Where in Long Beach?

This ad is from The Long Beach Independent, January 3, 1947. The place at 1454 Wilmington Blvd is now a shop called Avalon Muffler. And what is that? A 1958 Chevy Impala parked in front?

The Zoroastrian Physical and Health League

The quality of the picture is not the best. This appeared in "The Daily Gleaner", September 24th 1937, Kingston, Jamaica.

The only one on the island...

From "The Gleaner", January 7 1922. 6a East Street was the address of the Royal Enfield dealer in Kingston, Jamaica.

Margaret Newton, Enfield rider.

We talked about Betty Lermitte, the Enfield trials expert from the 1920's. When she left the team the gauntlet seems to have been picked up by Margaret Newton. According to Peter Hartley's book, she started 1930 well with a number of faultless runs in various reliability events on her 346cc solo model. In the Southern Trial on March 7 she won the "GM" cup for the best lady rider. At the same event T. Stewart, another Enfield rider won a first class award. On April 29 Enfield riders F. Bicknell, L. A. Welch, Margaret Newton, J. Kettle and Jack Booker all won awards in the Kickham Memomrial Trial. The first two won first class awards, Jack Booker a third and the rest seconds. In the Scottish Six Days Trial, Bicknell and Welch gained silver cups and Margaret Newton won a gold medal, and so did Campbell Spiers, whereas A. S. Campbell got a silver medal, all on 346cc Royal Enfields. In the Scottish Six Days Trial of 1931 Bicknell, Welch and Campbell Spiers secured the Manufacturers Team Prize for Enfield. Spiers and Bicknell won silver cups whereas Welch got a gold medal. Margaret Newton got a silver medal. This is the last mention of her in Hartley's book.

Telegraphic codes

Apparently to avoid confusion, Royal Enfield had set a system of telegraphic codes corresponding to each model of bicycle they sold. Therefore if you ordered a "Rupee" it was a model 161 Gents bike with 28" wheels.

Redditch chefs fundraise riding Royal Enfields in India

Among the various new companies installed in the Enfield Industrial Estate (what used to be the Royal Enfield factory) in Redditch is Oliver James Foods. Two of its chefs, Kevin Morel and Martyn Thomas, rode 12,000 miles in India raising money for charities in January 2009. "It is very apt that our chosen form of travel will be Royal Enfield 'Bullet' motorbikes, as they were origianlly made on the very site that is now occupied by our business". Indeed.

Royal Enfield sold at Royal Hotel

In Canberra, Australia, in Crawford Street, is the Royal Hotel, which was built in 1926. When Canberra and the old Parliament House were being built the politicians and dignitaries would stay at the Royal enjoying the comforts of its fine Pub. Now it is not a hotel anymore, but a collection of stores. The Royal Enfield dealer in the 1950's (the ad is from The Canberra Times Thursday 9 February 1950) had its address as 237 Crawford Street, which is one of the stores in the hotel. The other dealer listed in the ad has as address 28 Eyre Street. I cannot tell if this building is old enough, but is surely looks tempting...

The Bicentennial GP

Argentina is celebrating 200 years since it constituted its first government on May 25th (full independence took place in 1816). The Classic Car Club of Patagonia is organizing a regularity race in Comodoro Rivadavia, Province of Chubut in Patagonia on Monday to celebrate. Royal Enfield Argentina, headquartered in Laboulaye, in the province of Cordoba, 1000 miles away is sending two sidecar rigs to the race. Good luck!

Electric Enfield

A couple of years ago, brimming with confidence after having turned the 2000 Enfield I bought wrecked on ebay into a beauty, I decided to embark in another project. I was going to convert an Enfield to run on electricity. I figured it would be a cool thing to do and it is a natural evolution for a brand that spans three centuries to venture into technologies of the future, etc. So I bought a dirt cheap Enfield 350 with a shady past, sold its engine on ebay, purchased an eTek electric motor and... ran out of steam. It immediately became clear that my mechanical abilities and my spare time were quickly overwhelmed by the project, as the picture on the left shows. It now also appears I've been scooped. James Hammarhead, a neuropsychologist at UPenn has actually done it, turning an enfield into the Volta 102. Unlike the bike I planned on building, that had a modest cost and therefore performance, he seems to have gone all out. He used the EnerTrac hub motor, which simplifies the design, has 13.4 continuous horsepower and 40 peak horsepower. The battery pack is top of the line lithium iron-phosphate (I was planning on using cheapo lead-acids). It appears to propel the bike 50 to 70 miles on one charge. It has regenerative braking. At $18,500, they are not cheap, though. You can read more at the Hammarhead Industries website.

Have a Bullet beer at the new Royal Enfield pub in Redditch!

PUB operator JD Wetherspoon is to open a new pub in Redditch on Friday, May 28 on the site of the former Chicago Rock Cafe in Unicorn Hill. The Wetherspoon pub, which will be called The Royal Enfield, will be managed by James Doughty. The new pub will specialise in real ales, serving a wide range of beers, including those from local and regional brewers, as well as an exclusive ale called The Bullet brewed by Stourbridge-based Sadler’s Ales. If you go under the bridge in the picture, a street opens immediately to the right. That road is Hewell road, if you follow it for a few blocks you reach what's left of the Royal Enfield factory in Redditch.

The correct starting technique on a Royal Enfield...

...requires you falling to the ground sideways in order not to bust your nose in the process...

Look ma, no hands!

Our notion of what a "demonstration of safe riding" on a motorcycle is, has clearly evolved with time since the early 1930's... In the back Margaret Newton, we'll get to her in a future post.

Royal Enfield and its parent company's parallel pasts

Royal Enfield is owned by the Eicher Group, an Indian conglomerate with a German name. The reason for the German name is that once upon a time Eicher was a German company that created a subsidiary in India, just like Royal Enfield did. And just like them, Eicher eventually disappeared in Germany. It did not go bust. Its truck division was absorbed by Magirus Deutz and its tractor division went to Massey Ferguson. Now everything that is left with an Eicher name is the fully Indian owned Eicher Group. More here and here.

The other Bunty

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the (in)famous character that posted in Royal Enfield bulletin boards as Bunty Golightly. It is interesting to notice that there is another Royal Enfield related character named Bunty, one of the two characters in the 2005 Bollywood movie Bunty and Babli. A sort of Bonnie and Clyde type of film. In the picture we can see the couple riding a bullet with sidecar.

Royal Enfield Quad

Apparently, quad bikes are not easy to come by in India. So a group of college students has decided to build one, with independent suspension in each wheel. The engine is a Royal Enfield 350cc. They are approaching automobile manufacturers to see if production will start. Good luck!

Thierry Vincent

Check out the blog of Thierry Vincent. Lots of exotic Royal Enfields!

Which one, then?

These two ads appear, one in the front pages and one in the back pages of "The book of the Royal Enfield" by R. E. Ryder (1931). I guess the conclusion is that Royal Enfields were so advanced that any oil would do!

Royal McQueen Supernaag

Read all about it in BikeExif.

Veteran Royal Enfield shows what it's worth

The first motorcycle was produced by Royal Enfield in 1901, one year before Triumph and four years before Harley-Davidson (although the New York Times is unaware of this). Motorcycle production was interrupted in 1904 when the company concentrated on cars, and resumed in 1910. An example of this "second generation" of motorcycles is depicted in the photo, sporting a Motosacoche V-Twin engine with 2hp. The bike went out on auction with an estimated price range around £3000. It sold for £13,000!

Sold out!

Apparently Royal Enfield has stopped taking orders for 2010 bikes in India as the waiting list is now exceeding six months!.

The eagle has landed

In the 1976 movie "The eagle has landed", Donald Sutherland is supposed to ride a Royal Enfield Flying Flea. The bike has an interesting story. Here it is in the words of Bill Crosby, the owner of Reg Allen, the main Royal Enfield dealer in London today: "The long hot summer found Bill enjoying himself lurking round the film locations of The Eagle Has Landed. He had been contacted by a desperate location crew who were having trouble with the Royal Enfield Flying Flea that Donald Sutherland’s character, Devlin, had to ride. It was difficult to start and unreliable – they needed both faults dealt with! Now! The bike was delivered to the shop and Bill soon realised that it was never going to be as reliable as they wanted it to be. When he reported this to the film rep. he was asked to get another one. After some discussion, Bill managed to get them to understand that he could not find another bike just like that and even if he could, it would not be any better than the one they had! He was asked if he could put a more reliable engine into the bike he had in the workshop. After some thought, he bought a complete 125c.c. Yamaha from the local dealer, Broadway Cycles in Hanwell Broadway, and grafted the engine into the little Flea. By spraying some areas with Dag he was able to tone down parts of the engine and exhaust that needed disguising, but nothing could be done in the time allotted ( a long holiday weekend) with the gear change. He left the hand change lever in place, but gear changes would have to be done with the left foot from now on. The modified bike worked well but their paranoia was such that they insisted Bill stayed on location for all the shots the bike was needed for. He became known on set as Bill the Bike and thoroughly enjoyed being part of the film crew, but had to pay an Australian mate to stand in the shop and field enquiries from customers. It was only after all the excitement had died down that Bill was told the original bike belonged to another local bike shop – Knights - who knew nothing of the alterations until the bike was returned to them. Things were settled amicably by the film makers in the end."

Royal Enfield dealer makes the cover of Dealernews

Douglas motorcycles of San Bernardino, CA, is on the cover article of Dealernews.

Royal Enfield frustrates Hitler!

Commmemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Berlin today.

This post was going to be accompanied by a Royal Enfield themed Hitler spoof video that I made, but the owners of the copyright of "The downfall", the movie with the famous scene, are cracking down on the videos. Moreover, jewish organizations have complained about them, saying they trivialize the meaning of what Hitler represents. Since it is not my intention to offend anyone, I left only one still of the video on the left, you can fill with your imagination the rest.

On with the post: The Third Reich was well aware of the value of sports as propaganda. The most famous examples of course are the 1936 Berlin olympics and the heavyweight boxing world championship attempt of Max Schmelling (both backfired for the Nazis). Less well known was Hitler's attack on the motorcycling sports world, which culminated with BMW winning the 1939 Isle of Man TT. The Germans started methodically, attacking first the trials events, where they won the International Six Days Trials in 1934. Because the event was not in Germany it was not easy for the Nazis to significantly capitalize politically on it, but winning the race gave them the opportunity to host the event in Bavaria in 1935. There they were not going to pull any stops and would generate huge publicity with another win.

The DKW team did indeed win a gold medal in Bavaria, but the Nazi celebration was tarnished by the fact that the Royal Enfield factory team also got a gold medal. The team was mounted on 350cc Bullets and consisted of Ted Thacker, T. Stewart and the Dutchman F. A. Vermaak. Stewart and Thacker also gained individual gold medals.