What is the bike in this fantastic old picture?

[VintageBike]

Can anyone help Kev identify the bike in this fantastic picture of his great grandmother?



Thanks

Nigel.

[harry]

Hi,what a super picture I dont know the make of bike but the registration D is from Kent ;so if you write to the record office at Maidstone  quoting the registration number they should be able to help as I believe  the  records survive. Good luck,Harry

[VintageBike]

It's been suggested that this could be a 2 stroke Velocette.  Anyone able to confirm?

Yours hopefully,

Nigel

[cardan]

Hi Nigel,

I agree it looks vaguely Velocette-ish (if you ignore the "unusual" front fork), but I don't think it is. You'd have to be comparing it to the c1913 Model A Velo (the motor looks like a 2 stroke to me), and you'd find that the tank on this bike is very deep and that the magneto is mounted in a strange location: immediately in front of the cylinder. Velocette mounted the magneto behind the cylinder on their 2 strokes.

The magneto seems to be Ruthhardt/CAV, which might date the bike as 1913 or later. But the combination of deep tank, strange front forks and high-front-mounted magneto doesn't ring any bells.

The print looks to be of excellent quality: the best bet for ID might be a bright light and a magnifying glass to look for a name on the tank.

Leon