The Simple Life: 50s touring

[Paul in NZ]

This is a repost BUT I think there have been a few additions and extras so well worth a second or third look.

http://www.go-faster.com/SS100.html

Sigh - with all the advances in our machines we do seem to have 'lost' something....

I reckon we need a classic tour of the Wairarapa. Picnic with everything carried on the bikes... Thermettes, primus etc.

[kiwifruit]

Great images

[Paul in NZ]

Great images

The one I love is the one where they are waiting for the bikes to be unloaded in France. Brewing up beside the tarmac with a stove they have obviously carried aboard the plane.... Perhaps we should ban cafes in airports and put aside areas for picnics....

[eliot-ness]

Great post Paul, one could almost believe those bike pics; but of course they've all been edited, where's the oil drips under the the bikes??how else could they have bikes of that era not covered in oil???, and reliable!! no way, the only way they could have toured Europe would be by carrying the bikes on trailers. And of course the way those guys were dressed proves it, all motor cyclists of that era spent their lives covered in gunk as they struggled to keep their machines running, let alone touring.
Well, at least that's what I'm told by "experts" on the forum.
Seriously, a great look at machines and riders I grew up with, a lot of memories there, wish I'd had the foresight so keep diaries and pics, Few modern riders believe just what could be done with those "antiquated" machines.

[willytheekid]

There just is no substitute for old school!

The machines, the roads and the attitudes...best read of the year! (Hands down!)

thanks for sharing that, really enjoyable reading.

[nudemetalz]

Love the shots of the old (well new back then) long-nose Bristol Freighter and Miles Aerovan.

[Paul in NZ]

I guess its easy looking back at a past era and get all rosy tinted and it has to be said it wasnt all beer n skittles. If this group could afford new machines and air travel they were obviously well heeled compared to the great unwashed.

Having said that, motorcycles and cars of the post war period and in particular the 1950's interest me. Having been through a terrible war there was just such a lot of optomisim that the future would be better. The speed of development in many things was a little slower than some other times but there was enough to interest. It just seems that these are happy people having a great time in a golden summer.

[martybabe]

A thoroughly enjoyable browse through yesteryear . Thanks for posting that it made my day. I'm too young to have been part of all that but I do remember a time when all the bikes were British and the roads were all empty,nobody dressed like that though as I recall, all dirty black leathers, waxed cotton and pudding basin helmets (or not).
As I say, way too young but those bikes and the guys that rode them planted the seed of the motorcycling life in my little boys imagination. A piece of card on the spokes of my bicycle to emulate the noise of the BSAs and Triumphs was just the start of my 36ish years on Motorcycles.

I do vaguely recall the next door neighbour setting off on frequent picnic trips with his wife on the back in a dress and his three or four kids stuffed in the side-car, the bastard thing rattled my bedroom window like crazy when it finally kicked into life. Put me down for the picnic tea and a smoke but nostalgic as I am, I ain't swapping my oilhead beemer for nothing. Happy days

[Motu]

Having been through a terrible war there was just such a lot of optomisim that the future would be better. The speed of development in many things was a little slower than some other times but there was enough to interest.

I was born in 1953 - times were tough alright...we were living in a bach at Eastern Beach and were lucky to have a car,a Fiat Topolino. There was optimism,but in NZ the speed of development was pretty intense - that was when we started to industrialise,to lessen our reliance on imports...if it was possible to make it in NZ,then we did. Roading,housing,subdivision,industry - cars,tyres,batteries,paint etc. There was work and not enough people,you could walk into any job - we had to import those Pacific Island people to do all the factory work for us. My parents were able to buy a new house on a single income...we had no carpet fridge or TV.

Times were certainly looking up - but normal people didn't go on extended holidays with expensive vehicles, that was stuff of fairy tales.

[Ocean1]

I reckon we need a classic tour of the Wairarapa. Picnic with everything carried on the bikes... Thermettes, primus etc.

Magic, ta for the link.

And if'n I'm allowed to strap a thermett on the back of a Buell, (as opposed to something more "period") for a picnic by the river in Morrison's bush (?) then pencil me in, eh?

[Paul in NZ]

Magic, ta for the link.

And if'n I'm allowed to strap a thermett on the back of a Buell, (as opposed to something more "period") for a picnic by the river in Morrison's bush (?) then pencil me in, eh?

Oh absolutely. The point would be to have a nice civilised picnic and act like nice decent people. Type of bike is meaningless - its the spirit that counts.

Lets revisit this in feb once all the xmas madness has died down.....

[Ixion]

87! And still riding. Well, that's set the bar, hasn't it.

What really struck me about those photos was not the ATTGAT (I remember when riders wore "ordinary" clothes under a great coat), but the number of *new* cars.

I think I see a new Riley (weren't they about £2000 ?) , a new Standard Vanguard (horrible thing, but still a new car), a new Prefect E93A (equally 'orrible'), new VDubs, new Renaults, and several other new ones I don't recognize.

Here we always thought that post war Britain and Europe were all austerity, misery, bombsites and "utility" clothing.

Not many young lads here could have afforded a new Thunderbird then, either. £221-16-2 was a lot of money then, about 6 months wages for a working man, maybe $30,000 in today's money. And he paid cash, it wasn't bought on the never-never, see the revenue stamp,so that's a receipt for money paid. Noone I knew as a young fellow could afford that sort of money. Yet he didn't appear to come from a posh family (board school, semi-detached houses).

Also, wasn't petrol still on ration then? Where did they get the coupons? (one of my childhood household responsibilities was cutting the coupons from the ration book - I seem to remember Mum complaining, not that she had no money, but that she had no coupons).

So maybe Sir Stafford Cripps wasn't quite the ogre we thought he was.

Among the marque names on the shop window are two I've never heard of - Hopper and Aberdale ? Anyone heard of these?

That's an LE Velo on the table in the workshop, they must have had the police contract.

All in all, a fascinating trip down memory lane. Thank you Mr P .

I can never make up my mind whether things were better then than now, or the reverse.

As Mr Motu says, most young families could buy their own homes , thanks to family benefit capitalisation and cheap State Advances loans. But very few could afford wall to wall carpeting , fridges or TVs . Let alone air travel! We did have a big console radio though, with a magic eye an all. And no-one had heard of food banks.

I do think there was more optimism then, if folk didn't have as much as now, they did have a definite, almost universal belief that their children and grandchildren would be much better off. Buggered if I know whether that came true or not!

[Ronin]

This:


So my 70+ year old father had just done 160mph on the Alton bypass! Mum was not amused, though dad clearly was and had a cigar and a beer to celebrate... My dad carried on riding bikes until he was 87 and then decided he was getting a bit old for bikes and bought himself a sports car.

Love it.

[martybabe]

87! And still riding. Well, that's set the bar, hasn't it.

What really struck me about those photos was not the ATTGAT (I remember when riders wore "ordinary" clothes under a great coat), but the number of *new* cars.

I think I see a new Riley (weren't they about £2000 ?) , a new Standard Vanguard (horrible thing, but still a new car), a new Prefect E93A (equally 'orrible'), new VDubs, new Renaults, and several other new ones I don't recognize.

Here we always thought that post war Britain and Europe were all austerity, misery, bombsites and "utility" clothing.

Not many young lads here could have afforded a new Thunderbird then, either. £221-16-2 was a lot of money then, about 6 months wages for a working man, maybe $30,000 in today's money. And he paid cash, it wasn't bought on the never-never, see the revenue stamp,so that's a receipt for money paid. Noone I knew as a young fellow could afford that sort of money. Yet he didn't appear to come from a posh family (board school, semi-detached houses).

Also, wasn't petrol still on ration then? Where did they get the coupons? (one of my childhood household responsibilities was cutting the coupons from the ration book - I seem to remember Mum complaining, not that she had no money, but that she had no coupons).

So maybe Sir Stafford Cripps wasn't quite the ogre we thought he was.

Among the marque names on the shop window are two I've never heard of - Hopper and Aberdale ? Anyone heard of these?

That's an LE Velo on the table in the workshop, they must have had the police contract.

All in all, a fascinating trip down memory lane. Thank you Mr P .

I can never make up my mind whether things were better then than now, or the reverse.

As Mr Motu says, most young families could buy their own homes , thanks to family benefit capitalisation and cheap State Advances loans. But very few could afford wall to wall carpeting , fridges or TVs . Let alone air travel! We did have a big console radio though, with a magic eye an all. And no-one had heard of food banks.

I do think there was more optimism then, if folk didn't have as much as now, they did have a definite, almost universal belief that their children and grandchildren would be much better off. Buggered if I know whether that came true or not!

Foreign travel for holidays was very rare for working class Brit peeps ,certainly in my circles, even in the sixties and early seventies, so shipping new bikes by air for a biking holiday in Europe in the fifties is quite remarkable really.

I'm wondering if it was a little easier and cheaper to do in the post war period, certainly many from that era would have been more used to Foreign travel after being posted world wide during the war, the task and logistics of a little sortie into Europe wouldn't have phased them all that much at that time I guess.

I would certainly think there was a higher than average amount of money available to this group, they weren't short of a bob or two. I'm sure food was still rationed in '53 too, I know my brother (born '53) had a ration card. Might explain all the tea and ciggys if you've got nothing to eat.

My Father in Law used to tell me many tales of biking back then, claims to have done a ride from Devon to Birmingham at an average of 90mph on an Ariel square four with the be-stockinged short skirted mother in law as pillion. I don't know if that was possible even with no speed limits but fascinating all the same.

Any way, it was a darn good tale about the life and times of a group of motorcyclists back in the day, they may not have represented your average biker in the 50s but thoroughly enjoyable none the less.

[Paul in NZ]

Among the marque names on the shop window are two I've never heard of - Hopper and Aberdale ? Anyone heard of these?!

Good Lord - theres a ghost emerging from the machine.... Welcome old chap!

Hopper was a bicycle maker and they did a lot of 'Trade' bikes (shop bikes) and I'm pretty sure there was a version with cyclemaster engine fitted. You really needed a pretty sturdy frame for that sort of thing.

Aberdale were the same but also did a sort of moped thing that was arguably a small motorcycle. If they were anything like the kinds of clapped out cyclemotor devices we thrashed as kids they pretty dire and its no wonder Honda did so well with the cub.

[Paul in NZ]

Any way, it was a darn good tale about the life and times of a group of motorcyclists back in the day, they may not have represented your average biker in the 50s but thoroughly enjoyable none the less.

To be fair - most documented stories about bikers today revolve around extra ordinay riders as well. Not many are all that riveted by tales of daily commutes to work on broken arsed commuters or repeated rides over the Rimutakas but people will pay good $$ to watch wealthy two actors ride the latest BMW's across russia chased by a production team.

[martybabe]

To be fair - most documented stories about bikers today revolve around extra ordinay riders as well. Not many are all that riveted by tales of daily commutes to work on broken arsed commuters or repeated rides over the Rimutakas but people will pay good $$ to watch wealthy two actors ride the latest BMW's across russia chased by a production team.

Indeed and that was kind of my point, if they had have been an ordinary/average group of 1950s bikers, we wouldn't have had this wonderful, well documented window into motorcycling adventure 50s style. Thousands of bikers head for continental Europe every summer these days on the road trip of a life time, I wonder how many realise their predecessors were doing it in style over half a century ago, I certainly didn't. I hesitate to use the term pioneers but then why not, early pioneers of continental travel by motorcycle, must have been a hell of an adventure for them all.

[eliot-ness]

Foreign travel for holidays was very rare for working class Brit peeps ,certainly in my circles, even in the sixties and early seventies, so shipping new bikes by air for a biking holiday in Europe in the fifties is quite remarkable really.

I'm wondering if it was a little easier and cheaper to do in the post war period, certainly many from that era would have been more used to Foreign travel after being posted world wide during the war, the task and logistics of a little sortie into Europe wouldn't have phased them all that much at that time I guess.

I would certainly think there was a higher than average amount of money available to this group, they weren't short of a bob or two. I'm sure food was still rationed in '53 too, I know my brother (born '53) had a ration card. Might explain all the tea and ciggys if you've got nothing to eat.

My Father in Law used to tell me many tales of biking back then, claims to have done a ride from Devon to Birmingham at an average of 90mph on an Ariel square four with the be-stockinged short skirted mother in law as pillion. I don't know if that was possible even with no speed limits but fascinating all the same.

Any way, it was a darn good tale about the life and times of a group of motorcyclists back in the day, they may not have represented your average biker in the 50s but thoroughly enjoyable none the less.


Petrol rationing ended in May, 1950, food rationing took longer, 1954.
The "Squariel" was a reasonable good bike, but an average of 90mph, Birmingham to Devon, was outside the possibilities of any road bike at that time, a few riders of that era could have done it on a Manx Norton on the Isle of Man, Geoff Duke averaged 92mph at the 1950 TT. But,, at a time when the most popular wrist watch was Timex, and Smiths manufactured speedometers, times and speeds had little to do with reality, any more than it has now, but those stories are part and parcel of biking, and I hope they remain so.

[martybabe]

Petrol rationing ended in May, 1950, food rationing took longer, 1954.
The "Squariel" was a reasonable good bike, but an average of 90mph, Birmingham to Devon, was outside the possibilities of any road bike at that time, a few riders of that era could have done it on a Manx Norton on the Isle of Man, Geoff Duke averaged 92mph at the 1950 TT. But,, at a time when the most popular wrist watch was Timex, and Smiths manufactured speedometers, times and speeds had little to do with reality, any more than it has now, but those stories are part and parcel of biking, and I hope they remain so.

Me too mate :laugh: I was never in a position to dispute his claims and even now that I am I still wouldn't, long live the Anecdotal motorcycling tale.

Actually, thinking about it, I struggled to achieve and maintain a constant recorded 90mph on seventies bikes, I'll just take it he went flat out all the way home, happy days.

[pete376403]

... and Smiths manufactured speedometers...speeds had little to do with reality, any more than it has now,.

Smiths Chronometric speedos were the most accurate instrument available for a very long time, to the point that NZ cop bikes in the late 60s / early 70s (ie Brit bikes) had the standard magnetic drag cup speedo removed, and chronometrics fitted.

Chronos were standard fitting to most if not all Brit bikes in the 50s . Very complex and probably worth a mint now.
archives.jampot.dk/Technical/Speedo/Smiths_Speedo_restoration.pdf

[scumdog]

Magic, ta for the link.

And if'n I'm allowed to strap a thermett on the back of a Buell, (as opposed to something more "period") for a picnic by the river in Morrison's bush (?) then pencil me in, eh?

Ah, me 'an normajeane (mrs Scumdog) have been known to make some nice sandwiches, get some biscuits & cake, load them into the wickerwork picnic basket and load it and the thermette plus tea making gear into the boot of our Thunderbird and cruise off down to the Catlins area for a nice picnic lunch in a quiet scenic spot...

Some things a priceless...:niceone:

[Voltaire]

Good Post, I particularly like the pre 1953 split window VW' Beetles. My father came from the back blocks of Galway and worked in England during the war, he told me lots of stories about making good money plastering bomb damaged houses ceilings in the rich areas of london after the war...and how they blew the lot....
He immigrated here in 1949 on an assisted passage which meant you worked in the mines for a year to pay for it ( they should bring that back in)
I have a certificate on the wall from Pan Am for crossing the equator, its dated 1959 when he flew home to Ireland...Auckland, Fiji, Hawaii, LA, Chicago, NY, Shannon Ireland.....he told me once you could have bought a house for the price of a return trip to England...true of not....it must have been a lot of money.
Immigrants seem to have the " get off your arse gene" ...

My Wife and I did a 4 month trip around Europe in 1989 just prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, we went off the usual tourist route into the then Eastern Bloc. Some of these pictures remind me of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia....bugger all cars, almost no advertising anywhere, strong military and Police presence and the smell of coal and 2 stroke mix. We had a 1971 BMW that attracted attention almost everywhere in the East. In most places there was a real sense of being in the past, streets in East Germany still had gas lighting and most of the roads were like the ones in the 50's pics. I was back there a few years ago and now it all looks like the rest of Europe....'progress' I suppose....McDonalds...Burger King......BP......the usual....