Pic 1: A few aluminium parts after being given the treatment at Ribble Tech. Couple of small cracks in one of the crankcase mounting lugs, otherwise not too bad at all… seen worse!
I’ve spent a heap of time looking and laughing at old pictures of bikes that various mates built, owned (no HP, cash was king), rode, crashed, thrashed, and then rebuilt all over again.
This process meant that some of these bikes took on unique personalities. We had Bazil the Bonneville (NCB 616 1961 Bonnie), and Dave Parry had his psychedelic Wobble Wheel. Wobble Wheel was a sprung hub Triumph hailing from the early 1950s. This enabled Triumph to list a bike with rear suspension by substituting a (frankly, bizarre) back wheel that incorporated springs, bearings and much more in a humongous (and sadly lacking in the suspension department) mish-mash of engineering torment.
And then there was The Spotted Bike, my pal Graham’s daily ride that started off as a Speed Twin 500 and ended up, after many scrapes, blow-ups and consequent rebuilds, as a
