Acquiring a 1952 BSA A10 Golden Flash and living a dream
With this bike, I’ve lived the classic motorcyclist’s dream, at least I’ve lived my dream – your own dreams may differ.
But honestly, what could be better than resurrecting a bike that has laid dormant for 20 years and bringing it back to life. With the bonus that it was fully restored before being laid to rest. I first became aware of it via an internet auction site, whereby some coincidence there appeared 2 BSA A10 Flashes at the same time, both the early fifties plunger framed variety which really appeal to me. After a couple of unsuccessful bids on the first (beige) one, I made another random bid on the second (black) example while holidaying in Bali.
The day after the auction closed, I checked and crikey, I’d won it! I made sure the seller was ok with storing it for a couple of weeks while I arranged transport as it was not in the same island as me – we’re talking North and South Islands of New Zealand here. Once that was ok, I paid my money, organized transport and when I got back home phoned the seller for a wee chat. Everything seemed consistent with the advert, his dad, a BSA enthusiast since the seventies, had done extensive work on the bike and covered about 500 miles before becoming too old to ride and riding off into the sunset sometime later. I had checked with the seller that it still had good spark, so I was thinking it would just need some carb cleaning, liquids replaced and it should go – very optimistic of me I know!
The bike was scheduled for delivery about a week after coming home, I didn’t see the truck arrive, there was just a knock on my door and a guy saying, ‘Your bikes here’, so I walked out of my house and there it was sitting in the driveway – woohoo!
A quick scan revealed it was in better condition than what I’d expected. Unfortunately, busy working from home, I couldn’t do much till later that day, so immediately after work I changed the engine oil and freed up the frozen fuel taps, there wasn’t much to this as it had been stored without much oil and zero fuel – great. I then threw some fuel into the tank, turned a tap on and tickled the primer. The carb was commendably leak free, so I kicked it over a couple of times and… nothing happened. Ok, I’ll just kick it a few more times I guess, before I start checking things over. I think it was my fourth or fifth go when the engine fired into life and before long was ticking over on a steady idle – it was unbelievable! Almost like it had last been fired up a couple of days ago, not a couple of decades! It also sounded great, almost like an old single banger, but I guess it’s got 325cc in each cylinder so why not. I took a video, sent it to the seller who promptly replied, ‘My dad would be very happy’! I stopped and started the bike again just to be sure it wasn’t some fluke and it fired up immediately. I rode it around my backyard a few times, woohoo, this is great! Understandably the fuel taps were leaking quite badly, so I parked it, removed them and set to work changing the corks.
The next day it was time for my first ride, this was quite scary for me, not that I was worried about traffic or falling off, but rather I was worried some major issue would reveal itself and I’d be massively disappointed. However, the bike ran very well, albeit with a bit of clutch slipping, later research told me that inert bikes will result in the clutch plates binding together and the suggested solution was – use it! Um, I think I can manage that.
Next: Riding BSA’s A10 Golden Flash – the ideal classic bike?
Journey's with British Motorcycles 