2010 All British Rally

The BSA Motorcycle Owners Association put on another great show over the Anzac Day long weekend with its staging of the 34th All British Rally at Campbells Creek in Central Victoria.

The small goldfields town of Campbells Creek, only 90 minutes' ride from Melbourne, was again the destination of choice for almost 1000 Brit bike owners for the 34th All British Rally. They began arriving on the Friday in their ones and twos and more, from all points of the compass, their bikes loaded with camping gear, spare spark plugs, chain links, cables and other roadside-repair paraphernalia.

The intrepid Guy Allen flew the flag properly for Motorcycle Trader, arriving on his trusty 'Trevor', the Triumph T150. The magazine's editor Rob Blackbourn had been threatening to give his A65 BSA an outing but turned up on his XJ900 Yamaha (it had to remain outside the fence for the duration with other non-Anglo machines). He muttered something about the old 650 having developed a sudden bad misfire. He wore his BSA t-shirt anyway…

It has been one of the event's traditions that heavy rain should fall for the greater part of the weekend, soaking the campsite and the oval and making it a truly character-building exercise for all participants. The long-term weather forecast painted the usual gloomy picture and we braced ourselves.

Happily, the reality this year was quite different. A bit fell on the Friday but then things improved. Give or take the odd shower it turned out to be almost a fine-weather event.

Apart from the obvious benefits, good weather gives everyone a better chance to see more of the bikes. When rain is threatening, a lot of the more precious and exotic bikes get covered with tarpaulins or even wheeled away into tents.

That original unrestored G80 Matchy that you had been assured was, "… just behind that big gum, near the immaculate Speed Twin," might be nowhere to be seen if there's a bit of drizzle. There might be no sign of the Speed Twin either - just the big tree and a patchwork-quilt of tarps and closed tents.

There was so much to love as always at Campbells Creek. For those who cut their teeth on British bikes it was a pure trip down memory lane.

For others who came to two wheels after the sun had set on the Empire it was a chance to rub up against the bikes they've known as part of the mythology and traditions of motorcycling.

You just can't help grinning as you wander along taking in the delights of everything on offer. Here it's a brace of posh, extrovert Velocettes, all black and chrome and fishtails.

There it's a bunch of finely-honed Manx Nortons, a collage of alloy fins and megaphones and hairpin valve springs. Then you're in the middle of some honest toilers, singles and twins from the '40s and '50s, in good mechanical nick but cosmetically 'as found'.

All around you the arcane skills of traditional motorcycling are being practised: two-stroke brew is being mixed, points are being filed, carbies are being tickled, valves are being lifted, and big singles are being kicked into life. And it all goes on so unremarkably and naturally that you wonder whether Bob Menzies is still running the country.

You can't walk past a Gold Star BSA without admiring the jaunty, in-your-face look of the carby, canted up and out to the right, its trumpet mouth wide open, a threat to all low-flying budgies.

After a while you realise that the pleasure you get from wandering around admiring the bikes isn't a patch on the power of the quiet pride you see in an owner's face, as he stands back allowing his handiwork to speak for him.

Traditional ideas about 'Tritons' came up for a challenge at the rally. The formulaic Triumph-twin powered Norton featherbed chassis suddenly seemed very 'old school' - the T150 triple has become the powerplant of choice.

With such a rich diet of awe-inspiring bikes on hand you can become a bit blasé and find yourself walking past a perfect Vincent Rapide to check out a more humble exhibit. As an example take the 350 Douglas "mark series"-based road racer that caught our attention. Such a beautiful little gem.

The increased interest in BSA Bantams is another example. These diminutive two-stroke singles were more or less unloved until quite recently. There were some fine examples at the rally and they attracted a lot of spectator attention.

The visual feast is only part of the enjoyment at the All Brit - here and there bikes bark into life and toddle off around the grounds, the mufflers of the day providing rich background music. And there are as many exhaust notes as there are variations in numbers of cylinders and cylinder configurations. There's always the pleasant waft of campfire smoke in the air, too, and then occasionally there's a delightful whiff of Castrol R. Fantastic- from an era when oils were oils.

Another reason the campers are happy at the All Brit Rally is that it's so affordable. Your $50 registration fee gets you three nights' camping with on-site facilities and firewood provided. It also includes a free lunch on the Saturday, bike movies at night and a live band on the Saturday. Oh, and you also go in the draw to win a classic bike. A cuppa comes for $2.00, a beer for $3.00. It's a nice contrast with prices you pay at other big bike events.

It's little wonder that the event attracts plenty of visitors from interstate. One hardy soul did the hard yards, riding down from Darwin.

Well done, once again, BSA club folk. We can't wait for next year.

PRIZED FROM THE ASHES
Motorcycle Trader was not just in attendance to report on the 2010 ABR, but was there as a sponsor of one of the concours categories - "Best Single".

From all the ripper singles at the rally, MT awarded "Best Single" to a handsome 1950 Ariel Red Hunter entered by Glenn Orr from Buninyong (Vic).

Glenn was well pleased with his award and more than happy to tell the bike's story:

"My father, Kevin, bought it brand new in 1950 over at Daylesford (Vic). It was his first bike. He was 17 years old when he got it.

"He did about 40,000 miles on it. And that was back in the days of the hard miles.

Bitumen wasn't really that normal for a road out here. So as a result everything on the bike was more or less bent, busted or worn out when he parked it in the shed.

And it sat there for years and years.

"Then about nine or 10 years back my father and I thought that we should get it out and do something with it. It took us about four years of effort to come up with the bike that you see now.

"The hardest stuff was the tinware. I couldn't find tinware that was straight. I actually sourced those bits in England.

"You can get tinware in Australia but I wasn't lucky enough to find parts that weren't crooked or twisted. So that was hard until we found we could get them from England through Draganfly.

"And gearbox parts I got from Greg Ditchfield at Manx Classic Spares. He helped me with bushes and stuff I hadn't been able to get. He was my main source for the difficult gearbox parts. He was really good.

"Oh, there was something else. I almost forgot to mention the fire. That was the big problem. About two years into the restoration project the original guards and the tank and the gauges were all done up like they are now, all painted up and chromed. When they were finished we put them away at the farm. Then the house at the farm burned down.

"We lost the guards and gauges in the fire but we just saved the tank. So we had to start all over again on it. That's when I had the trouble finding straight replacement tinware.

"We got a liner put in the tank and there was a lot of work in the rechroming, but it was good that we could save it. So this bike's a bit of a Phoenix really."

NO TOOL LIKE AN OLD TOOL...
Ken Roberts from Grafton (NSW) who runs the Old Tools business, brought some humdinger stuff to Campbells Creek.

Obviously there were plenty of the essential Whitworth spanners to choose from plus heaps of model-specific tools for the popular pre-war and post-war classic Brits.

What really caught my attention was Ken's 'museum' tray and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the tools on it and the bikes they were made for.

Ken talks us through the museum tray:

"There's a Minerva spanner, very, very early (MT note: 1900-1909); a Levis pre-'36; a Dunhill - they stopped manufacturing motorcycles in 1930; the Excelsior out of America, the v-twin - a spanner for the 1923 model; a CCM, a Sunbeam pre-1930.

"Then there's a 1932 Jawa spanner, a Moto Guzzi tappet spanner, a Moto Reve from Switzerland - they stopped manufacturing motorcycles in 1917. Plus there are a few other obscure ones: the Harris Cycle Company, Coventry; one from Raleigh Motorcycles; then a Singer - they stopped in 1911; and a Rover veteran spanner.

"Then there's a Norman tool too. Norman made a handful of bikes in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne in 1909. Also there's one for The New Rapid from the Netherlands - they rebadged bikes and sold them into England under the name Wolf and a few other names from 1932-37. They were mainly two-strokes.

"There's a Lambretta tool; the four-cylinder FN from the turn of the century; three very unusual, very early penny-farthing spanners - there's a Hunter, a Demon and a Swift."

So if you can't afford an old bike perhaps an old bike tool might be the go - a nice little motorcycling objêt d'art for the mantelpiece, perhaps?

-- story courtesy of Motorcycle Trader