6 Dec 2010

My first bike was a BSA Bantam 150


Was a BSA Bantam Major 150 cc 2-stroke that was probably born around 1954/1955. I must have owned it between 1962 and 1964. At the time I didn't yet have a licence and used to ride it around my parents garden and fields (well, mostly). It wasn't really adapted to this treatment and took a bit of a battering. The one I had was blue, if I remember right. This was looks a lot smarter than mine did. It used to smoke a lot and made a noise like a large can with a few hard peas inside being shaken by a giant. I kind of loved it until it broke more than I could fix it.

This entry is the first of a series that will carry us through my personal biking history. It has been interesting trying to piece this history together, and especially finding pictures of suitable machines, as I have not kept many photographs, apart from a few of current bikes. One of the paradoxes of having worked as a photographer, I suppose. This will not exactly be a "bike of the week" thing, since I would not elect all of the machines I have owned or ridden for some distance into the "must have" category. We might look at that issue another time.

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