RealClassic ARIEL FIELDMASTER
At first I thought ‘Crikey, that's damning it with faint praise.' I'd asked David Angel what his Ariel 500 twin did best. When answering that question, owners typically tend to say something like ‘riding non-stop across the Siberian steppe' or ‘popping to the shops for a packet of frozen peas.'
Not David. He replied that the KH500 was best at ‘being an Ariel rather than a BSA, Triumph or Norton.'
Well, yes. But is that really all there is to the only true thoroughbred twin to come from the House of the Horse? (Obviously I'm discounting the later, hybrid 650 Huntmaster which mixes a lot of BSA DNA with its Ariel ancestry). Is the Fieldmaster best defined by what it actually isn't? Surely that's under-selling it somewhat?
In fact, David's shrewd summary neatly captures the most compelling reason for considering a KH for your classic stable. It could even be the biggest backhanded compliment bestowedthis particular parallel twin contrived to be a little bit different…
