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South Wales Section Newsletter Any input from members on any 'printable' subject is always welcome. NEWSLETTER                                                        No.228 - Oct 2009   Dear Member, It’s a few months since I last put one of these epistles together and must admit to have been concentrating on keeping the website up to date. However, that is unsuitable for those of you that do not have Internet access, so apologies. If you do have Internet access and have not had any emails from me then I haven’t got your email address – do let me have it please, so that I can keep you up to date on what’s happening with the website. I promise to keep your address safe and only use it when I have something to pass on about the section or the website. Picking up from my last newsletter and I can tell you that the gearbox on my Tiger110 has been sorted. I have a few spare gearboxes so just swapped the whole gear cluster over and into the bikes box – job done. Since the July newsletter we’ve had the Chairman’s run and from what I can remember it went off ok with no-one getting lost. Netley Marsh took place on the second weekend of Sept and a few of our members went. One, who shall remain anonymous to save embarrassment, decided to go early and arrived on site at 7am. The early bird catches the worm, as the saying goes – anyway, the gates didn’t open till 8am so our member decided to settle down in his van in the car park and have forty winks. There were only a couple of other vehicles in the car park at the time and when our member awoke he found the car park packed with cars and vans and that the time was now 10am – two hours after the gates had first opened. So much for the planning to be first. The upside was that there was no queue at the gate to get in as everyone was already in. The Wednesday evening run on the 16th was to the Three Horse Shoes at Moulton. We had a good turnout – not sure how many but there must have been over 25 bikes. It was a cold evening but we were welcomed by the pub. So, that’s it now – all six mid-week evening runs are finished. Were they successful? That’s the question, the committee think so and are planning to put them into our calendar for 2010. If you have any comments, we need to hear them please, it’s important that we get feedback about the idea. The weekend of the 19th/20th saw the Saundersfoot run take place as well as the Isle of Wight Scurry. I’m not sure if any of our members went to Saundersfoot as they turned down Glyn J and Barry C for an entry by saying that Barry’s bike did not comply with the VMCC 25 year rule – in fact, it did. A motorcycle is deemed to have its first birthday on the 31st December of the year in which it was made. Barry’s bike being of 1984 manufacture was 25 years old this year under the VMCC rules. I don’t know if the lads did eventually go but Terry H, myself, and our respective spouses headed for theIsle of Wight. It is a different event and gives three days of riding, whilst the Saundersfoot run is basically a section road trial like our Vale of Glamorgan. I must say that we had a great time on the Isle of Wight – I took the Indian and Terry his Ariel sloper. The Indian really did perform well and the motor seems to be bedding in quite nicely. The bike was steaming up hills in top gear, even with its new 18 tooth gearbox sprocket – and I can tell you that the Isle of Wight sure does have some hills. The weather was perfect and I felt that Terry and I had achieved a good suntan – but it was probably from climbing the St Catherine’s lighthouse and standing in front of the lamp as it beamed out to sea. We did have an enjoyable time though and will, no doubt, go next year again. By being on the Isle-de-blanc (get it?) we missed the slide show on the Monday night and I heard that Bruce did us proud. I think that there were a few slides of his racing Morgan which has now gone to a new home. On the last weekend in September we held the Vale of Glamorgan Road Trial, with a dismal entry from our section members. The excuses for not supporting the event get better each year and several new ones were heard this time. What I can say is that the event will change for next year due to the top-heavy administration that’s needed to put on an event such as this. I need to start the planning by getting a route, 2 copies, traced from the OS maps, in to the RAC at least 2 months before the day. I have to send another traced route to the Route Liaison Officer for Glamorgan and wait for his comments and suggested changes. There is a fee to be paid to the RAC for the permit and it is £2 for every bike that starts – how can I determine that, two months before the event? I ask you. Then there is the ACU permit. That has to be countersigned by James at HQ, then the East South Wales Centre Secretary before going to the ACU with a fee of £35 for their permit. The ACU will not issue a permit unless an ACU licensed Clerk of the Course is present – so that meant that I had to sit an exam to obtain that qualification. A VMCC permit also has to be acquired, but that’s the easy one. After all that we could run the event. Afterwards, I had to send a list of entrants names and addresses to the RAC. A set of results to the ACU along with £1.50 for each rider as a temporary day ACU licence for each, plus another £1.50 each for ACU insurance – I have a feeling that there was also a compulsory donation to the ACU benevolent fund also. Basically, it cost £150 just to get permission to hold an event for 20 bikes. I know what you’re thinking – so don’t ask!! Oh, and the ACU also wanted a Stewards report. That’s why the event is going to change next year. Apart from a lot less bureaucracy, I shall look forward to a whole new set of poor excuses as to why people won’t ride the event. To those that have supported it for 45 years – many, many thanks, you keep my spirits up. October saw the VMCC 100 mile Cyclemotor run take place on the 11th. Nine of our members went and all completed the 100 miler – just think about that – 100 miles on a cyclemotor/Autocycle/moped – but it was fun and I got my finishers badge for the first time. Here’s a little something from our Bruce to cheer you up:- There once was a motorcycle made in South Wales that is not in Erwin Tragatsch’s book ‘The Worlds Motorcycles’. The bike in question is the Grant Bridgestone 175. In the front garden of a house in Barry were the dismantled remains of a 1968 Bridgestone 175cc Hurricane Street Scrambler. This was in 1976 and I’d tried to buy it on several occasions but the owner always refused to sell, saying that he intended to rebuild it one day. Rain ravaged the chromium and had also entered the split motor, whilst the wind had long since shredded the flimsy plastic sheet that pretended to protect the bike. It’s said that persistence pays off and so it proved. I eventually bought it for £15, including manuals and documents. The owner had said that a friend had tried to repair the engine when ‘it had suddenly stopped turning’. Perhaps seized up? The parts had proved to be too expensive and so it was all put under the sheet for the day when some money could be spared for it. That day never arrived. Looking at the bits on my workbench I could see that the two pistons were missing and the big ends were quite a sloppy fit. So, a recon crankshaft assembly, a pair of pistons with pins and rings and a gasket set with seals was all that was needed. These parts were duly priced and then I could see why the job had not been done. It was a very expensive little motor, the parts being far dearer than the equivalent British motorcycle items. But the cycle parts were not too bad – yes, the chrome panels on the tank were finished but the wheel rims were ok as were the wide trail bike handlebars. What could I do with the parts that I had? Under my workbench with the spiders lurked at least three BSA Bantam 175cc motors you know those classic little two-strokes from Small Heath. Did I have enough bits in those three to make one good one? I did indeed and so I put one together. With a bit of de-ruster and black enamel here and there, I smartened up the Bridgestone cycle parts. I had to take a rotary emery flapper wheel to the tank chrome. What a shame, but the chrome was too far gone. I sprayed the tank Halfords Tory blue and added a BSA Bantam sticker to each side, the sticker with the chicken on it. Luckily, the rear sprocket was on the Bantam side and after the engine was fitted in the frame with home-made plates, only slight realignment of the back sprocket was needed. It all went together easily and with some wiring alterations and a Bantam exhaust added, it passed its MOT test first time with the Cert proudly declaring ‘Grant Bridgestone’. The greater interest for me was the making of the bike and it was immediately offered for sale and sold within one week of the test day. I never saw it again. The twin high level exhausts with their heat shields had been stored indoors and were in good order. These along with the dismantled engine were sold to a Hurricane owner as spare parts. It was, you might say, a bit of lucrative business, but for me the pleasure was in creating my first ‘special’. So, if you old bike hunters ever come across a Bantam, the like of which you have never seen before, you’ve probably discovered the unique ‘Grant-Bridgestone’. Top of Page