You used to get a telegram from the Queen on reaching your centenary, but does this count for motorcycle marques, too? Jim Reynolds gets to grips with the venerable Velocette.

Rev counter, steering damper and flyscreen – hardly hi-tech equipment, but more-than-adequate for racing purposes.

This year is Velocette’s centenary. Happy birthday, Velocette, you’re looking remarkably fit and spry for such an old one. And, to celebrate 100 years of one of the finest names in the British motorcycle industry, a special treat was arranged by CBG. A special treat for me.
I was a schoolboy when first I read about the racing exploits of men like Stanley Woods, Freddie Frith and Bob Foster, who carried the company name to victory in races all over Europe. Stanley’s road racing career had ended with WWII, but Freddie and Bob picked up the pieces and got back into competition when peace came. And, when the FIM announced that there would be motorcycle world championships in 1949, men of Freddie’s calibre were naturally attracted to the idea.
Riding for Lincolnshire businessman Nigel Spring, he was a factory rider in all but name; he had been a Norton team member in the 30s, but didn’t rejoin them in the late 40s because he couldn’t get along with MD Gilbert Smith. “He could be a bit sneaky,” he told me when we talked back in the 80s, he in his 70s then and still looking remarkably fit and well.

Tester Jim Reynolds goes for a spin on the KTT.

There were just five rounds in that first 350 World Championship and Freddie Frith won every one, including the Isle of Man TT and a hard-fought Swiss Grand Prix, when he fluffed the start and was late away. He rode through a field that included the works Nortons and AJSs, plus the other hot Velocette riders, to win. “I rode like an idiot that day,” he admitted, able to reflect at distance that he pushed his luck and might have spoiled his season if he’d gone a fraction too hard.
That he didn’t overstep the mark and won the race speaks volumes for his ability. At the end of the season, having made history, he announced his retirement from racing and opened Freddie Frith Motorcycles in Grimsby, where a young Malcolm Wheeler once toiled. Malc speaks of the man with great respect.
Frith was succeeded as world champion by Bob Foster, another Velocette jockey with a lot of race craft, who looked to have a real fight on his hands with rising star Geoff Duke on Norton’s TT-winning Featherbed and the AJS team on their light 7Rs.
Foster was a tough nut, who started on Midlands grass tracks and progressed to win his first TT, the 1936 250cc race, on a Birmingham-built New Imperial. He rode for AJS after that, including regular wrestling matches with their 500cc supercharged water-cooled V4, but a man who could ride New Imp’s 500cc V-twin road racer up Red Marley freak hill climb to earn the nickname ‘Fearless’ could tame just about any motorcycle. Old-fashioned his 1950 Velocette may have looked with its girder forks, but it was quick, reliable and well-sorted in all departments. He won three of the six rounds and was unbeatable by the time of the final race at Monza, where he retired with gearbox problems. A respected veteran but certainly not hot favourite at the beginning of the season, he earned Velocette the second of their two world titles.
So it was in the 1950s that I fell in love with Velocette’s Mark VIII KTT racer, which looked to my naïve eyes just like the machines Frith and Foster rode. I first saw one close up when David Whitworth’s bike was parked in Pink’s of Harrow showroom, and stood there dreaming and drooling over this combat weapon of heroes. I thought it was the most beautiful motorcycle I’d ever seen and, to this day, it’s still firmly in my Top Three Best Looking Motorcycles, but way beyond my pocket and garaged in the land of dreams.

So it was a shock to the system to arrive at Stanford Hall for the Velocette OC’s annual rally, years ago, and see a Mark VIII with nominal silencer, registration number and tax disc left leaning against a tree among sundry MACs, MSSs, Venoms and Vipers. That’s if any Velocette could ever be considered sundry, which I doubt. But who would use such a prized classic as a road bike, and leave it unattended at a gathering where its value would be well known?
It took me a long time to learn that it belonged to a chap in Nottingham, name of Geoff Bloor, who ran a garage there. He knew a Velo was safe in familiar company, among people who would know that anyone fiddling with the bike wasn’t its rightful owner. Using it on the road? Well, he enjoyed riding it, so why not?

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