Erm, no. But part of it soon will be........
The background:
Ever since i started competing in Classic Trials, (See http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/423448-Following-Tim-s-example) I have held the riders of old British bikes in some awe. Are they brave, skilled or crazy to pilot big lumps of iron around a trials course, when lighter and more nimble machinery is available? I must admit, watching them was great fun, and its better seeing some of the big old four strokes attacking sections instead of languishing in a museum. My favourites though were the big Ariels, and the Triumph twins.
A couple of years ago I was offered a ride on a pre-unit Triumph 500 twin, in a Hardy frame, at one of our regular venues. So after the trial proper had finished, I gingerly took the bike out through 4 of the sections that were nearest to the car park. I had been able to 'clean' these quite easily on my Whitehawk, and manged to do the same on the twin, but it was very hard work! It seemed to be everything I expected the old bikes to be, heavy, ponderous, hard to turn, and in the 500's case, too powerful. I had arm pump, probably because the owner had told me how much it was worth, so had a death grip on the bars! I handed it back, thanfully undamaged, and decided the bigger bikes wern't for me.
At the February 2016 Telford Classic Dirt Bike show, I came across this:
Drayton are a renowned frame builders, mainly for Bantams, but have had sucess with other motors as well. Timolgra's C15 is in a Drayton frame. Now the colour wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but I thought the bike looked a good deal more compact than the one I rode. There was a for sale sticker on it, and spotting a familiar face manning the stand, I idly asked how much.
Somewhat shocked, I dismissed any further musings in that direction! I did have a Pre 65 itch to scratch, so focussed my attention on looking for a decent C15 or Tiger Cub to dip my toe in the water, but not loose my shirt should it not be for me. Hence I became the owner of the Cub in the other thread.
That Drayton Twin had been quite a talking point amongst the riders that I knew, and for each one that was shocked at the price, there would be one who could see how it had been arrived at. I hadn't realised that the bike was wearing just about the best of everything available, and the sums added up.
Since then I have had chance to ride another twin, which was far more manouverable than the first. I asked the owner what he knew about the Drayton, and he replied that he and his father had spent considerable time trying to make his bike handle like it, with limited sucess!
This itch was now starting to gnaw away at me, so this year's Telford show had me clutching my cheque book in anticipation. Sadly for me, a life changing illness had made Drayton's main man rethink his priorities. He would now only supply frames, not complete bikes. There were no 'customer' bikes for sale either, and none that they knew of. Crestfallen, I bought a couple of raffle tickets for the charity they were supporting, which was to win a frame kit, and wandered round the rest of the show.
Telford is always a good place for catching up with people, some of whom I have known for years, and whose opinions I respect. By the time I left for home, I had half an idea in my head. On the Monday evening, a chance response to a facebook post, of all things, prompted a flood of messages and emails from various different people, the bottom line of which was "Stop pontificating and get on with it!" So I did.
The frame kit is made to order, and take 4 to 6 weeks. With that on the go, I started the search for a suitable motor. I had been offered quite a few "boxes of bits", puporting to be a complete engine, or in some cases a complete bike, that had all been running when they were dismantled. I would much rather see one that was running now, and found one on ebay an hour away from me. This wasn't advertised particularly well, and only cropped up in my search term "3ta", as it was listed as a "Tribsa". It was registered, although SORNed, and had all the MOt's up to being taken off the road some 16 years ago. I had a brief conversation with the vendor, he said it ran, selected all gears, but smoked a bit. I put a bid on based on that, and a few days later became the proud owner!
Collecting it that weekend, the vendor hadn't lied, but maybe his definition of 'a bit' and mine aren't quite the same! Still, nothing we can't fix.
Mark
The background:
Ever since i started competing in Classic Trials, (See http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/423448-Following-Tim-s-example) I have held the riders of old British bikes in some awe. Are they brave, skilled or crazy to pilot big lumps of iron around a trials course, when lighter and more nimble machinery is available? I must admit, watching them was great fun, and its better seeing some of the big old four strokes attacking sections instead of languishing in a museum. My favourites though were the big Ariels, and the Triumph twins.
A couple of years ago I was offered a ride on a pre-unit Triumph 500 twin, in a Hardy frame, at one of our regular venues. So after the trial proper had finished, I gingerly took the bike out through 4 of the sections that were nearest to the car park. I had been able to 'clean' these quite easily on my Whitehawk, and manged to do the same on the twin, but it was very hard work! It seemed to be everything I expected the old bikes to be, heavy, ponderous, hard to turn, and in the 500's case, too powerful. I had arm pump, probably because the owner had told me how much it was worth, so had a death grip on the bars! I handed it back, thanfully undamaged, and decided the bigger bikes wern't for me.
At the February 2016 Telford Classic Dirt Bike show, I came across this:
Drayton are a renowned frame builders, mainly for Bantams, but have had sucess with other motors as well. Timolgra's C15 is in a Drayton frame. Now the colour wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but I thought the bike looked a good deal more compact than the one I rode. There was a for sale sticker on it, and spotting a familiar face manning the stand, I idly asked how much.
Somewhat shocked, I dismissed any further musings in that direction! I did have a Pre 65 itch to scratch, so focussed my attention on looking for a decent C15 or Tiger Cub to dip my toe in the water, but not loose my shirt should it not be for me. Hence I became the owner of the Cub in the other thread.
That Drayton Twin had been quite a talking point amongst the riders that I knew, and for each one that was shocked at the price, there would be one who could see how it had been arrived at. I hadn't realised that the bike was wearing just about the best of everything available, and the sums added up.
Since then I have had chance to ride another twin, which was far more manouverable than the first. I asked the owner what he knew about the Drayton, and he replied that he and his father had spent considerable time trying to make his bike handle like it, with limited sucess!
This itch was now starting to gnaw away at me, so this year's Telford show had me clutching my cheque book in anticipation. Sadly for me, a life changing illness had made Drayton's main man rethink his priorities. He would now only supply frames, not complete bikes. There were no 'customer' bikes for sale either, and none that they knew of. Crestfallen, I bought a couple of raffle tickets for the charity they were supporting, which was to win a frame kit, and wandered round the rest of the show.
Telford is always a good place for catching up with people, some of whom I have known for years, and whose opinions I respect. By the time I left for home, I had half an idea in my head. On the Monday evening, a chance response to a facebook post, of all things, prompted a flood of messages and emails from various different people, the bottom line of which was "Stop pontificating and get on with it!" So I did.
The frame kit is made to order, and take 4 to 6 weeks. With that on the go, I started the search for a suitable motor. I had been offered quite a few "boxes of bits", puporting to be a complete engine, or in some cases a complete bike, that had all been running when they were dismantled. I would much rather see one that was running now, and found one on ebay an hour away from me. This wasn't advertised particularly well, and only cropped up in my search term "3ta", as it was listed as a "Tribsa". It was registered, although SORNed, and had all the MOt's up to being taken off the road some 16 years ago. I had a brief conversation with the vendor, he said it ran, selected all gears, but smoked a bit. I put a bid on based on that, and a few days later became the proud owner!
Collecting it that weekend, the vendor hadn't lied, but maybe his definition of 'a bit' and mine aren't quite the same! Still, nothing we can't fix.
Mark