O Features archive - March 08
O Mentioning despatches
Chrome sluts
An addiction to shiny parts and chrome plating isn’t necessarily a good thing when you use your bike for despatch riding, though the owner of an A65 Keith Fryer spotted seems to have coped.
I'd guess there's a few CBG readers out there who've earned a living as a despatch rider at one time or another; I've done it myself, spending 18 months on a BMW for a photographic lab. So it was with some interest that I learnt from Paul Nicholls, owner of this very fine BSA Thunderbolt, that he'd used the bike for despatch work, riding the London circuit for over a year.
Now anyone who rides in London has my utmost respect and to do it on a British bike – well, that would add a certain edge to the daily routine, wouldn't you agree?
It's just the amount of extra time and effort needed to keep the bike reliable, on the road and earning its keep. Paul mentioned an hour-long check over every morning before starting work and that doesn't surprise me at all. Things just wear and go out of adjustment that much quicker in hard daily use and British bikes do need that close attention to detail to keep them up and running.
Where did Paul find the BSA? "At a dealer called 'Motorcycles Unlimited' in Ruislip. I was despatch riding at the time, I think on a Kawasaki KLR 650, and saw it in a line of bikes as I rode by. Unlike the others, it was all chrome and shiny, they were all plastic. It just stuck out, so I had to have a look. I'd never had any interest in British bikes before then, but it looked such a nice shape, it just appealed to me.
“They let me out for a ride; it sounded absolutely fantastic, and a completely different experience to anything I'd had before. So I bought it, but had to sell our VW Combi Van to pay for it."
At the time Paul and his wife Krissy were living in Kingston Upon Thames and used the van to drive down to Poole Harbour for windsurfing weekends, so it wasn't long before another van was acquired.
Surfboards of any kind are a touch difficult to transport on the back of a BSA; but having said that I just know one of you is going to write in with a photograph. The initial idea was for Krissy to use the BSA for her job in the City, plus it would be ideal for weekend rides. The insurance was supposedly cheaper than other bikes, so it made good business sense to try this idea out.
Krissy had learnt to ride on a 200cc Suzuki X5, moved to a Honda XL125 on which she passed her test and was soon at home running the big BSA around the streets of London. Perhaps not quite as nimble as the little Honda, but several notches up on the street credibility scale, that's for certain.
And then there's always that unexpected something with old British bikes, both good and bad, that keeps life interesting. In this case, it was a note Krissy found on the BSA from a gentleman called Jim Sinclair; he'd noticed the bike needed some grommets for the cable guides, he had some to spare, so why not give him a ring.
- End of online sample -
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