Old Bike Australasia – July 21, 2019

The ideal bike?

I’ve been reading OBAfor some time

now (12-15 years) and thoroughly enjoy it.

See if you can resurrect Mr Jessop. On a good

day he is priceless. But my reason for writing

has to do with a bit of reminiscing. The thing

which caught my eye was the photo of Ron

Weste in ‘Under the Chequered Flag’ inOBA

80. Sad and all as these matters are (sincere

condolences to the Weste family, we have

never met), I couldn’t help but notice his

broad smile, as he sat astride a brand new

Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 twin.

I took delivery of one of these, with exactly

the same livery, in February this year. And what

a pleasure – it goes, handles, stops, and looks

like a real bike. A fly on the wall at its original

Royal Enfield design meetings (in India) might

have overheard something like this:

“It needs to be well-built and robust, we’ve

got crappy roads. Its got to be able to carry 2

adults, 3 or 4 kids, and a pile of other stuff.

And its got to do that every day of its life for

the next 10 years. Its got to be able to take

searing heat, tropical downpours, and put up

with the cold. It needs to do 100mph, cruise

all day at 65mph with still a good turn of

speed, but also putter around in endless

snarling traffic at 10mph. All without missing a

beat. It’s got to be easy to ride, easy on the

bum, all controls readily accessible, with none

of the clunky gear-changes of the old Bullets.

And it needs to be easy to own and maintain”.

“We don’t want just another bloated,

wheezy, corpulent, tech-fest, with all those

wiz-bang unnecessary electronics and plastics

• or too much power either. What’s important
  is what it is able to do in the real world, every
  day. Just good, honest, straight-forward motor-
  cycling. Plenty of fun surely, but particularly
  important is rejuvenating the idea of ‘working
  man’s transport’ ”.
  Well, Louis the fly or not, I strongly suspect
  they’ve got it right. It is certainly well
  designed, well built, and fun to ride, but time
  will tell. All of which is clearly relevant to
  Australia. As much as anything, there is the
  sense that it has been designed and built by
  people who understand and love of motorcy-
  cling, from the inside, not just the dulcet tones
  of the cash register. While this exuberance
  might sound suspiciously like yet another sad
  old blighter pining for the romance of yester-
  year, I suspect Royal Enfield are in genuine
  danger of re-accessing the essence of motor-
  cycling. Not perfect mind you, but a pretty
  damn good effort. Ron’s smile says a lot.
  Ted Davis
  Caulfield Junction. Vic.

Draggin Jeans

Best Letter

12 :OLD BIKE AUSTRALASIA

It required nothing else. It developed around 9 or

10 horsepower, had an excellent gearbox which

was semi-automatic. First gear was very low and

the other three well spaced. The motor revved out

well and gave excellent response. With its sprung

heel it gave a much improved ride than my earlier

rigid frame 1948 BSA 250. Perhaps you may

consider a feature about Jawa in a coming edition?

Thanks again for your excellent magazine.

Edwin Youll

Beaudesert Qld

Your prayers are answered Edwin. We have a Jawa

feature scheduled for issue 82. –Ed

Eric and Alf

I thoughtyou would appreciate hearing that

your magazine was the vehicle through which two

men reconnected after almost sixty years. You may

remember that the article on my father, Eric

Harrison, (pages 74 and 75 in OBA 63) prompted

Alf Cash to write to you from Western Australia, and

you kindly forwarded his letter on, and I replied to

it. Alf came on a trip to see relatives in Toowoomba,

and also came to visit with my dad, this week. The

memories flowed, and the stories arose and were

enjoyed – they both relished reliving their time from

so long ago – the bike meets, the bike club, the BP

service station in Cabramatta and so on. Thank you

for this opportunity – my dad still gets a thrill every

time the new “Old Bike” arrives in the mail.

Tricia Reust

http://www.triciareust.com.au

More on Morgan...

I greatly enjoyedthe article in issue 80 on the

Morgan Mile. I only made the trip to Morgan twice,

in the early ‘80s, while a Melbourne resident.

Despite having ridden the Romsey mile the first trip

was an education and there was much more special

preparation for the second trip as can be seen in the

photograph(top right). The article noted without

comment the injuries from stones to both Charlie

Edwards and the American rider Charlie Searle. Stones

were a very big issue. At the end of the day my

“unbreakable” front number plate is shot away by

the stones. I am wearing taped up overalls over my

leathers to reduce the impact of the stones. Safety

glasses, goggles and a roll of film, continuously

pulled down for vision, protect my eyes.

The estimates of speeds tie in with my calculations

of gearing for around 160km/h at 7000 revs as I

could not afford to blow up motors. I do not think

there was much wheel spin by the end of that long

straight given the high entry speed – and while not

mentioned in issue 80, no brakes. If my memory

serves me well, I finished third in both the speedway

and open track (500 slider) classes.

ABOVE Sydney Jawa agent Eric Moore’s 1950 ad.

Eric Harrison (left) and

Alf Cash catching up

after 60 years.