Classic Bike Guide - Real rides, real riders

All that glitters

It was a photographer’s nightmare, a bright sunny day and barely a surface in sight that wasn’t polished to within an inch of its life. To any purist restorer we were staring at the motorcycling equivalent of the anti-Christ, but for me, and for Clive Smith, builder of said demon, it was grin-inducing stuff of the highest order. Indeed, I must have resembled Homer Simpson, when faced with a plate of do-nuts, as I struggled to restrain my salivations over the gleaming special in front of me.

We’d taken a trip south, to Bedford, to meet up with Clive, after seeing his Goldie powered Norton in the park at the Classic Clubs Show earlier last year, and what a warm welcome we received, as his good lady plied us with beautiful home-made Victoria Sponge and a never empty tea pot.

Often is the case when faced with a relative stranger about to ride their pride and joy, the owner becomes fidgety and suddenly time conscious, but Clive could not have been more relaxed. He knew his bike well and was more than happy to have it impress me - and impress me it did!

With a brace of tasty Tritons already lounging in the workshop, Clive was not looking to build a third but seeing as his pal had a 1967 registered wideline Featherbed frame surplus to requirements, Clive bought it anyway. Whatever came next had to be a special of some form because the frame was already sporting a complete front end, including a lovely polished alloy Marzocchi top yoke, from a Benelli Tornado, plus a back wheel to boot. The answer was soon apparent when Clive spotted that one of the bottom frame rails had a kink in it to accommodate a BSA single’s oil pump housing. So the search began for a Gold Star engine.

Clive says, “There were a good few second-hand engines about but they were all expensive and most of them dead rough, so eventually I bit the bullet and ordered a new 600 from Phil Pearson.”

In the meantime, Clive set about the chassis. He says, “I had an early Dresda box section swinging arm up in the roof, which I’d picked up somewhere ages ago. I made up a new stainless spindle for it, so that didn’t take a lot of fitting, then I had to make a new spindle for the back wheel and because the brake is on the opposite side to normal, I made a cross-over shaft that goes through the frame and two torque arms for the brake plate.”

When I learned that he had also made up the footrests, brake pedals and countless other sundry items, I presumed he must be an experienced machinist. “No, I was a plant fitter for years and then went into traffic management. I taught myself how to use a lathe and what have you. I made a lot of swarf to start with,” laughs Clive.

Born and bred in the locality, Clive began his motorcycling at 16, with a 250cc Cotton, moving up to a 1961 Bonneville on passing the test. “At 21 I got my first car and it wasn’t until my eldest lad was riding and persuaded me to buy a 250 Suzuki, that the bug bit again. That was 30 years ago. I had a few Kawasakis and then 15 years ago I picked up a B31 and loved it, that was it then, I got rid of the Japs and went right back into the British stuff and built myself a Triton, then another, then I got a Black Shadow and then eventually my pal sold me this.” He pointed to a 1937 Model 55 Norton, a twin port 350 with two fantastic sounding Brooklands cans - but that one’s a story for another day.

The flanged alloy rims on the Featherbed chassis are Borrani, so these were polished and then laced, with stainless spokes, to the original Benelli alloy hubs - highly polished naturally. Included with the front end was a nice pair of alloy Tomaselli clip-ons with their distinctive shaped levers and the sporty looking bridge piece, which takes one cable to two for the double sided twin leading shoe drum.

Clive stripped both the magneto and the dynamo, fitting a new armature and other parts as required. “I don’t use it much at night, so I didn’t see any real need to go to 12 volts, these are adequate for me and I made up a new loom, so they’re OK,” he says.

The alloy blade mudguards were picked up from Newark autojumble, as was the alloy central oil tank and the glass fibre five-gallon Manx fuel tank.

Clive fabricated the rear number plate arrangement and also did all the paintwork. “I started in 2005 and had to wait nine months for the engine, so I had most of the bike ready for when I received the engine. I used cellulose paint with a top coat lacquer, on the frame and the tank etc,” he says.

A standard ratio BSA gearbox was sourced from Newark which, luckily, turned out to have excellent innards and needed no more than new bearings, oil seal and a serious buffing. This was mated up to one of Bob Newby’s bulletproof clutch and belt drive assemblies. The engine and gearbox plates were all home-made from Dural, working from cardboard patterns. Likewise the headlamp and mudguard brackets, the magneto fixing strap, the tank strap - made with the tightening knob at the front instead of the usual rear - and the steering damper were all hand crafted in stainless steel by Clive. He also made up the sporty primary drive cover and chain guard in alloy. Sprockets Unlimited made up a new rear sprocket from alloy.

Eventually Clive received the call that the engine was ready. The crankcases are 1962 containing Pearson’s own crank assembly, the barrel is also second-hand but re-sleeved to accommodate the 600cc piston and brand new cylinder head and valve gear. As it was a special, Clive had no qualms about going for a Mikuni carburettor, a 36mm unit, which was supplied and jetted up correctly for a 600 Gold Star by Allens, of Bingham, near Nottingham. Armours supplied the swept back, stainless steel exhaust and silencer system, which looks terrific now it’s taken on the tell-tale ‘used’ bronze colour. Finishing off the job is a neat little race seat, recovered by a local upholsterer and the matching clocks, refurbished by A Pople, resplendent with new bezels.

By the time snapper Baumber had finished his close-up detailed shots, I was chomping at the bit to see just how this magnificent looking special would go and how it compared on the road with my own standard Clubman 500. The starting procedure was far simpler, just turn on the fuel, find compression, ease the big piston over with the valve lifter and swing - instant life. I swapped hands to keep the throttle open as I reached down to my right to reset the folding footrest into its rightful place, at which point Clive said, “It’s not a GP, it’ll tick over, you don’t have to keep it buzzing, just let it go.” Apprehensively, I did just that and to my amazement the beast gently thumped along like a stationary engine.

As always for a shorty like me, the reach across the classic five gallon tank wasn’t so much a problem as getting my feet up onto the rests. As I followed Clive and Pete out of the loose gravel yard, I played safe and kept my feet down, only using the rests as we made our ways onto the main road. As I followed the car, the standard gearbox meant no hard, revving, clutch slipping getaway, this was a doddle, it could well have been a B31!

Behind the car at a steady 50 or so mph, the Goldie was quite happy in top gear, indeed even at considerably slower speeds it plonked along like a trials bike.

We made our way to Old Warden airfield, where resides the fabulous Shuttleworth Collection and asked if we could use some of their awesome exhibits as a backdrop. Initially a jobsworth, who obviously didn’t like motorcycles, gave us a firm negative and so we pondered our next move over a brew. That was when pilot Rob Millinship, himself a former DBD34 owner, wandered over to us and asked, “Would you like us to pull a few of the planes out for you?” How good was that? What’s more, while we were waiting for the local TV news crew to do their thing on the airfield, we were given an impromptu guided tour of the normally out of bounds to the public workshops, by leading Aircraft Engineer Phil Norris. Phil is the engine man in a team of eight full time engineers and was in the final stages of a complete Rolls Royce V12 Merlin rebuild and the structural overhaul of the collection’s Mk V Spitfire, among other projects.

Out on the airfield, the team opened one of the hangars and wheeled out the world’s only remaining Avro Tutor (1933) and one of only two remaining airworthy Gloster Gladiators (1938), to reveal their 1941 Hawker Sea Hurricane in all its magnificence, in the mouth of the hangar. We wheeled the Goldie onto the airstrip and reckoned it couldn’t get much better - but it did, for Rob fired up the Tutor, took off and did a fantastic series of ‘buzzes’ over the bike, before landing and letting us pose with this unique, historic aircraft.

With the statics done, we thanked the Shuttleworth team and took another ride out into the country where I could exercise the lungs of the Goldie. It behaved exactly how I expected, picking up from nothing and taking off like a scalded cat to hit the legal limit in no time, indeed at 70mph it was just cruising and I must admit on a certain stretch of deserted highway, I did rather exceed said limit... let’s leave it at that shall we?

The Benelli forks were perfectly damped and seemed to suit the Featherbed, seemingly equally at home as Roadholders, with no excessive dipping under hard braking and taking in their stride the odd pothole found here and there, without recourse to topping, bottoming or any intermediate harshness. Likewise the rear shocks, ‘café racer stiff’ but certainly not uncomfortable and the bike went around corners like it was on rails - there’s no wonder Clive sports an Ace Cafe T-shirt, this bike is a Rocker’s dream. What’s more the exhaust over run still retained that Gold Star twitter, but with a sharper, more menacing undertone.

Once my knees had become accustomed to their bend, I quickly took to this machine, which honestly went as well as it looked and on completion of the photographs, Clive graciously let me have another highly enjoyable quarter of an hour out on my own before we all returned to base. In fact I was enjoying myself so much I missed Clive’s yard end and sailed off down the road, before having to make excuses on my return.

A pukka Clubman Gold Star is something special for sure, but there’s a strong argument, in the case of a special such as this, to avoid the potential grief of the GP carb’ and the RRT2 'box and achieve the best of both worlds, ie all the raucous, anti social, sheer adrenaline pumping poke of a Featherbed framed big bore Goldie, while also having the option of an easy going mount with impeccable town manners. It’s a credit to Clive Smith, he’s achieved both.