Tales of British bikes from an incompetent mechanic

By Craig Whittaker

Hello fellow British bike enthusiast,

These pages contain my experiences of riding, spannering and generally messing about with British bikes of the fifties – and earlier. For some reason modern bikes have never appealed to me and apart from a single diversion with a classic Japanese bike, I’ve only owned, ridden and thrown spanners at motorcycles of this era.

So, what do I like about them, well for a start, just look at the picture below and tell me that doesn’t look fabulous! Then there’s the lack of computers, plastic, or even much in the way of electrics, they’re relatively simple machines – unless you’re taking the engine apart, or harder still, trying to put it back together. There’s no push the button and off you go, you have to understand something about how it to works to even start the thing and with that you start building a connection to the machine.

To me, these bikes have soul and character in abundance.

This is my 1952 BSA A10 Golden Flash – the A10 is often described as the ideal classic bike.

My experience with motorcycles goes back over 30 years when shortly after arriving back in New Zealand from a couple of years in the UK, my father purchased a 1950 BSA Bantam. I was really intrigued with the little 125cc 2-stroke and soon started learning to ride and taking steps to gain my motorcycle license. When I took it for my practical riding test, of course it wouldn’t start, so my examiner came out to find me pushing it around the car-park attempting to roll-start it! Ah, British bikes!

My dad’s BSA Bantam upon which I learnt to ride and obtained my license in the early nineties.

Since then I’ve enjoyed plenty of old bike experiences in New Zealand and the UK and while I have learnt a lot about motorcycles, I’ve also made a lot of new friends and reconnected with a couple of old ones.

My 1937 Ariel NH Red Hunter, brought to life after restoration and a 20 year slumber

My 1952 Sunbeam S8 which I toured the UK on and have owned for 30 years

New motorcycle has arrived!

I recently picked up this fantastic 1947 Triumph Speed Twin (April 2026) to add to my collection, it goes really well, the engine is very smooth and it handles great. For a full story see Hugh’s bike

This motorcycle has it all, a fantastic patina, a long history with Kiwi racer Hugh Anderson and it runs great.

Blog

More spannering… (26 July 2026)
Spannering a Triumph (7 July 2026)
A small group ride with 400 bikes – DGR 2026 (27 May 2026)
BSA Owners meet and a near disaster (29 April 2026)
DGR time again (17 April 2026)
A local cafe ride, with a dilemma (30 March 2026)

Published so far:

Honda CB 450 K1: The Japanese diversion – new page 17 June 2026
Ariel NH Red Hunter: The girder rigid itch
Triumph Speed Twin: Hugh’s bike
Sunbeam S8: Touring the UK on ‘The gentlemans motorcycle’
AJS 500 single: Problems with girls and motorcycles, my first bike
BSA A10 Golden Flash: The classic motorcyclists dream?
BSA A10 Golden Flash: The ideal classic motorcycle?

Over time I’ll be adding pages to cover my other experiences such as:

BSA A7 Shooting Star: Buying a bike in the UK from New Zealand
BSA A7 Shooting Star: Appearing in a TV program as a member of a bikie gang

So check back later or subscribe for updates!