what happened then? (in the good'ol'days)

I recently stumbled upon this forum after a mate sent me a link. It’s great to see that Bantams are still being raced.
I started racing a Bantam in the early 70s and remember Colin Aldridge well. My abiding memory of Colin was at Llandow when it was wet. On the first lap a group of us pulled away from the pack and approached the notorious Paddock Bend. I was 3rd and Colin was behind me when the leader slid off, then the 2nd place rider fell off, then I fell off, finally Colin went down and we all ended up on the grass laughing our heads off. At this point Colin came towards me and pretended to start a fight, the other 2 joined in and within seconds we were surrounded by terrified looking flag Marshalls who thought it was a real fight and started trying to pull us apart.

The quickest Bantam I ever owned was bought from Trevor Amos who , from memory lived in Higham Ferrers at the time. This was a short stroke 54x54 air cooled engine with a Wiseco Suzuki piston, small flywheels and I think a Bultaco conrod. The bike had an Amal TT carburettor with a handlebar mounted air lever and the technique was to move the lever to fully open when exiting a slow corner to weaken the mixture and produce good acceleration. Once approaching peak revs in 3rd gear you would move the lever back until just before the point where the engine was “four stroking” to richen the mixture and prevent overheating. The bike and me (then a bit lighter) went through the speed trap at Snetterton at 98mph.

After years of trying to persuade my son Richard that he should stick to Trials and not get involved in all that silly tarmac stuff, I have now had to concede that he may have a bit of talent and I spend most of my time “spannering” his Kawasaki superbikes.
Dave Blunt

Hello again Dave,
Welcome to the Bantam Forum, and am delighted to see you have re-discovered the world of Bantams. I`m sure we would all love to hear more of your anecdotes and memories and as you can see, some of us oldies are still at it !

Cheers for now , Trevor

Right! Don´t have much time...***

Colin Aldridge -- the Wobbleyman -- was my mucker and great rival in GOD (Good Old Days) times. He was often known as "The Vulture" because he´d somehow hover nearby, his body wrapped in a filthy motorcycling coat and head in a hideous mutze thing waiting until you had the head & barrel off... Then out would come his  vernier and he´d be measuring your ports.

*** I don´t mean me -- its this bluddy PC. I have an enormous problem with it playing up after writing a few web-site  lines. It´ll stop altogether at half a page or so... Sometimes there are adverts all over the page which slow everything down ...
I´ve been hit by worms and virus 4 times and hope I don´t pass anything on -- here -- and have to ask, WHY ME?

If anybody has a clue as to what my PC is suffering from -- I´d much appreciate advice. In those GOD times there weren´t so many spiteful hackers as there are today. The hackers use biblical and BC time religious titles so beware of "Trojan xxxx", "Babylon 3..."  and the like -- do not open, even they box says you´ve won xxx  just delete straight off....

Cheers!
JayBee ex BRC Chairperson, Bantam rider and 250 ABS racer ....

Hello John
Are the chap who used to transport his racing bike in the back of a saloon car?
Re: computer problems try SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition it gets rid of a lot of rubbish
Kind Regards
Dave Blunt

Hi Dave,
Yes.
I first did it with the wife´s Ford 100E. All seats out except the driving seat and in with the Bantam less its front wheel. Not too often because the 3-gear, side-valve Ford 100E was slow on the motorways. I went to Brands practice frequently that way because it was a short distance from home  and no rush to get started anyway.

Nice to hear from you. I hope you are keeping well -- and well above the smelly stiuff.

Then Simms Motor Units, Finchley gave me a company Cortina to dash about the country in -- supposedly to do work for them. The Simms garage man gave me the Cortina on a Friday afternoon  before Llandow on the Saturday. I got home that evening, took out  all but the driver´s seat and with the Bantam´s front wheel removed  installed Icarus-1 as my passenger. Wife was pleased it was not her 100E but horrified that it was a NEW Cortina. Less than a hundred miles on the clock she wailed and you´ve scratched the paint already.

Instead of driving down to Wales on Friday evening with The Wobblyman or others from the East End crowd I drove down on Satúrday morning in plenty of time for scrutineering -- without a hangover. The latter `hangover´ was when with The Wobbleyman... or developed   from some twerp starting his Bantam at 3 in the morning. These twerps existed in those days:   obviously having thrown the Bantam together at the last minute, and driving to Llandow late, they just had to -- irrespective of it being early hours of  morning -- try to start the ruddy thing. Terrible noise a racing Bantam can make when its carburration is too weak or too rich -- like a machine gun getting itself jammed  -- pop (scuffing feet sound)  -- eh -- pop-pop -- er (scuffing feet sound) pop !! or  waffle waffle, pop pop, grr grr,  bwoom bwoom -- something like that. Then, of course it would run fairly smooth and after a few fistfulls of sound  and a few blips it would  suddenly go totally silent. The suffering, would-be sleeper settles down with a sigh and nearly gets to sleep when it starts up again.

Some how in those GOD (Good Old Days) times we had such twerps disturbing the peace which I believe just doesn´t happen in these well-controlled, 21st century days.

Colin Aldridge -- The Wobblyman -- was a great friend in more ways than one. He died of stomach cancer in early 2002 and my last phone call to him was when he was at Daytona with Slick my son spannering for Scott Russell the WSB Champ. Instead of Slick answering the mobile phone Colin did. I told him it was surprise because I thought he´d had another dose of the surgeon´s knife only days before ... He told me he had had so many ops that they´d installed a zip-fastener in his gut. He added that we should each get a Racing Bantam and get down to Brands because now he would be competitive on a Bantam at last -- just under 11 stone!. So it came as a surprise, a couple of months later,   when my Daughter phoned from the Isle of man to say he had died just a few minutes earlier when she had been with him. Apparently he grinned as he said, "Not long now Kate and I´ll be off ..." as if he knew ....    
   
Typical of Colin he left a big sum of money with the IoM golf club that when he popped off was to be spent on booze for all his friends there during his send off. Cost must have been in thousands. Colin´s ashes were spread at one of the golf holes and my son Slick said he got covered in them. A gust of wind came up just at the right time -- just as if The Wobblyman was saying goodbye with a laugh to the one he had done so much for, in the motorcycle racing world.

Cheers to one and all!
JayBee.