Moto Museum - St. Louis, Missouri

Unfortunately, I'm currently unemployed, and needed a break from the job hunt, so I decided to skip town for a day and clear my head. I knew that I really couldn't spend much money, so I needed to find something of interest, that was also inexpensive. St. Louis is only a 4 hour drive from here, so I chose to make the trek down for the day and pay a visit to the Moto Museum.

Located in the heart of downtown in a historic brick building, just over the river and within eyeshot of the glorious arch, stands a retro modern structure, that's both old, yet retrofitted to accommodate this private motorbike collection, a modern motorcycle dealership and even the Triumph bar and grill. The museum is free to enter, and there's a simple donation box near the entrance. They were setting up for some sort of dealer meeting, so the small staff on hand, was busy setting up banquet tables and even dealing with the local fire department for code inspection. I literally had free reign of the place, and there wasn't any other patrons that showed up the entire time I was there. I'll admit that my spontaneous trip, left me a bit unprepared, and I didn't even bring my point and shoot camera, so I was limited to just the camera in my phone. Apologies for the poor quality images.

Side Valve Benelli

This Matchless was quite nice, and displayed in a way that made it looked like it was perhaps a favorite for the owner

I don't know why, but I've always liked the Imme. It's a goody little thing, but the exhaust pipe is actually incorporated into the frame tube. Just sort of an interesting machine.

This Ducati was actually on display inside the dealership on the back side of the building. They sell Ducati, KTM, Triumph

New Imperial, which I found to be very nice, and is the only machine that I shot 2 photos of. Complete bike, and close up of the petrol tank

It's rare to see an Adler

I'm actually unsure what this beast was, and I wasn't interested enough to even read it's description:

V Twin Husqvarna

The little Italian machines are always cool to look at.
Maserati

Gilera

2 Stroke Parilla

Scott Flying Squirrel

This NSU was my favorite of the collection

Likely the most valuable machine of the collection, was actually on loan from it's owner. With the lighting, all I could manage was this moody shot of the Super X Hill Climber

DKW 

Nose detail of a very art deco styled side car

The majority of the collection is made up of slightly obscure marques, and much of it isn't exactly correctly restored, but I doubt that the owner makes any excuses for any of them. It's always interesting to me, to see what sort of old bikes that people choose to collect. I certainly enjoy seeing them displayed and shared with the public. Getting the chance to get out of town, clear my head and see some old motorbikes, definitely made the purpose of my mission a success.

John Tickle T5 Manx Norton

Ok, so it's surely no secret that I'm quite the fan of anything that John Tickle ever made, and I've previously covered much about him and the parts that he developed, but I recently acquired an original Sales Flyer that I thought would be worth sharing. Surprisingly, I had never seen this flyer before, and even more surprisingly is that while most of us know of the T5 Manx, he apparently also built and offered for sale a T3 and a T6 (350cc and 650cc respectively). I suppose you never stop learning new things.

Here's some photos of the sales flyer, showing the specs for each motor, pricing and also some nice photos of the chassis:

Under The Hammer - ex Alistair King Manx Norton

Well, it's that time again; The Bonham's Auction at Stafford, and the collection of machines for sale is certainly impressive. It looks to me as if there's a very well rounded representation of different marques that are up on the chopping block and after browsing every machine in the listing, my absolute favorite is of course this ex Alistair King 350 Manx Norton.

It's certainly no secret by now that I'm a Norton guy, and the Manx is of course the pinnacle of all Norton motorcycles and holds a very dominant presence in motorcycle racing history. It's also not much of a surprise that I'm an Alistair King fan, so upon seeing this fine machine, I'm blown away by the fact that it's up for sale, and simultaneously depressed in the fact that I have absolutely no way to afford it. But, Bonhams does a nice job in supplying photographs, so I thought I'd share one here. I won't bore you with the details, as you can surely read the listing for yourself. But, it's important to note that both Joe Potts and brake guru Joe Dunphy had both laid hands on this machine.

If you'd like have a look at the listing for this bike, click the link: Manx Norton

And here's the link for the listing of all machines that are going Under The Hammer: Complete Listing

Ray Petty

Ray Petty is quite famous in tight knit circles of vintage motorcycle enthusiasts, yet little information can be found online in regards to his many great achievements. I've recently come across a very special project, and although I'm not quite ready to divulge exactly what it is, I thought it would be nice to post some information about Ray and some of the things that he achieved as well as some of the great Norton motorcycles he built and tuned.

The following is a set of scans from an old motorcycle magazine. My apologies for the poor quality, but they're scans of photocopies. If you enlarge them, you should be able to read them:

Ray Petty Manx Norton photos:

Ray Petty PGT gearbox. PGT, stands for Premium Gear Transmission

The man himself, hard at work in his workshop, tuning Manx Norton engines

Velocette - An odd Winter gathering in the Chicago suburbs

Each winter, the Chicago Norton Owners Club hosts a gathering at Dave Smith's workshop, here in the suburbs. Since it's close to my house, and the winter is cold and terrible, I always go because, at the very least, it's something to do. Dave is a Velocette guy, and I won't even begin to pretend that I know much about him, or about Velocette's for that matter. My knowledge of the Velocette mark is limited to simply being around vintage bikes for long enough to pick up at least some basic information. I'm a Norton guy, and since the local Norton club hosts the event, I started going out for it about four years ago after having moved back to the Midwest.

I believe that Dave is quite well known in the world of Velocette's, and I believe that he's retired and has plenty of time to tinker with these bikes in his private workshop. Dave seems like a really nice guy and is obviously quite passionate about these old bikes. I always respect someone that's become obsessed with one marque and dedicated all their time and money to working on them. I think it takes a special kind of person to get that deep into it.

The Norton club here in Chicago is much like the motorcycle culture in general. And when I say that, I simply mean that it sucks. I've never in my life seen such a scattered and obscure scene based around vintage motorcycles. You'd think that with Chicago being such a large city, that it would be full of the type of people that are really well versed and passionate, but that's simply not the case. I hate to talk down on it, but honesty seems more important than niceties.

I snapped a bunch of photos to share. Dave's got a few Velocette's in various stages of restoration, a Brough Superior and a Nourish Triton. There are a lot of details on these bikes, and for the past four years, I've wanted to ask him about a lot of things, but the place gets pretty packed, and everyone tends to flock to Dave, making it impossible to even speak to him. I think I've maybe said six words to the guy over the past few years. Maybe someday I'll have to show up and enquire about the bikes, when the place isn't packed. I had planned an extensive write up about today's events, but it really doesn't warrant it. I feel that if I get any more long winded than I already have, I'll just bore you to death.

Enjoy a few random photos of the bikes and the extensive amount of very nice machining equipment that Dave has.

In my opinion, the more interesting portion of the workshop, is all the great machining equipment. Since it's near impossible to take a decent photo of the bikes, with the all the people in the way, I spent some time admiring all the equipment.