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Showing posts from February, 2019

Vintage Thing No145 - Four cylinder Moto Rumi

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Greater than the sum of its parts I would say While looking for a photograph of something else the other day, I came across an old smudge of this. Continuing the search for whatever it was - whatever that was escapes me now as it escaped me then - I found another photograph of this motorcycle, which intrigued me sufficiently in the good old/bad old days of 135mm films and SLR cameras to expend four whole frames on it. Horizontally inclined (as opposed to horizontally opposed) cylinders make a lot of sense to me. I am surprised there aren't more of them. I can't remember where or when I came across this machine but think it might have been at the Blackwater traction engine rally in the early 90s. The engine consists of two 125 Moto Rumi two-stroke twin engines. The result is a two stroke in line four with horizontal cylinders. As UJMs (Universal Japanese Motorcycles) go, across the frame fours are almost unremarkable but no Japanese manufacturer ever made a two-st...

2019 Launceston Trial

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Pop Asylum may be responsible for the Beetle's muddy face (Photo : Graham Beddoe) Regular listeners will remember that in last month’s episode I almost circumnavigated the course of the Exeter Trial but broke a half shaft on Tipley with my recently acquired Arkley-MG.  Look at my shafts After an involved rescue mission back to the secret lair of its developer, a cunning plan evolved requiring Ā£600 worth of uprated Quaife shafts with detachable output flanges. The inner remains of the tortured shaft came out in several increasingly smaller instalments and the good shaft – considered to be good only by comparison to the broken one – revealed not just an ominous twist in its splines but also a wobble on its output shaft so it was bent as well. It's a twister! Adrian – Professor Booth of Doublebois – had broken a shaft on the other side of the axle on Crackington in last years’ LET. This was the same occasion and hill that Binky and I snapped a perch bolt on the A...