I-Pad 2016 and now 2017 News Page.

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For those of you that are having trouble staying on line with the 2016 News Page the same stories and news to the end of the year will be on here to,

 This is the best I can do with out a total re-jig , and you may have stuff not on the main News Page. too.

By the Way A Very Happy Christmas. to all of you.

25/11/2017.

So It looks like I have done it again.

 Just too much material on the 2017 News page for our I-Pads to cope with.

So here you go, we will start again, same news as on the main 2017 page,

Until the New Year.

Exclusive to I-Pad page.

You count the bikes, and the Specials.

And one I think we own!

Enjoy.

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2017.

2017. Well I suppose I better start winding up this different year for me. And probably for you too. I do apologise, for drifting off the chosen track so to speak.

But what I committed to In late 2016 meant that there was only going to be one real word in 2017 and that word was “Sidecars”.

We started off the year with a challenge to build a sidecar onto a Chinese motorcycle before the first day of February 2017,

This was hard for me because I have to do a sixty-mile around trip per day to get to the workshop.

And with this Fibromyalgia complaint that I have, this is no joke travaling this amount of miles per day.

But we got the thing done, it only takes determination to do anything in life and this was one of those times.

You know the story for the rest of the year, if you have followed the ranting.

I must say I have run out of time so many times, and kept saying to myself is this all worth it.

But the happiness and smiles I have received over the year as meant that you know it is, and I will do it again as long as I can.

While being submerged in the three sidecar builds I have also been somewhat disappointed in the fact that we seem to have forgotten what this site was created for.

Is it a fact that we seem to have a Classic trials fraternity seemed to let go of the fact that, we still love the old British trials bikes up until the seventies?

But we have let them go, with what else is going on in our lives?

I must say I have been guilty of this myself.

But in the background what I am doing with the charity stuff at the moment I just want to get out of my system?

Well not quite, but I need to try and incorporate both.

Problem is I keep thinking I am running out of time and need to do the lot NOW.

I did manage after the Manic few months that I had in the summer manage to get the First New Foster “Otter” frame off of the jig.

And I will make this my priority next year, as I know how good these frames are, now living with two for the last twelve months.

The problem is that to get these back into the market place is the amount of time they take to build.

I don’t want to make a profit out of them; I am past that phase of my life.

But the only other real frame kit is the New Super Brand ,“Drayton Frames”

And I wish Jim all the best ,and I know he has had his health problems like us all.

But Drayton is the New Kid on the block and until that trend subsides. It is only the true enthusiast for a traditional frame with some history that is likely to be a customer.

This is a shame to me because I think the frame is that good, that it need keeping in production.

So it is up to you, if you want a British frame with history you only have to let me know, the team is waiting to be at your service.

Tomorrow we get onto the rest of what happened in 2017.

After doing the stories about the little recognised brands of trials bikes in the last throws of the Villiers engined Trials bikes. 

 A story started to unfold  and we eventually kept building on this with New information, that seemed to come in monthly. 

This was the ELstar brand and we now have two machines that are being reconstructed to the original specification. and we even now have agreed that the colour of the machines was as near as damn it "BSA Nutley Blue".

So we have probably saved that British Motorcycle as a trials bike from extinction.

 The same sort of thing as also happened this year with the Fraser Honda brand that was built not that far from me in Redditch in the Midlands UK.

We now after this year 2017, a lot more information, and even more  information has emerged about the brand and their build methods etc, recently,

So we still seem to be doing something right.

 And looking at the figures from you, that keep visiting the site, and sometimes I still can't believe, that people follow this stuff and like it.

 But I will keep going to make the site better, and perhaps get a bit back to what we set up the site for.

 But I know with what I have in the pipeline it should keep all of you Happy for another twelve months, and we will try and get you more involved, by letting anyone that is interested know when there  are New updates,on the site.

I will just need a mail address to put you  onto a list.

So Short this year, I will not rant any longer, But I have got a

Scooter and sidecar stuck in a desert that needs some help.

More on the New year Page tomorrow.

24/12/2017.

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Peter Armitage from Anthony Prescott on Vimeo.

Enjoy the video.

20/12/ 2017.

Just a thank you for staying with BSA Otter in 2017.

BSA Otter.Com from Anthony Prescott on Vimeo.

WANTED

02/12/2017.

Another exclusive first look at a NEW Video.

Ruthwell to Banbury Ride. from Anthony Prescott on Vimeo.

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Today is Abolish Slavery Awareness Day.

Support the cause by liking the video.

https://www.facebook.com/AsSeenfromtheSidecar/videos/537445103255430/

Triumph Four-stud Fork Page Updated

29/12/2016.

2016 a very good year.

So I spose we better start winding up 2016.

Firstly thank you to all of you that have stuck with me for the past seven years as it is now.

Some have left because they could not put up with the rubbish I turn out on a weekly basis.

But the ones, that have thought, Hang On that Old boy does some times get things right.

And have probably like me learnt quite a bit over the last few years.

You will see that except for the use of the word “Has and As” even the writing as probably got better.

But you are never going to educate me are you, my teachers couldn’t. I must say I learnt more from Mr. Walton the woodwork and steel work teacher, from my secondary school days, and then again from the Banbury Technical College agricultural department, and Mr. Rowe who was a farmer as well as teacher, taught me to Gas weld and that set me in stead for the rest of my life.

Me and fabrication and welding, along with design “, lit my fire,” no two ways about it. And the other thing that I loved was poetry no less, strange I here you say, but I always did like words even if I could not speak the Queens English. Coming from a far corner of North Oxfordshire.

But I am ranting again, which I am told that I do best.

But I don’t care, for when I get a bee in my bonnet about any subject I don’t stop until I get a result or come to a dead end.

Go on then I hear you say so “mister clever dick” what have you actually achieved this year with your grotty little web site.

OK so back to the beginning of the year, we started with trying to find out about some of the obscure makes of trials machines from the sixties that seemed to have been forgotten and had not had the press, like some of the prominent makes of the times.

So two or even three came to the fore, like the Bike built in Wales for only four years. HJH,

And the Kyffyn Sapphire that suddenly came to-light even more than I had expected.

But the Star of the year was a bike that I so well remembered even through a grey haze or even Fog of the time in the sixties.

This bike was as you now well know, was the Mark named “ELstar,” a machine that many had forgotten or not even heard about.

We now have at least two owners rebuilding ELstar trials machines back into the condition they were as they left the factory.

We now know that although the machine found grip like no other in its class, but had a vital flaw in it’s frame tube build up, in that most of the front down tubes cracked just under a stupid tank mounting tube, that had no doubt had been a hand-me down from the Grass track motorcycles.

But at least we now have two machines, which are going to keep the ELstar trials machine alive.

And to be quite honest If all the people that had made the recreated “James” machines, (actually “Francis Barnett”), had made a replica of the ELstar frame, they may have found that they had built a machine that worked even better.

So Tomorrow I will get onto what actually floated my boat in 2016.

Well firstly Mike Waller mailed me just before the end of last year (2015) and said he had enjoyed the sequenced photos on the gallery page about the build of the Square framed “Otter”, and this had decided him to make a videoed series of the construction and build up of the next BSA B25 engined B50 converted framed trials bike.

He had gone out and sold one of his precious machines, so that he could buy a decent camera.

After watching the introduction video, and Episode one, I mailed Mike and said, brilliant just keep doing what you are doing, with all the flaws and even mistakes, and I hope you don’t mind if I start a page for these and underwrite my comments about the current video as you release them.

Mike thought that was OK.

So I set up the page, and I must say the episodes just got better and even more professional as the later episodes came out.

And when the bike was actually finished I for one had withdrawal symptoms knowing that there was not now going to be a further installment the following week.

To be quite honest I think the series was worth a bigger audience and a Discovery Channel slot even.

I likened it to a series of American Chopper without the tantrums.

Anyway I said to Mike we need another fix now, and don’t leave it to long.

So the poor chap now has to dig his way to his workshop, in drifted snow in minus 20 temperatures to give us what we need, more of the same.

And to hear that little "Britannia Motorcycles" tune at the beginning of each episode.

And if someone has got workshop bench vice they don’t need send it to Mike wont you.

More Later. Today.

I also would add that Mike put us onto the M&M, gate section trials system, that if I am shown interest from you to ride in such a trial, I will see about organizing the event in the spring.

Early in the year (28 March) I had a mail from Jim Susans to say it was good to see someone keeping the BSA name going.

Well this was another one of those co incidents’ that happens now and again.

Because I had already said to Deryk that I was going to do a page on Jim’s 100 bike and frame builds.

Now I was in touch with the man himself, and he sent me photos and stories about the bikes he had built, and we also discussed his Jazz band that he plays in at the ripe old age of Eighty Four. Just blowing that sousaphone would leave me gasping for breath Jim.

I am hoping Jim will send me some more of his stories in the New Year.

Later in the year the same sort of thing happened, I had a mail from Wilf Couldwell, and again I had used some of Deryks pictures of the man riding the Cotswold BSA.

Wilf agreed to come onboard and do the Real Story about his BSA Cotswold bikes, and other tales for me later as well, the third installment of the “Cotswold” is on its way and other photos from Wilf.

If you have glanced at my stories about growing up in the Fifties, for my “Seventy Years of Me”, I had again one of those same things happen, I had been putting some of the tales growing up on the farm at South Newington Oxon. And one of the main characters featured is Ray Williams that taught me quite a lot about life, sadly Ray passed away some years back, but I had contact with him again in his last years and we had some good chats, in of all places the Church yard in Wigginton. Where he mowed the grass on a regular basis.

Anyway I had an e-Mail, and then later the same day a phone call, from a lady named Anne.

She had been tracing the Prescott name for one of here friends that turns out has the same great grandfather as me.

But reading the tales on the BSA Otter website, she realized that she herself had a closer connection with me, her late husband was that same Ray Williams that I had written about.

Now Anne Williams not only helps me with little snippets of information and puts me right if I get things wrong but she also sends me photos she has, to fit some of the tales I have written, and has also contributed with a tale herself.

More Later and the mail that certainly changed my year.

On the “13th of June” I was sat updating some pages of the site. when a “ping” heralded an incoming e-mail, I just got on updating the page before going to walk the dog as I do about this time. (15,30) I thought I just better see who had mailed me.

The mail was from “Carol” it said, and she wanted to speak to me about “Otter” frames, and then there was her phone number.

Hmmm I thought, I would walk the dog, and mail a reply when I get back.

Walking the dog for its two miles around fields of North Newington. I thought Harry Foster’s wife was named Carol, no cant be, so getting back home I checked the area code from the phone number and it was in the right place.

I was going to a meeting that night so I mailed Carol back and said I would telephone her the following evening.

Well I rang Carol and she said someone was I interested in the Foster Frame jig. But she thought as I had kept the name flying if I was interested, I should have the first chance of the jig.

Well I said I would love to have it so we started negotiations, long story, but on the 23^rd of July, Carol Foster, said I could have the jig for the deal we had come up with.

And I could pick it up from her friend that the frame jig was with.

But he was on holiday at the moment.

I said I was off to the IOM, for the Manx GP anyway on the date he was back.

Anyway eventually I got the frame jig home just a week before the “Foster Otter” on eBay came to light thanks to a very good friend.

After checking all of the photos on eBay I could see now with my years of “Otter” experience, this was indeed a Genuine “Foster Otter”, and in total original condition, even down to the footrests and sump plate.

I’m having that, I thought, and decided not to bid on the machine until the last couple of minuets. But I had thought, where would potential bidders go for information about this machine.

Well there was only one site really wasn’t there.

So you guys had to manage without some of the pages for a week, because, I removed every one that mentioned a “Foster Otter” to give me I thought, an extra chance of winning the bidding.

Has it was my tactics worked, but I nearly lost it at the last few seconds, when someone else was trying to bid, but they did so just as I hit the keys for a second time.

This must have blanked out their bid.

I had a nail biting few minuets thinking I had lost the bike, and then “Ping” and a email to say you have Won that item.

I was straight onto the seller, saying can I pay with PayPal, because I could not get down to Devon until the middle of the next week. He said no I could pay him when I picked the bike up.

Anyway you know that I did get the bike back, and found out when stripping it to rebuild, the machine it had had little use inside and out. And had just been stored over a long period of time.

Then astonishingly, I had a mail from the Henbest family, saying "father recons he built that bike" and sent a photo snap of it as you know,

Well it is the bike make no mistake about it and could be the “First Otter frame” that Carol and Harry Foster built.

Even the engine internals are marked with an “H” these must have been marked by

Ally Clift when he built the engine, for the Henbests.

So Yes 2016 has been a good year for me. And BSA “OTTER”.

The bike build of the year 2016  must go to Bill Todd for his little square framed

“Super-Cub”,

but very closely followed by Gary Edwards Australian “BSA Otter”.

New Build Page on tommorrow, and there could be two more Pages too.

The Story continues later.

The Story continues later.

24/12/2016.

Merry Christmas Everyone

21/12/2016.

NEW PAGE. GOV132 Is Lost, It is GON-e.

BMCA New Season Film Page Update shortly

20/12/2016.

Britannia New Projects Page Update.

I-Pad end of year news page on shortly.ON.Here we are.

19/12/2016.

"Wilf Couldwells" Motorcycling Tales" Page updated.

For Christmas this year "E" is for "Extreme Embarrassment",

Some of you can't get this page on your I-Pads ETC.?

Well I have been informed by our friends at Freeola,

 That I have been working to hard on this page to keep you all amused, and I have just put too much content onto the page, SORRY! it is too late in this year to split the page now, so I just hope you are not going to "leave me" for this mistake. Charlie ~Oo>

Seems Ironic that you can get 100 full length movies on a  stick smaller than your thumb nail, but Hey.

18/12/2016.

For Christmas this year we gets to "B"

Well-us "B" Like that in North Oxfordshere.

Ias-two left us-well, alus the same?

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ELstar Page update. 

17/12/2016.

New? Or Old Page? Up, "The Bike They Call "Otter"

16/12/2016.

BSA B40 Army To Victor-y  Page Update, with Pat's thoughts.

 Load More Recipes on the "Roly Poly Page", I must update the title,Now. 

More Later, and "E" or "F".

15/12/2016.

"BMCA New Season Film Page" Shatterford Report.

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I have put the food Recipes page back on? Well I was asked to.

at nearly the foot of the listings titled "Jam Roly-Poly Pudding"

But There's a lot more than that, these are from the Fifties and I was brought up on all of them.

13/12/2016.

For Christmas this year "D" is for D.O.T.

Divide -Of -Trouble?

Or "Dont Own Two"?

Sadly the Old Factory closed in Manchester but it is relocating next year.

And we know Others are still building the trials bikes, but don't label them 1962.

12/12/2016.

For Christmas we miss "B" for a while and go to "C"

"Classic Cars"

There will be a story about the Vauxhall Wyvern and Velox later,

NOW on the "Tales of the Fifties" page at the bottom.

11/12/2016.

Super Cub  "Mini Otter" page update with New photos on its rebuild. 

Britannia "New Projects" Page update, with News about the Big Bore conversion. 

10/12/2016.

New Page up .

Mike Hailwood at the 1978 IOM TT, True Story.

By Pat Slinn.

06/12/2016.

BMCA New Season Film Page Update with Taster Video.

04/12/2016.

Well for Christmas this year we start with well,"A".

Page updates Elstar and Britannia Motorcycles New Projects page with a trials lesson by Chris Arnold.

03/12/2016.

I have put some more of my tales on, on the last three listings at the bottom.

I have been forced to re-type a few of them, as I found the written ones that had been printed off on my first or second ever computer, yes that long ago,

I will do some more when I can see the keyboard and the sore end of me fingers have healed. anyway I hope you enjoy them I did, having to re-read them,

A bit of a change for the Christmas period as ever,

PS.

I have the other Pat Slinn story about the 1978 TT winning Mike Hailwood Ducati.

NOW ON>

But this has to be typed to, "What have I done".

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This one for the I-Pad-dled.

More Later.