I’M ALMOST SURE THAT ALMOST ALL OF US ALMOST ENJOY A challenge. I’m less sure that a challenge makes the world go round, but at times of considerable stress – and speaking entirely personally – I have always enjoyed a challenge. Not just as a distraction when times are tough, but as an opportunity for a little smug satisfaction when the challenge is overcome and a goal achieved. The recent variable hells of the various pandemic lockdowns were made much more tolerable by several two-wheeled challenges. I dug bikes from the darkest, dampest reaches of The Shed and did my best to make them work again. A couple hadn’t run for more than two decades, which is quite a while. However, none of my own challenges were as absorbing as Dave C and his BSA, the big bright blue Rocket 3 you will see hereabouts.
The challenge came because Dave decided to build it entirely back to standard, using only genuine Beezer bits as far as possible. Those would be bits which had originated at the BSA plant in Small Heath, Birmingham, UK. And at this point I need to reveal that I enjoyed the considerable delight of riding this remarkably blue machine in 2006, when the supply of spares was rather different than it is today.
Although somewhat overshadowed by its Triumph T150 Trident stablemate, I have always preferred BSA’s version of the three-pot superbike. It’s not easy to explain why, given that the engines are mechanically
