YOUR LETTERS
September’s ‘50 Greatest Things in the Classic Bike World’ issue prompted you to suggest your personal favourites to add to the list…
50 GREATEST THINGS IN THE CLASSIC BIKE WORLD
REALLY ENJOYED your take on the 50 Greatest Things. However, one name deserves a page or three in itself. SMB Hailwood, MBE GM; in the opinion of many, definitely The Greatest Of All Time.
Fair point, Colin. In the end we grouped all brilliant racers in one category – The Glorious Past. I know, a cop out. But otherwise the 50 would be full of nothing but racers. Hugo
Regarding Hugo’s comments that sounds and smells should have been included in the 50 Greatest Things, I would like to offer for your consideration the sounds and smells of the long-suffering girlfriend on the back of the Bonnie as you deck the footrests in a trail of sparks, wanging round that new roundabout they just installed outside the lads’ favourite boozer on a warm summer’s evening.
Smells?! You need to slow down. Hugo
My suggestion is the sound of a Trident running on a straight-through three-into-one megaphone. There was one that parked next to me at Staverton race circuit in Gloucestershire (it’s now an airport) at the first event I ever entered, around 1976.
Nice article, but why did you print a picture of a Moto Guzzi single when you mentioned a V8!
Oops – should have spotted that, being a Guzzi owner myself. Apologies. Mark
Once again, an exceptionally enjoyable issue. I particularly agreed with number 24 – owning something the internet has never heard of. When I attended my alma mater, Morrison’s Academy in Crieff, back in the ’60s and ’70s, we had a popular assistant games master of relatively diminutive stature called Mr MacGregor.
Known by all the pupils as ‘Wee Mac’ or ‘Wee MacGregor’, he was in fact the father of the Ewan MacGregor alluded to in the article! So I don’t think Ewan would find it insulting at all.
I did once see a Wee MacGregor motorcycle in a local show here in Scotland, but couldn’t find out much from an internet trawl, though I did notice that it originated in Coventry. The name is amusing, though, and I wondered out loud: “Is there a ‘Big MacGregor?’”.
Incidentally, some of the foreign manufacturer names do not translate well; Leopard Bobby, anyone?
Thank you for the kind words, though the shot of me must be 20 years old – the fork blades I’m holding were from Ted Mellors’ works 500. Incidentally, readers can buy my book from the VMCC, the Velocette Owners’ Club and the National Motorcycle Museum.
