Please find below an entry form for the above (a very good event).

This will take place in the North Island, first weekend in March (Friday 6th to Sunday 8th). Venue is Sixtus lodge, near Apiti in the Manawatu. The Registration form is available for download below.

Just a reminder that Sunday 29th is the annual Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride.
This is a fantastic global event which helps to raise money for Prostate Cancer research and men’s health.
Please check the web site to find out details for the event in your area, and feel free to make a donation or purchase merchandise.
www.gentlemansride.com

The event is effectively a ride in motorcycle show with a large variety of bikes normally congregating before the ride begins.
So get together with other members and friends in your area and enjoy the ride.
For Wellington area members, we will meet at the Cenotaph, time tbc.
Thanks DamianClub Captain

For those members who have received your Southern Star magazine you will have no doubt seen the add for the VCC Daffodil Day Rally for Cancer.For those not aware, this is an event run nationally on Sunday 25th August to help raise money for the Cancer Society.
Our local event is held at Queen Elizabeth Park, Paekakariki. Open from 10am – 3pm.Min donation $5 per vehicle. The event is open to all types of vehicles.
The BSA and Classic Club’s will be riding up together, meeting at Plimmerton Weight Stn, 10am.NOTE; This ride is scheduled for the 25th and NOT the 31st (last Sunday of the month)Lets hope for fine weather!

Ride for this month, 30th June;
I have arranged for us to visit Andy Wickens who has a private museum of collectables from World War I, WWII, Vietnam and Desert Storm.Called Das Bunker, it is located at 14 Allen Road Raumati Beach (google Das Bunker for more info).I cant recall if there is a fee or donation to view.
Boundry Tap & Kitchen is a fairly suitable location for a bite to eat afterwards.
Meet at Plimmerton Weigh Station by 10am. Our booking is for 11am.
Ride back may include the Paekakariki Hill (open for discussion).
Thanks

Damian (club captain, see contacts page on how to get in touch)

Chances are that you have not seen this historic picture before. It shows Wal Handley astride a very special 500cc BSA at Brooklands in June 1937, the day that he captured the coveted ‘Brooklands Gold Star’ in the 500cc class by completing a race lap at over 100mph. It looks as though the picture was taken when he was relaxing after the race was over. 

The tale of Wal and the BSA ‘Gold Star’ race at Brooklands has been told many times. Jack Amott, Len Crisp and others prepared a very special 500cc Empire Star at Small Heath and Wal was persuaded to ride it at a race meeting on 30th June in the high summer of 1937. 

The Motor Cycle reported that Brooklands was buzzing with conversation. “The cause of it all was a very standard looking 497cc BSA with Wal Handley up. To all intents and purposes the model was standard, except for a ‘racy’ riding position and a big fishtail on the end of the standard silencer. But somebody must have known that it was hardly a showroom model, for Wal was handicapped at nine seconds with a set of fast riders.

“The race was a three-lap outer circuit event. On the first lap Handley weaved his way through most of the field and was most spectacular as he came through a bunch of competitors coming off the Byfleet banking. Second time round and he had caught everybody and he went on to increase his lead on the last lap, so that he finished several hundred yards ahead of the second man, R. C. Appleby (500 Excelsior). He had covered the three laps at an average speed of 102.27 mph with a fastest lap of 107.57 mph. This gave Handley a Gold Star in the 500cc class”.

The race was a low-key event on a Wednesday, and I doubt if any of the regular Brooklands professional photographers were there. So I believe – until someone else finds one – that this could be the only decent photograph of Wal and the BSA on the day in question. 

The original print came from Jack Amott’s son Richard. He and his wife Joan have recently moved to France and while they were sorting everything out, they found this photograph and Richard recognised what it was.

He sent me the print which measured just 2½ by 1½ inches and I have enhanced it on the computer. So there you are, the original BSA Gold Star venture more than seventy years ago, and a memory to be proud of. 

By Bob Light. 
Acknowledgements: The Vintage Motorcycle Club (UK) and Richard Amott.

WAL HANDLEY – THE MAN WHO EARNED BSA THE GOLD STAR 

“None Ever Passed This Way More Bravely”.
That’s the inscription on the seat erected to Wal Handley’s memory in 1948 at Quarter Bridge on the TT circuit in the Isle of Man. Some of his greatest races were in the island, and most of the rest of his battles were on circuits far distant from his native Birmingham.

That was inevitable really, for the TT was all important in the 1920s, and there was racing abroad, and Brooklands of course. At different times Wal would excel in all three areas, but there was nowhere within striking distance of his home city where he could be seen in action.

His father worked in Birmingham’s industrial heartland and died suddenly in 1912, leaving a widow and three young children of which Wal was the eldest. He left school in 1915, before his thirteenth birthday, starting work in the Verus factory and moving on to junior tester at the Hall Green works of Humphries & Dawes who made OK motor cycles (as they were known before the ‘Supreme’ tag was added). He rode an OK in the 1920 Victory trial and in the ACU Six Days where he was noticed by none other than H R Davies. 

Then when OK boss Ernie Humphries was looking for a rider for the 1922 Lightweight TT, the story is that HRD remembered the lad he had seen riding in trials. Handley got the ride, broke the 250cc lap record by nigh-on 5 mph on his first circuit from a standing start, but retired soon afterwards and Geoff Davison won on a Levis.

In the next ten years Wal won four TTs – the 1925 Ultra-Lightweight and Junior, the 1927 Lightweight (all on Rex-Acmes), and the 1930 Senior on Jim Whalley’s privately entered Rudge when he chopped forty seconds off the lap record from a standing start. However two of his most memorable races were ones that he did not win.

In the 1926 Senior Wal rode the Rex-Acme with v-twin Blackburne engine, and suffered serious handling problems in practice. Come the race and he was in the top three with Jimmy Simpson and Stanley Woods when the Rex Acme went on one cylinder on the second lap. Changing the rear plug cost him some seven minutes and at the end of the lap he was in 22nd place. The ride that followed was the stuff of Handley legend as he fought his way up to second place at the finish, 4 minutes 21.5 seconds behind Stanley Woods.

In the Senior three years later it was a very different story. On the first lap he dropped his AJS at Greeba, and within moments Doug Lamb (Norton), Jim Simpson (Norton) and Jack Amott (Rudge) also came to grief. Wal could have re-started, but this was a serious incident and he helped the other riders as much as he could and did not continue. Acknowledging his actions, the ACU sent him a letter of appreciation. Wal gave particular help to his great friend Jack Amott on the long road to recovery from the serious injuries to his right arm that Jack had sustained in the accident. 

There’s a Handley story from Brooklands too. About to start the 1926 200 mile race on the 350 Blackburne-engined Rex Acme, Sammy Jones found a cut in the front tyre some three inches long. It took about fourteen minutes to change the tyre and Wal joined the race as it started its eight lap. At the finish he was just 2 minutes 2 seconds behind winner Bill Lacey who had averaged 81.20 mph, while Wal ‘s average was more than 88 mph. During that race he broke seven world records.

As he eased up his motor cycle racing in the mid thirties, he competed more on four wheels. He had opened his motor cycle business in Suffolk Street in Birmingham in 1929 and took up flying in the same year, taught by the vastly experienced Tommy Rose.

The tale of Wal and the BSA ‘Gold Star’ race at Brooklands has been told many times. Jack Amott, Len Crisp and others prepared a very special 500cc Empire Star and Wal was persuaded to ride it at a Wednesday race meeting on 30th June in the high summer of 1937.

Geoff Davison knew him well and in his book Racing Reminiscences recalled ‘He certainly saved my life once in the air. We were flying a twin-engined monoplane I had just acquired, and when doing a left-hand circuit of the airfield before landing, with the left wing properly down, the left engine stopped. In a flash we were in a power spin, at about 300ft only. He snapped the throttles back and said, quite casually, “All right Geoff, I’ve got her,” and fetched her out of the spin with about 20 feet to spare’.

Wal was in the Air Transport Auxiliary and in charge of the base at Hawarden in Cheshire, and on 15th November 1941 he was piloting an Allison-engined Airacobra out of Kirkbride near Carlisle. Shortly after take-off he crashed into a ploughed field and lost his life.

Acknowledgements: The Vintage Motorcycle Club (UK), Bob Light and Richard Amott.

By Ashley Blair

Imagine a thriving, bustling city of a quarter of a million people. In this city there are hundreds of BSA motorcycles in daily use.  Stoke-on-Trent in the 1940s? Auckland in the 1950s? Wolverhampton in the 1960s? No, this is in 2019! The city that has hundreds of BSAs in daily use today is in Indonesia. Pematang Siantar, known as Siantar, in Sumatra, 50 miles southeast of the island’s capital Medan. BSAs are used on becak or motorized rickshaws that are not only in daily use but are earning their keep up to 70 years after they left Small Heath. There are ex-army M20s, abandoned in large numbers after the Second World War, are as well as B31s and B33s from the 1950s and 1960s.

Siantar, in the hills at 400 meters above sea level and much cooler than on the coast, was the administrative hub for tea, rubber, cocoa and palm oil plantations in the 1900s.  Hotel Siantar, built by a Swiss businessman, is still in use today with its stained glass windows, its chandeliers, billiard table, art deco lighting and rattan chairs. Dutch colonial houses can also be seen. Sumatra was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War and the Siantar hospital was used as a prison for 800 women and children in 1942. 

BSA’s began to be used as becak in 1958 when Mbah Lanang and Soetikno together with some friends began looking for a motorcycle that could be used to pull sidecars for public transport on the steep streets around Siantar.  They chose BSAs because they were powerful, simple and relatively easy to maintain and there were a number of them available. As the demand increased more were imported from Java.  Although becak are unique to Siantar there was an attempt by the city authorities to replace the aging BSAs and modernize the becak fleet in 2006. This was strongly opposed by both owners and the BSA Owners Motorcycles Siantar or BOM’S. Indonesia has an active BSA Owners Club. Becak have now become an icon representing the city and a tourist attraction in their own right. They have also been officially protected under the Cultural Heritage Law. Becak have pride of place in street parades on Tourism Day and the International Festival of Youth and Sports Day. There is still concern that collectors will come from Jakarta, or even overseas, and offer large sums of money and reduce the number of becak. To prevent this happening proposals are in place to stop any being sold outside the city.

Apart from the sidecars, becak have many customized parts such as crash bars, seats and lights. In the early days when parts were difficult to get several small factories started local manufacture and parts such as carburettors from Japanese motorcycles were adapted to fit BSA’s. Now there are a number of mechanics in Siantar who specialize in keeping the BSAs running. Prospective owners scour Indonesia for BSAs to build up the fleet. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were thought to be about 2, 000 of the BSA becak in Siantar. Estimates of the number still in use today range from 400 to 1,000.

In 2008 the Betor – the becak motor community – held a parade with 175 BSAs decorated with flags, ribbons and coloured paper. This parade called Becak Hias Siantar was endorsed by the Siantar mayor who wants to make it an annual event.

 

Special thanks to Luka Muhamad, Denpasar, Bali, founder of BSA Owners Indonesia.

Have a look at this link https://youtu.be/pgx5sbPEtY8

A few BSA’s were at the above event on the 13/14th April. Approx 40 bikes of various ages and brands took part. BSA riders got 1st (Dave Henwood, B33) and second (yours truly, B31) in the post war class (and a couple of other awards as well). Graeme Reilly (A65, late entry) and Willie James (B33, wrong chosen mph target) we’re unlucky not to get placed.