Hi - new member

[Johnser]

Hello all,

I've been looking for a forum to help me keep my little bantam on the road for a while now so will picking through the tech section in a second and asking a few more questions no doubt!

I'm a Cornish bey that somehow got lost in London and I now work fairly central and ride my '53 D1 the 10mile each way journey every day....its a tough city ride and it takes its toll on a 60+ year old vehicle. But as bits break or fall off, I try to replace them. There's something rewarding about trying to predict when something's going wrong; getting the parts required and repairing/replacing them of an evening before the ride to work again! I haven't been let down too badly yet - there's always the tube (I hate the tube)

Anyway, apologies if its frowned upon to ride such a classic in such an ugly way, but hey, better that then left to rust away in a shed!

so here it is;


so far I've;
converted to 12v
freshened the brakes (they need to be tip top in London traffic I can tell you!)
done a bit of standard running gear maintenance
made a bit of a silencer to try not to draw quite so much attention!
delved into the engine so far as the piston/head/barrel and given it all a good clean/decoke + smoothed the inlet/exhaust port castings a bit
changed the gearbox oil

and thats about it...... so Hi!

cheers

[Blue]

G'day,

It's great to see an honest example of a British commuter doing what it does best - commuting.  Too many old bikes are mollycoddled these days when what they really cry out for is a decent flogging

Good luck with the Bantam; no doubt it'll still be running happily in 10-20-30 years time given the chance!

[Johnser]

G'day,

It's great to see an honest example of a British commuter doing what it does best - commuting.  Too many old bikes are mollycoddled these days when what they really cry out for is a decent flogging

Good luck with the Bantam; no doubt it'll still be running happily in 10-20-30 years time given the chance!

That's what I recon.... although if commuting is the bantam forte, I wouldn't like to use it for what its not up to!! with a bit of maintenance hopefully it'll go on for a bit.

cheers for the reply, is there much of a brit bike following in Aus?

[hocko]

G'day,

It's great to see an honest example of a British commuter doing what it does best - commuting.  Too many old bikes are mollycoddled these days when what they really cry out for is a decent flogging

Good luck with the Bantam; no doubt it'll still be running happily in 10-20-30 years time given the chance!

That's what I recon.... although if commuting is the bantam forte, I wouldn't like to use it for what its not up to!! with a bit of maintenance hopefully it'll go on for a bit.

cheers for the reply, is there much of a brit bike following in Aus?

Quite a large following actually, although they seem to be getting scarce as time goes on, but all in all a healthy scene. There is a monthly publication here called "Just Bikes" which used to have older british bikes as the main selection of bikes for sale, but these are being replaced by older Japanese "Collectors" and the like.

Cheers

[Rex]

 which used to have older british bikes as the main selection of bikes for sale, but these are being replaced by older Japanese "Collectors" and the like.

Sadly the seems to be universal.

Who the Hell's interested in yet another article about a CB750 or RD250?