FRANK WESTWORTH RealClassic
One of the problems with writing a story like this one is that almost inevitably, real life catches up with the narrative. For example, the Norton Commando I imported last year has been ready for the road for quite some time. Only a single item is missing. More of that in a moment or two. The tales in the last couple of issues recorded events and stuff which happened a while back, and I was confident that by the time I came to write this story – for the July edition of my favourite magazine – all hurdles would have been removed, obstacles lifted, and Commando and I would have galloped cheerily into that familiar world where I ride the bike about a bit, it displays a fault, I take it home and fix it. Repeat…
What I'd not anticipated was a considerable delay in persuading the very nice folk at the DVLA to issue a registration number for the bike. I didn't think it would be a problem – and if it's resolved before this issue hits the presses I'll add a STOP PRESS note at the end – but while I was waiting I decided to get next winter's bike running as properly as possible, and even maybe get the AJS 16 out onto the roads again, mainly to see whether my last attempts at making it run properly had survived the winter. And if all else fails, I can of course attempt to repair Rowena's strimmer and maybe mow some lawns…
This may surprise you, or even drive you to homicidal levels of apathy, butBack in CBG days we ran one as a staff bike for a while, and I believe everyone who rode it loved it, as you might expect, and it was commendably reliable. Which of course means that I never needed to fling a spanner at it. I was trying hard to resurrect the deadest Ariel Huntmaster of all time, back then, and it occupied the bench for ages. Years, maybe. I swore at the time (a lot) and promised myself that I would never rebuild another burned-out wreck. So far, so good.
