And to think that I saw them in front of my house!

On my way this AM to make a service call, when as I came down the stairs of
my place on Cole Street in the Haight-Ashbury....
A very sturdy looking Ariel Square Four chugged down Cole towards Haight
Street and while I was reviewing my memories of that fine old stead, a very
nice Vincent Black Shadow came past in the opposite direction. "Whack, whack
whack..."
I stood there for a moment wondering how often that ever happened , even
inthe fifties when those two bikes were still in production.
I mean , right in front of the house!
dam.

 

No but it could be the sound of the inside of your skull as it bounces off
the sidewalk.

 

Been hitting the bottle a bit earlier than ususal there, Jim, eh?

 

Not since 1988. But I was an early starter for a long time before that.

 

A friend of mine, in the early sixties, worked in a gas station that
had been built in the thirties and still had the old manual pumps with
the glass reservoirs on top, as a mechanic and pump jockey. One of his
favorite television shows was Twilight Zone.

Late one night it was very foggy and business was slow, no customers
for more than an hour. A man arrived on a Henderson Four with period
correct full leathers, matching leather aviator's helmet and those
split glass goggles that they wore back then. As he pumped the gas up
into the reservoir, he had a sudden feeling of being in the twilight
zone. Everything that he could see around him had been created before
he was born. He said he felt as though the clock had been turned back
25 years or more. The man wordlessly paid for his gas and rode off
into the fog, leaving my friend wondering not only where he was, but
when. He told me he went into the service bay to see that his Norton
Atlas was where he left it, just to reassure himself.

Bill Smith

 

Seriously, didn't know any Shadows were actually running aside from rallies
and events. Last Ariel I saw was in the 60's - a guy was taken out by a
fluff doing a left in front of him (brakes on those old bikes were sort of
suggestions compared to what we got today). He ended up losing the bottom
half of his face while the bike was scrap. I can't remember ever seeing a
Vincent anything ever just being ridden like it was bike. They were always
museum pieces in my personal experience.

Sometimes I get the idea to put together an old bike to ride like a 45 ci
Harley, but part of thinking on it is riding the thing in traffic. Running
1955 brakes isn't my idea of fun. I guess maybe if I retire (ha ha) a Sunday
only runner, but if I have an extra slot in my garage, why not go hi tech
and get a ZX-10 instead? I mean it'd cost me as much to restore / buy a flat
head Harley...

-paul

 

I have an acquaintance who uses a Vincent as a daily rider. Of course
he has a spare engine requiring an annual overhaul, but he puts on
lots of miles. About ten years ago he took a trip to Alaska with a
side car, from California. Believe me, by now, he knows all the tricks
to keeping them running. They handle pretty well when properly set up,
and ridden with some care as to it's performance envelope, but the
brakes require some, shall we say, foresight. With metallic linings
and ground instead of turned brake drums they have gone from woefully
inadequate to somewhat short of marginal.

Bill Smith

 

I'd think that worth quite a few photos and a write up for a magazine had he
done it. I'd not know anybody who'd 'risk' one of their collector bikes in
such a journey although I think it a pity that so many bikes of that nature
have become trailer queens. I know that all too many autos have likewise
become the same. Last year I was at a mostly Ferrari rally where almost none
of the owners would run the cars hard although all of them were made for
owner racing. One by one they were moved off the road and into climate
controlled storage for, I suppose, Sunday only looking.

Still, personally at heart, I think I'm still a modern day rider. Given 10k
I'd look with nostalgia at an older bike but buy that ZX-10.

-paul

 

This particular Vincent is well maintained mechanically but is, by no
stretch of the imagination, what anyone would call a show bike. He
also has an early 50s Triumph Thunderbird that he bought, still
crated, brand new, from a collector in Japan, put it together and
rides it a lot as well.

I am too, but it's nice to see the old bikes still being ridden. One
day at Sears Point (maybe 15-20 years ago) Dick Mann rode into the
pits on a pre-war BSA V twin, which was in pristine condition. I asked
him why he was riding a museum piece and he told me he had restored it
from several basket cases, could fix anything on it and motorcycles
were meant to be ridden. I later gave him a Bultaco Alpina and a
Greeves Challenger that my uncle had given me. He restored them and
later rode both of them in vintage motocross events.

Bill Smith

 

There's couple guys who show up at the BSA swapmeet every year that ride
Vincents and claim to put on a minimum of 50K per year. Don't recall
if either of their bikes was a Shadow. I'm pretty sure one was a Rapide.

nb

 

Where is there a BSA swapmeet?

 

Used to always be at the San Mateo County fairgrounds, right?
I was one of the Vinnie dudes back in the 70's, but my Rapide morphed in to
the downpayment on my house.
Kind of wish I hadn't let it go though. As I found out a few years later
they never went down in value like everything else with rubber on it...
Every once in a while I get nostalgic and go visit Dennis Magri's shop..
but then I recall the looks old Mean Marshall would give me when I asked for
something for the Vincent. I swear there were $$'s in his eyes.