The Bantams' time has come

Old bikes are currently flavour of the month in the burgeoning vintage auction scene where well-heeled collectors are driving prices of certain machinery through the roof. Top of the range stuff like Brough Superiors, Vincents, Gold Stars, Grindlay Peerless JAPs (yes, really!) and many racing bikes with faultless pedigrees are currently fetching far more than they are really worth and still on the rise. Which is nice if you have one.

 

For the rest of us scratching along in the real world, the 

motor cycling bread and butter stuff may well be wafting along on the breeze at the tail end of the auction house hurricane but prices by and large remain by and large still vaguely affordable. Which is good. You can still buy Cubs and C15s and Greeves and Dots and things in various states of completeness and useability. Many are, sadly, not quite what they claim to be and a wise man once told me that out of a total production of 35 genuine factory Tiger Cub trials models over the years approximately 135 remain in circulation today...

 

Even the humble BSA Bantam, the epitome of cheap and cheerful utility transport for the working man, has finally achieved a level of desirability. And not before time in my considered opinion. When I invested one hundred of your genuine English pounds in three tatty examples around 25 years ago and salted them away in a damp shed I must say I was expecting a quicker return on my ‘investment' than what I got! Which to date has been a big fat nowt. Zilch, zero, nothing, nada. In total, the square root of sod all. 

 

Ah, but, stay with me. Things are changing. Billy Bantams are the Next Big Thing. Another man once told me that you can never pay too much for a motor bicycle. You can only pay it too early. My problem is that this is the only piece of advice my simple brain ever latched on to and I have clearly spent a lifetime spending too much, too early. So early that in most cases the value of what I have bought down the years has dropped considerably before it was ever likely to rise. So naturally I sold at a considerable loss.

 

I might not own a Brough Superior but at least there's 

finally a sporting chance that my luvverly little Bantams will finally come home to roost...!

 

And finally its sackcloth and ashes time for your humble 

editor after dropping not one but a mighty two goolies last week and who, despite spending much valuable time looking for scapegoats, has finally had to admit defeat being left with no option but to accept all blame. Because that's where it belongs!

 

Firstly, and by far the more serious crime, was inserting in Barry Robinson's recent (and until I got my hands on it, factual!) piece on the old Bainbridge sports, that inferred that the said sports were events run under the pirate flag. "Not true!” pointed out the venerabl sages, led by Barry himself, Bainbridge Sports was ACU through and through.

 

Apologies to all injured parties. In my hurry to show how clever I am (not) I somehow confused Bainbridge with another formerly well-known village (it doesn't even begin with the letter B...) sports that also incorporated off-road motorcycle racing for considerable cash rewards. This legendary once a year 

affair WAS held under skull and crossbones rules and everyone who rode was indeed called Smith. Or Jones. Even I'm not falling into the same trap twice, so I'll refrain from naming the 

infamous event...

 

Barry's pictures from Bainbridge, featuring Sid Lampkin on his BSA and opposition including Tony Cook on Husqvarna, mecrfifully escaped my tinkering.

 

Next up, the old brain froze while compiling a recent Trials Torque column and I stupidly failed to correct some copy which stated that the Walwin BSA trials bikes were the handiwork of the Walwin family. It was of course the Winwood family who were responsible for these quite revolutionary machines. It isn't as if I didn't know. Local character Keith Quinn owns two of them and even loaned me one to ride in the Nostalgia Trial a couple of years back. 

 

Derrick Edmondson was first to point this howler out to me - before adding that as a kid he once spectacularly crashed a Walwin into the house wall while his Dad was out, removing a fair lump of pebbledash - but surprisingly knew nothing of the incident when later questioned by Pete as to why there was a hole in his previously pristine house wall. "Must have been a mate with his pushbike,” countered quick-thinking Derrick, fooling no-one!

My early season report, as indeed it always did, is currently reading 6/10 - could do better.WITH the auction price of certain types of old British motor bicycles soaring, editor JD digs out his sorry old Bantams...No matter the seemingly ever-increasing pace of development in all things off-road with advances in efi and suspension and short-stroke four-poppers and titanium valves, aluminium chassis, carbon this, billet that, unobtanium the other...Yet it is still the old stuff, Twin-shock, Pre-65 and beyond, that causes most of the talking points when enthusiasts gather.

 

Old bikes are currently flavour of the month in the burgeoning vintage auction scene where well-heeled collectors are driving prices of certain machinery through the roof. Top of the range stuff like Brough Superiors, Vincents, Gold Stars, Grindlay Peerless JAPs (yes, really!) and many racing bikes with faultless pedigrees are currently fetching far more than they are really worth and still on the rise. Which is nice if you have one.

 

For the rest of us scratching along in the real world, the 

motor cycling bread and butter stuff may well be wafting along on the breeze at the tail end of the auction house hurricane but prices by and large remain by and large still vaguely affordable. Which is good. You can still buy Cubs and C15s and Greeves and Dots and things in various states of completeness and useability. Many are, sadly, not quite what they claim to be and a wise man once told me that out of a total production of 35 genuine factory Tiger Cub trials models over the years approximately 135 remain in circulation today...

 

Even the humble BSA Bantam, the epitome of cheap and cheerful utility transport for the working man, has finally achieved a level of desirability. And not before time in my considered opinion. When I invested one hundred of your genuine English pounds in three tatty examples around 25 years ago and salted them away in a damp shed I must say I was expecting a quicker return on my ‘investment' than what I got! Which to date has been a big fat nowt. Zilch, zero, nothing, nada. In total, the square root of sod all. 

 

Ah, but, stay with me. Things are changing. Billy Bantams are the Next Big Thing. Another man once told me that you can never pay too much for a motor bicycle. You can only pay it too early. My problem is that this is the only piece of advice my simple brain ever latched on to and I have clearly spent a lifetime spending too much, too early. So early that in most cases the value of what I have bought down the years has dropped considerably before it was ever likely to rise. So naturally I sold at a considerable loss.

 

I might not own a Brough 

Superior but at least there's 

finally a sporting chance that my luvverly little Bantams will finally come home to roost...!

 

And finally its sackcloth and ashes time for your humble 

editor after dropping not one but a mighty two goolies last week and who, despite spending much valuable time looking for scapegoats, has finally had to admit defeat being left with no option but to accept all blame. Because that's where it belongs!

 

Firstly, and by far the more serious crime, was inserting in Barry Robinson's recent (and until I got my hands on it, factual!) piece on the old Bainbridge sports, that inferred that the said sports were events run under the pirate flag. "Not true!” pointed out the venerabl sages, led by Barry himself, Bainbridge Sports was ACU through and through.

 

Apologies to all injured parties. In my hurry to show how clever I am (not) I somehow confused Bainbridge with another formerly well-known village (it doesn't even begin with the letter B...) sports that also incorporated off-road motorcycle racing for considerable cash rewards. This legendary once a year 

affair WAS held under skull and crossbones rules and everyone who rode was indeed called Smith. Or Jones. Even I'm not falling into the same trap twice, so I'll refrain from naming the 

infamous event...

 

Barry's pictures from Bainbridge, featuring Sid Lampkin on his BSA and opposition including Tony Cook on Husqvarna, mecrfifully escaped my tinkering.

 

Next up, the old brain froze while compiling a recent Trials Torque column and I stupidly failed to correct some copy which stated that the Walwin BSA trials bikes were the handiwork of the Walwin family. It was of course the Winwood family who were responsible for these quite revolutionary machines. It isn't as if I didn't know. Local character Keith Quinn owns two of them and even loaned me one to ride in the Nostalgia Trial a couple of years back. 

 

Derrick Edmondson was first to point this howler out to me - before adding that as a kid he once spectacularly crashed a Walwin into the house wall while his Dad was out, removing a fair lump of pebbledash - but surprisingly knew nothing of the incident when later questioned by Pete as to why there was a hole in his previously pristine house wall. "Must have been a mate with his pushbike,” countered quick-thinking Derrick, fooling no-one!

 

My early season report, as indeed it always did, is currently reading 6/10 - could do better.