Motor Cycle sport in pictures....an interesting booklet to search out....
During the 1950s and 1960s the two main UK motorcycle magazines, the weeklies..."Motor Cycle" and "Motorcycling" were constantly endeavouring to outdo each other with additional publications...
This is one... Titled "Motor Cycle sport in pictures", first published in 1951 and I really don't know if further editions followed, although I've a pretty extensive library and this is the only copy I recall. Published for "The Motor Cycle" by Iliffe & Sons Ltd it contains some 64 pages of photographs of all facets of motorcycle sport at the time and I've selected several pages, following for you.... Where to get one...can't say I've looked on Ebay and for sure I've never seen it , well in the last 15 years on the postal book auction I subscribe to...Motor Book Postal Auctions. The copyright would now be owned by Mortons Motorcycle Media in the UK to whom I acknowledge for featuring it. Price would likely be over 15 quid..... I have others that I intend to feature over coming blogs...the hard part about building a library today is knowing what to look for. I hope by featuring some, you will have a better insight...good hunting/browing whatever.... Left click on images to enlarge....
Don Bain was a champion motorcycle racer in Australia in the 1930s and just after WW2, he was a Velocette racer.... Ron Kessing had a generous father, who bought him a new Mk.7 KTT in 1938 and Ron acquited himeself on it well, but is better known for his machine preparation. They formed a business just after WW2.... Bain and Kessing.... with a shop on the corner of Mintaro Avenue and Liverpool Road ( the Hume Highway) in what I consider is South Strathfield, but Kesso, as he was affectionately known, chose to call Enfield. In fact he advertised his shop at 7, Broadway, Enfield in the print media....many years later he admitted to me it was a ploy to save on the costs of advertising in the daily newspapers...there were many less letters in his "address" than the real one.... Somehow letters and customers found him... Illustrated is a later advert, when Ron was trading alone, still from the same shop and address....
I've two photos to share with you over the above.... Hidden in the archives of the Telco, Telstra, formerly the "PostMaster Generals Department"...the PMG, was the B & W photo of Bain and Kessing, with Ron Kessing, in overalls, striding out of his shop. His 1936 Nash car is parked in the gutter and it was for sale, Kesso told me and had a sign on it's windscreen....the year was 1948. Telstra found the pic to illustrate a conference on the methods of conveying the telephone traffic from the Sydney GPO to the Melbourne, Victoria GPO at the time...it was on the top three cross members of the telephone poles in the picture. The archivist at Telstra knew me and so the photos were promised to me after the conference... I remarked that Ron Kessing was still alive...the year 1989 and so we arranged for Roley Walker, arch Velo enthusiast, latterly taken from us by cancer and sadly missed, to bring his Mk.1 KTT ( won the 1929 Junior Manx GP in the hands of one Doug Pirie...) and for Ron Kessing to come and sit on it, 18th September 1989. The photo was duly taken and used but I never got a copy, until today....when after a chance remark at the recent funeral of the late Allen Burt to the ex archivist, resulted in his tracking down the negative and arranging a print for me. Pictured is Ron Kessing on the Velo, with Roley Walker to the right. Two senior Telstra people are in attendence ( names unknown) with that B & W picture.... So the story is now complete..... Left click on the images to enlarge....
100 years of Velocette celebrated in Australia in October 2005, an additional pictorial display.....
As I mentioned in an earlier blog,Velocette as a motorcycle became 100 years old during 2005... Throughout the world, clubs and enthusiasts celebrated the event with rallies and get togethers... Some more pics of the event celebrated in Australia in October 2005.... No particular order...
Pud Freeman and Dom Brown are seen with Pud's early K Velo.
Australia Post, we discovered had a scheme whereby you could create your own postage stamp... normally done by doting grandparents with their grandchildren on the stamp, but the rally committee seized on the idea of creating a special Velocette Centenary stamp. They are no longer available and quite a collectors item... As well I mentioned we made a stop at the historic Zig-Zag railway, which was an initial means of crossing the mountain range west of Sydney. There are five shots involving the Zig Zag, which started at the station at Clarence, one with Veloman Neville Smith aboard his Venom beside the steam engine, after he found a way to ride it up on to the station... The steam engines are of a smaller rail gauge than was originally used..this was 4'8 1/2", the UK mine gauge, but the engines are 3'6" gauge, sourced from Queensland. The viaduct is impressive and the flowers on display in the foreground are the rare, protected Waratah, the NSW State flower. They were in bloom at the time, and I photographed one during the rally..
The others show a variety of views at the initial photoshoot that let you get a feel for the variety of Velos on display. These final two images are of the late Keith Hamilton's 1923 Ladies Model E3L Velocette with one showing Keith aboard it Left click on images to enlarge...
The Nicholson brothers ran a motorcycle business at 212 Second Avenue north, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada from pre WW2 and one of the brothers, J.B.Nicholson wrote a book on motorcycle mechanics, first published in 1942.
They then had at least six editions altogether, 2nd/1945; 3rd/1948; 4th/1953; 5th/1965 and 6th/1969.I am unsure if they published after the latter one. Reading this blog, Paul Barfoot, Veloman from Perth, Western Australia tells me he has a 7th edition published in 1974 that he bought in 1975.... I have five of the editions, including the first, which is mint and in the original packing material and addressed to a British serviceman... Corporal H.N.Ryan, RAOC in the UK. I doubt it was ever read and one wonders if he ever came back from the European theatre of war as it was delivered in 1942 or 43.... Below are some images of the books...the first edition with extracts from it and the last from the sixth edition.... There was one just offered on Ebay and the auction has just closed...a fifth edition, .... Ebay number 310127166802...you can view it for a few weeks on ebay.com 3 bidders were on it and it sold for US$38 or 27 UK quid........ Left click on images to enlarge.....
100 years of Velocette celebrated in Australia in October 2005...a pictorial display.....
Velocette as a motorcycle became 100 years old during 2005... Throughout the world, clubs and enthusiasts celebrated the event with rallies and get togethers... In Australia work started on the organisation of the Australian Centenary Velocette Rally during 2003 and the idea was largely as a result of Warwick Nicholson's persistance in promoting the need for it. Warwick and some 10 other people, myself included, became involved in an ad-hoc committee that met monthly for the 18 months prior to the event, which replaced the normal Australian National Velocette Rally, itself held yearly for over 25 years and was scheduled for October 2005. The aim was to try to get 100 Velocette motorcycles on display and to the delight of all the rally entrants and the many visitors to the opening day of the rally, the number exceeded 135 Velocettes. It has been suggested that there have never been this many Velocettes together, ever in Australia, past or present. The rally had entrants from all Australian States, New Zealand and the USA. Most of the overseas visitors were provided bikes from members of the Australian VOC. Running for a week the rally was based in the historic grounds of the University of Western Sydney's Richmond campus, on the western outskirts of Sydney at the historic town of Richmond. The site has been there itself for over 100 years and was formerly the old Hawkesbury Agricultural College. As you will see by the line up for the historic photo shoot, the back ground of the old buildings fitted in perfectly. I don't intend to give a running commentary of the event, letting the photos tell the story and intend to follow up with another, perhaps several more photo montages... Left click on the images to enlarge.....
Most of the bikes are visible in the photoshoot line-up.
The racing side of Velocette was represented as a result of "The racing Roberts Family", Graeme with a 500cc KTT racer, Chris with an unusual exhibit..."The Rotacette", a locally made rotary valve conversion to a KSS engine. Their 1939 Mk.8 KTT ( my old "war-horse" ) was there also.
L -R...Author of "Norm's Technicalities", the Australian VOC Technical officer, Norm Trigg, my 1954 MSS on loan to Californian Mike Jongblood with fellow Californian Larry Luce behind and myself to the right.
The Australian Velocette Owners Club Patron, Anne Frampton ( nee Goodman), daughter of the late Bertie Goodman, last managing director of Veloce Ltd., presents the "Roley Walker Trophy" for the best spring frame Velocette at the rally to a surprised and delighted Tim Thearle during the final evening presentation dinner.
Also at the presentation dinner admiring a display setup by Warwick Nicholson is L-R, Warwick Nicholson ( Burradoo, NSW), Paul Barfoot ( Perth,Western Australia) and Mick Felder ( California, USA). The display was a sectioned club engine fitted with a BMG desmodromic valve mechanism, gear clusters...4 and 5 speed and the never completed 700cc MAC twin engine ( courtesy of its builder, Allen Russell of Sydney).
A "gaggle" of LEs...
The rally featured rides daily and we visited Bathurst, some 100km further west of Richmond and stopped at the National Motor Racing Museum. Around 80+ Velocettes were riding regularly on the day runs during the rally.
One stop on a day ride was near Lithgow at the Zig Zag Railway, where the rally boarded a special steam train during which lunch was served and as a nice touch the rail staff had arranged black and gold ( Velocette colours...) serviettes and table display and we spent 2 hours traversing the historic zig zag rail method originally used to cross the Blue Mountain range.
The late Keith Hamilton shows off his 1923 EL2/EL3 Ladies model Velocette and what better person to try it than Ella Luce, out from California USA with husband Larry. They had shipped out their 1963 MSS to ride in the rally.
A final view at the photo shoot.... 135 plus Velocettes.....
This is a further additional blog to one I did earlier on the Mk.6 KTT and so I won’t include photos already posted there.
There were three mk.6 prototype KTTs built for the 1936 IOM TT as mentioned, however several were used in Europe throughout 1936, winning the Junior race in the Belgium GP ridden by Ted Mellors. See photo below…
Ted Mellors victory in 1936 Belgium GP on a Mk.6 KTT.
Ted Mellors during the Eilenreide races.
Mellors also rode a Mk.6 KTT in early April in the Eilenriede races situated in a forest area near Hannover, Germany at which he won the 350cc class against DKWs, etc.
This was reported in the German motorcycle magazine “Das Motorrad” and the report is included in this blog.
It was always the first show-down for the German professional racers and the main companies as BMW, DKW and NSU. Today it is used for bicycle races.
The petrol tank used for this event was not the same as used in the IOM, it was more like the earlier “dog-kennel” racers of 1935.
Where are these Mk.6 KTTs today….?
It seems the Mk.6 KTT that Roger Loyer used ended up in the hands of Bruno Ahlswede who lived in Hannover and was destroyed in the fire storm air raid bombing by the Allies during WW2.
One came to Australia with Frank Mussett when he left as WW2 was underway in 1939.
Below is a photo of it used at Bonnie Vale in Victoria ( Australia) in 1947. It was later owned by Norm Osborne, but its where-a-bouts today are unknown.
Two photos of the Mk.6 KTT that went to Australia in 1939 with Frank Mussett.
This leaves the third, which is owned by Gert Boll in Germany is now restored and leads this article….
Gert obtained the engine from Leipzig in the former East Germany and the frame came from France.
They are unlikely to have been together before, but who knows….
The engine is KTT621 and from the works records for the IOM TT you can seethis was allotted to H.E.Newman. The frame is frame number 6TT4 which was allotted to Billy Tiffin of Carlisle, Scotland.
There are photos, below, showing the engine as it was dismantled by Gert and the frame as it was cleaned and primed for painting. Its dimensions are the same as the Mk.7 KTT which followed it which was a production KTT sold to the racing public.
Looking at the oil feed on the top bevel cover of several of the bikes, there were two versions, Gert Boll’s now Mk.6 is the same as the Newman engine of 1936, whereas the Australian Mk.6 appears to be the same as Loyer and Tiffin’s. Loyer’s machine was destroyed as mentioned, so the machine outstanding in Australia is likely to have been Tiffin’s engine, but as his frame is with Gert Boll it must have one of the others.
There obviously was mixing of engines and frames.
During 1937, Ernie Thomas rode a Mk.6 in the IOM TT, as did Les Archer and even Noel Pope.
Full marks to Gert Boll for his tenacity in tracking down this rare machine and I think we can confidently say it is the sole remaining Mk.6 left in the world.
Acknowlegement is made to Mike Kingwell author of "Touring and Sporting Motorcycles in Australia, 1916-66", Morton's Motor Cycle Media, Gert Boll, Motor Presse Verlag for use of the various photographs.
Left click on images to enlarge.
Roger Loyer's Mk.6 KTT likely in Europe 1936.
Gert Boll's frame, 6TT4, formerly Billy Tiffin's 1936 TT machine.
Gert Boll's stripped and primed Mk.6 KTT frame, 6TT4.
