Some great old motorbikes and some great old riders.

A few weeks ago a huge collection of old bikes rolled into town. The rally was based at the Tanunda Caravan Park and they rode from there all the way over to Burra where they spent 3 days riding around the area. On their way back from Burra they had a stop at the Kapunda museum. We've got a few interesting motorbikes there ourselves including a round tank BSA. Anyway here's one or two of the more interesting bikes.

This is a 1953 Tilbrook, made in Adelaide. Rex Tilbrook, a renowned bike racer in the old days, was always coming up with innovations to improve his race bikes and decided to build his own, both race bikes and road bikes. One of the Tilbrook family, Bob, lives in Kapunda and I took this photo mainly for him. Bob has incredible mechanical skills too and was the mainstay in the building of the mechanicals from a pile of collected bits for the Morris Commercial hearse that was built at the museum and was a bit busy on Saturday when the single cylinder Bulldog tractor wouldn't start for the Celtic Festival parade. However, start it did and it managed the trip down Main Street, shaking the ground each time it fired. anyway, I digress. Tilbrook were much more famous for their sidecars and there were any number of them on the day.

Here's one mounted on a big black Vincent twin. I say "twin" because I'll show you a single cylinder Vincent in a tick. In the background you can see another Tilbrook sidecar.

The place was teeming with Indians. No really old Harleys though. Does this mean that the good old Indian has managed to withstand the test of time far better?

Look at the horn. Even that's an Indian.

Check out the quarter elliptic  front spring.

This old Rudge single was unrestored but must have been good mechanically as it loped along with the others. Devoid of brakes on the front, I don't think there was much stopping power on the back either.

Same with this Coventry Victor. As a precaution, the owner has fitted a modern disc brake to the rear. Probably a good idea on a long relatively high speed run.

This old Triumph has the back brake of the time. Levers and rods operate a shoe that is pushed into the rim of that big wheel.

This Henderson was my favourite though. A couple came out hopped on and powered down the street just like a modern bike.

4 cylinders in line. No wonder it sounded so smooth and powerful.

Here's the Vincent single I mentioned before. In the week following the bike rally, potential new BCCA member, Graeme Ruby, mentioned he was up our way. He was on that same rally and here's his Vincent. Potential new member? I hope the Opel GTs don't end up outnumbering the Bolwells. Graeme will be over in Melbourne most of this month. He works for a bookie and it's spring Carnival time.
The rally ended on the Saturday and I half expected to see a lot of these bikes again the next day on the  Bay to Birdwood, but no, most of them packed up and went home to their respective states. The older ones would have been ineligible this year anyway.