BSA Super Rocket Special
AS DUSK FALLS on a farmyard somewhere in the south west of England, Ray Loxton is tinkering with the oil pump on his pre-unit Triumph Bonneville. “I’m not getting the pressure through, brother.” Ray calls everybody brother. “It should be coming through the end of the crankshaft, but it isn’t. I’ve got a new pump coming. I hope it’ll fix it but if not I’ll just keep replacing things till it’s sorted out.”
Ray has been riding motorcycles since he was a child and among his earliest memories are the trips to the coast on his father’s BSA A10 Super Rocket, coupled to a Steib sidecar. “I’ve got the frame of one of those Steibs somewhere,” he says, waving his hand at a pile of scrap steel and welding cylinders.
The reason for my visit is to see Ray’s own BSA A10 special. Although the 650cc twin has the specification of a later Super Rocket, it was registered in 1954 and would have started life as a Road Rocket.
The Road Rocket was BSA’s flagship sports bike
