Anneka takes a trip
It was time, late April. This year I had pledged I would get out on the bikes as much as possible. And the John Bull BSA rally in Belgium had rolled around.
It was an event I had mightily enjoyed in the past, and this year was to be held outside Lommel in eastern Belge, near the border with Germany, and just 100 miles from where my good friend Axel Behrend lives.
After checking with the organisers, Axel was going to come along on a Norton ES2 outfit, accompanied by brother Frank on his ’52 BMW R67/2 600cc twin. Axel is an Anglophile who also rebuilds Morris Minors professionally; Frank had recently retired as a distinguished surgeon in Bonn, and only then revived his youthful passion for the products of the Bayerische Motoren Werke.
BSA-ing it for me, it had to be the BSA, my A10 ‘Anneka,’ whose recent problems (mainly unreliable starting) had been substantially sorted over the winter by Len Page, a retired garagiste in nearby Swindon, a skilled engineer, and a side-valve, sidecar companion on previous expeditions. Anneka’s magneto was thoroughly tested by D H Day’s at Wroughton, and retimed, while Len rebuilt the carburettor.
The result was now often first-kick starting from cold, with one proviso – you had to keep the petrol taps closed until starting, and close them again whenever you stopped. And because of decrepitude, I now only started the bike on its centre-stand (something we were taught never to do for fear of twisting it, but hell, life is short, and getting shorter).
