this engine caked in Castrol R in an original chassis and leaning against one of the Brooklands sheds but think this way, there are generally more engines than frames, be it Villiers 30C or 500 JAP. I’d rather see this engine being used as part of Piet’s creation than sat on a shelf, it’s not coming to any harm here.

 but

But much more than that, how many of the show punters took a picture of that bike and are even now looking up to see what JAP means on the computer? I became interested in JAP as a forceful competition engine when I was sixteen, I even had a JAP lapel badge on my leather jacket in my moped year; bikes like this make it possible that a few sixteen year-olds today may want to hear more and that is the seed that grows into the vintage bike owner of the future. So I ain’t a-knocking the custom scene.

After all there’s plenty more madness to go around…

What do you make of this? Mark Upham’s brand new, 21st Century, Brough Superior. Sorry about the crappy picture, I think my repaired camera isn’t as repaired as I hoped. Anyway, talking to one of the MCN guys, apparently the new Brough rides remarkably well and the general feeling seems to be that like it or loathe it, a lot of effort has gone into making a proper job of it.

But I mean, what would George Brough say; surely he’d prefer this old girl wouldn’t he…?

Well maybe not; this old girl isn’t as old as she looks either. If it seems crazy investing in making a brand new Brough Superior, how crazy was it making a brand-new, old Brough Superior? Lot 196 in the Coys auction held at the show was this splendid 1992 ‘SS120’ Brough recreation built by Carmac. I didn’t see the auction but at an estimated £80-90,000 it’s a lot cheaper than a ‘genuine’ SS100. But it depends how you see it; you could equally say it’s a lot for a replica – or to put it another way a custom bike – and it’s a lot more than the 2016 Brough Superior too…

And by the way, talking of re-creations, if you don’t like the idea of having to build a period-looking Harley special with an Evo based motor, on the Zodiac stand I was amazed to find you can buy a complete replica ‘Shovelhead’ or even ‘Panhead’ HD engine. This is another crazy thing, new 1950s and 60s Harley engines, not made by The Motor Company? Like many people, my only real objection to customs is when a stock bike gets cut up to build something that is often only relevant to the builder; and customisers being essentially creative types, having built, they tend to move on to something else, and this became far worse when it reached garden shed level, where aspiration vs ability (remember my James chopper?) often ended up in an ‘unfinished project’ ad in the classifieds. I’ve seen a few nice bikes gutted for no real purpose other than to entertain the builder. But now, with the incredible availability of repro engines, forks and goodness knows what else, you can have a pop at building something completely bonkers without destroying anything that should be left alone. This craziness is looking saner all the time.

 Athis one Zodiac also do all this nutty stuff; a rifle-holster for your Army WLA 45? Step this way, Sir…

But one of the London Show’s big draws of the weekend was to be found on the Bonhams stand. This is the other side of the Madness:

The Broughs of Bodmin Moor had apparently been given up in Brough circles as a myth but no, they did exist – just about. Owned by a former Brough Club member since the 1960s they had disappeared off the radar and unfortunately deteriorated horribly until their discovery after his death.

What happens to cause someone to go from enthusiast, to collector, to hoarder and, ultimately, destroyer? Would the late owner of these ruined Broughs approve of Piet Smit’s and the others’ custom creations or would he see them as vandalism? Here is the true madness surely…

But equally,  is it necessary to polish the edge of every fin to make the best Gold Star in the world? I always think of the Goldie as a Fast Motorcycle; that’s what makes the legend. It doesn’t need ‘bull-shine’ to stand out in a crowd…does it? I mean, there’s every chance that this Series A HRD twin…

…could fetch a higher price in the Bonhams April Stafford auction than the restored one that was sold in October. Is that crazy? Or is it an adjustment of opinion, just a reflection of the fact that now so many old bikes have been restored – often not very well – those that remain unrestored are more desirable. In my teens I noticed that the bikes Dad and I restored seemed to lose something during the process that had clearly taken them a long time to acquire. The interest created by bikes like this is huge, isn’t it more of a madness to wipe all that away in favour of your own opinion of what it should be? If so then…well, that sounds a bit like customisation to me, the difference being that this isn’t replaceable like those repro engines or custom frames.

I dunno, maybe I’m the one that’s gone mad… But to finish, one last bit of craziness –

One of the healthier machines from the Bodmin haul is this Austin 7- powered, twin-wheeled Brough. One of eight, and apparently the last one unaccounted for. Famously one was purchased by Mr Tony Branson of Sevenoaks, who decided that he wanted it as a solo. George Brough insisted that it was intended for sidecar use but Branson said he’d have it solo or not at all. A test ride revealed that the bike was almost unrideable but to his eternal credit, Branson stood his ground and ultimately became proficient enough that when reprimanded by a policeman for dodging round Piccadilly Circus the wrong way, he put the bike in reverse gear and went back the way he had come!

That sort of madness will always be cool. Bikes stopped being cool for a few years, now they are cool again; let’s rejoice in that.

You’d be mad not to…

Cheers Rick