I've noticed this bike parked here occasionally, the owner working nearby I suppose. This is one of the machines that I lusted after in the days of long ago. When aged a slender fifteen years (I'm 32 now) I would often stand outside Alexanders Showroom in Lothian Road dreaming of the wealth required to buy a BSA, Triumph or Norton Motorbike. Earning £5:10 shillings a week, minus Nine shillings for National Insurance,meant this was just a dream. In those days you had to be sixteen to get a licence, when I became sixteen they raised the age to seventeen! It made no difference, I was only on something like seven pound a week then.
Standing in Slateford Road just before then a rich young man on a brand new Royal Enfield with a bright red petrol tank trundled past my jealous eyes. This was however the last Royal Enfield to be made and within a couple of years the company was dead, the result of much better Japanese bikes, Honda and Suzuki, dominating the market. Royal Enfield had opened a factory in India where the bikes still sold successfully and that factory bought all the machinery in the West Midlands and still today continues to manufacture Royal Enfield bikes. I suspect that in the Asian subcontinent the locals can fix these much easier than they could the Japanese versions. Some are offered on sale in the UK and sell well today.
I did eventually obtain a Suzuki myself in 1976 which did not last as long as it ought, my technical skills were to the fore and I sold it cheap to my neighbour and moved far away. It was a bit of fun at the time but not as romantic as a BSA Bantam or one of those large monsters that I leered at in the window. I also found that while 1976 was a record heatwave year, the drought was fearful, rain however when it came was not a comfortable item to drive through on a motorbike. I can still dream however and pretend I want and can afford and can avoid falling from a 650cc BSA brute!
5 comments:
Well, I hopped on yer bike...where're we off to?
Those BSA Bantams are great bikes and that one looks in superb condition. I've had a few bikes over the years but the best one was a BSA 250 C15 but at the time I never fully appreciated what a good bike it was as the bikes to have then were the Honda's , Suzuki, etc. Later on I did have a Kawasaki 250 single which was very similar to the BSA and that was a cracker with 120mpg. They dont make em like that now.
Lee, Petrol station, the tanks empty!
Dave, I've just looked up a site offering such bikes, they cost betwee £1500 to well over £3000!!!
When young it always seemed that anything I wanted cost ten quid more than I had....wanting one of those bikes would have put the ten quid up into the hundreds of quids...
Mark you, it would turn a few heads if you rolled up for museum duties on a Norton Atlas - appropriately clad in leathers, of course.
Would beat Harry Potter any day though it might not quite see off Darth Vador...
Fly, Costing around £2000 a go plus leathers, no chance I would be on one.
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