Interesting Bike Film On Youtube

Discussion in 'Lounge' started by BonnieCat, Nov 28, 2019.

  1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.
  1. BonnieCat

    BonnieCat Crème de la Crème

    Feb 20, 2016
    3,423
    1,000
    Netherlands
    Don’t know if anyone has seen this short film about the British bike industry. Very interesting.

     
    • Like Like x 6
    • Informative Informative x 1
  2. dilligaf

    dilligaf Guest

    Bloody hooligans :joy:
     
  3. Wessa

    Wessa Cruising

    Apr 27, 2016
    11,317
    1,000
    North West England
    Thanks for posting Nikki, a lovely insite to motorcycles and who made them and rode them
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
    • Like Like x 1
  4. Sandi T

    Sandi T It's ride o'clock somewhere!
    Subscriber

    Dec 3, 2018
    21,606
    1,000
    Tucson Arizona
    Thanks for posting this video, Nikki. I just now finished watching the whole thing and found it quite interesting and informative. I really enjoyed the early footage and this aspect of the history of the British motorcycle industry. I thought the numerous negative comments about the riders in the last part of the video rather narrow-minded and uninformed. Especially the comments by the lady with multiple strands of pearls! :p But then, those comments are not so unlike comments people make about motorcyclists still today. Or, to be honest, comments in general that my generation (and sometimes I) :( am guilty of making about today's younger "millennial" generation.
     
    • Like Like x 4
    • Agree Agree x 1
  5. Steve 998cc

    Steve 998cc Well-Known Member

    Feb 1, 2019
    255
    63
    leicestershire
    The British Motrcycle industry of the sixties caused there own demise by sticking to the 40/50 odd year old parralel twim motor. I went to the National motor cycle museum in Birmingham before the fire there was a protor type Triumph across the frame four from the early 1960s, further round there was a Early Honda 750 four from the mid 1960s. The ENGINE LOOKED THE SAME and we are still riding the results of that foresight by Honda, shame Triumph didn't have the same foresite and perhaps we would still have had the motorcycle we once had.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  6. BonnieCat

    BonnieCat Crème de la Crème

    Feb 20, 2016
    3,423
    1,000
    Netherlands
    Back in the 70’s when I first started riding, bikers were always seen as troublemakers, indeed a lot of pubs at the time would not let you in or if they did you had to sit in the tap room (Sandi - in case you don’t know what this is, it’s the usually roughest room in a pub with no carpets and hard uncomfortable chairs) and don’t even think about trying to go to a restaurant wearing biker gear.
    So the lady’s comments in the film were pretty much par for the course. Thank god things are much better now (at least in Europe).
    As far as the British biking industry goes, they didn’t invest and paid the price.
     
    • Like Like x 3
    • Agree Agree x 2
  7. garethr

    garethr Well-Known Member

    Sep 18, 2015
    152
    93
    BRISTOL UK
    #7 garethr, Nov 30, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2019
    Lord (Bernard) Docker was managing director of BSA until 1956, and chairman of Daimler (Birmingham Small Arms Company Ltd owned Daimler from 1910 until it was sold to Jaguar in 1960).

    From Wikipedia:
    At the end of May 1956, Docker was removed from the board of Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA), and he was replaced as chairman of BSA by Jack Sangster. The company, which owned the Docker Daimlers, had the Dockers return them.
    The issues leading to the removal of Docker stemmed from the extravagant expenses he presented to the company, including the (Daimler) show cars made available for Lady Docker's personal use, a £5,000 gold and mink ensemble that Lady Docker wore at the 1956 Paris Motor Show that she tried to write off as a business expense as she "was only acting as a model" at the show, and Glandyfi Castle, bought with £12,500 of BSA's money and refurbished for £25,000, again with company money.

    www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Docker


    A couple of stories I remember reading (probably in Whatever Happened to the British Motorcycle Industry):

    When the assets of the Triumph Meriden factory were sold off (in 1983?), one of the machine tools had a big welded up crack in the casing. The casing was damaged when Triumph's original Coventry factory was bombed in 1940.

    Associated Motorcycles (AJS, Matchless, Francis-Barnett, James) bought Norton, and in 1961 Norton production was moved from Bracebridge Street in Birmingham to the AMC factory in Woolwich. After the move, they couldn't manufacture two Norton crankcase halves that would bolt together. Finally, in desperation, they contacted the bloke who had operated the machine at the Birmingham factory. They explained the problem, and he said "Did you take the wood?". It turned out that the machine was so worn that someone had to stand next to it, using a lump of timber to lever the shaft against the clapped-out bearings, otherwise it was impossible to drill the holes anything like accurately.


    This might be of interest - the unpublished second part of Roland Pike's autobiography, covering the time he worked in the BSA development department in the 1950s.
    https://beezagent.blogspot.com/2009/01/roland-pike-story.html
     
    • Like Like x 3
Loading...

Share This Page