We’ve rearranged the Marketplace. We thought that the unsold items in the marketplace were getting lost among the sold ones but, on the other hand, continuing to list sold items is a useful guide to what prices things are selling at. So, we’ve removed all the sold items and put them in the their own section at the bottom of the page. Take a look…
From 18 November, cars and motor cycless made before 1960 don’t need an MoT. To tax a pre-1960 car or motor cycle at a Post Office or at a DVLA Local Office, you need to complete form V112 (Declaration of exemption from MoT testing). The form should include a full list of currently exempt vehicles. However, many of these forms will be out-of-date, including (at the time of writing: 19 November) the downloadable version, and will not list the new category. Pre-1960 cars and motor cycles are category O.
Jim Lee, whom many IceniCAM readers will know for his expert knowledge of Puch and Ariel machines, has taken up publishing. Two titles are already available:
Cycle Components 1894 - 1931 is the story of the Cycle Components Mfg Co (who owned the Ariel marque). There’s more about this title on our books page and we plan to have a full review of it in the January 2013 edition of Iceni CAM Magazine.
Valentine Page 1892 - 1978, Motorcycle Designer is a biography of Val Page with many previously unseen photographs.
These titles are available for £9.50 each (inclusive of UK P&P) from Jim Lee, 2 Bramfield Park, Lubenham, Market Harborough, LE16 9TP.
Two more titles are due for publication early in 2013:
Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG will be the story of this Austrian group of companies including an in-depth coverage of its products: 148 years of engineering history.
60 Years on Two-wheels will be Jim’s own personal story of his working lifetime in the two-wheeler industry.
A Museum dedicated to Motobécane has opened in France. The Village des Métiers d’Antan & Musée Motobécane is at 5 rue de la Fère, 02100 St Quentin. There are about a hundred Motobécane machines on display (and another 80 in reserve), including several prototypes that had been kept in store at the MBK factory in Rouvroy. The museum will be closed for the winter during Deceber, January and February and reopens on 1 March.
On a cold dark December night our local (East Northants Classic Motor Bike Club) holds its annual Christmas ‘Do’ in a Rushden Pub. We call it "Stuff The Turkey Night". Somebody (no name, no pack drill) after a few pints, suggested we do a calendar like the original Calendar Girls did, but with our bikes covering our vital parts instead of sticky buns!
Volunteers were required, and before you knew it, EACC member 5918, Chris Saunders, stepped forward; my thinking was, it’s only the beer talking and nothing would come of it-WRONG!
Fellow member of East Northants Classic Bike Club, Bill Wright and his wife Elizabeth, were at the meeting. Elizabeth is a Fundraising Manager for the Spinal Injuries Association and, lo and behold, within a few months she had organised financial backing, a photographer, a make up artist (Viv) and the use of a fellow member’s farm (Mark Groom).
Thus, on a cold raining day in April, we got our kit off and bared our bellies, bums and bikes to the elements and photographer and much mickey taking. Especially so when it came to finding our own trousers from a mixed-up pile, some people ended up with the wrong trousers. We had a real good laugh at ourselves, "not a pretty sight", but for a good cause.
I hope it does not offend anybody and the calendar can be ordered on line from www.spinal.co.uk
Regards
Chris Saunders
We’ve been on another staff outing to the Netherlands - this time to the Nationaal Veteraan Treffen at Woerden on Saturday 22 September.
We took four bikes to display at the Treffen and one of them was Danny’s Elswick-Hopper Lynx. Here’s a picture of it on display at Woerden ... but what’s that sitting on the saddle?
Yes, it’s the ‘Best in Show’ trophy. Well, OK, perhaps not THE Best in Show because there were three classes and, therefore, three ‘Bests’. The Lynx was judged best in the bromfiets (moped) class.
As usual, we have a page with our photographs of the event.
Scooter collector Robin Spalding will be publishing a book on British Scooters in September. Coinciding with the book launch will be an exhibition of Robin’s collection; this will be at the Coventry Transport Museum for five months. More about the book, the exhibition and Britsh sccoters can be found at Robin’s new website: www.britishscooters.com.
A new EU ‘cookie law’ (more properly called the e-Privacy Directive) came into force for UK-based websites at the end of May. Websites now have to ask for your permission if they use ‘non-esential’ cookies. Here at IceniCAM we don’t store any cookies at all - not one.
What’s a cookie? It’s a piece of information that a website stores on your computer, smartphone, etc, to keep track of you. Category 1 (essential) cookies are ones that are needed to make the website work - for instance, if you buy things on-line, cookies will keep track of what’s in your shopping cart; sites you have to log-on to with a password use essential cookies to keep track of whether you’re logged-on. A website doesn’t need your permission to use these. Non-essential cookies are used to track website visitors, gathering statistics, and that sort of stuff. We don’t do any of those things.
There’s a whole load of changes to UK driving licence regulations that will be implemented in January. These changes will not affect most riders as they will not change existing licence entitlements; it’ll be newly qualified riders that the apply to. However, the EACC has noticed one change that might be of concern: a reduction in the maximum speed of mopeds to 45kph. Again, this will only affect new riders, but the EACC’s worry is that it will prevent youngsters joining in our hobby because the won’t be allowed to ride the older 50kph (30mph) mopeds. Advance publicity about the changes is not clearly worded about how this change will be implemented. The EACC has alerted the FBHVC about this potential problem.
The Moped Gallery is an off-shoot of The Moped Archive. It’s a collection of pictures of small-capacity machine. Over the last 15 years, The Moped Archive has been steadily growing and now, it has run out of space. To overcome this problem, The Moped Gallery has been migrated to IceniCAM and is now available here.
New supplies of 19" Endrick pattern chrome plated moped rims in both 36-hole and 28-hole piercings are now being listed in stock at Mopedland UK. The Endrick pattern ‘square-sided’ rims are the form particularly preferred for caliper brakes with brake blocks working on the side of the rim, so good news for all the Raleigh RM6 Runabout (36-hole), and VeloSolex (28-hole) owners who’ve been patiently waiting for this stock to arrive. See the website www.mopedland.co.uk for further details.
Mike Penning, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, has announced the results of the Historic Vehicles MoT Exemption Review. The DfT is in favour of exemption for pre-1960 vehicles and it is proposed this will take effect from 18 November 2012.
In the May 2012 edition of Classic Bike, Hugo Wilson rides Alan Hummerstone’s Ducati Cucciolo.
The recent large increase in UK postage prices means we have had to increase some of our prices. The cover price of the magazine is unaltered at £1.50; the price for a single issue by post goes up from £2.10 to £2.20 while a year’s subscription increases from £8.40 to £8.80. Information Service CD-ROMs are now £3.50 inclusive of UK postage.
The FBHVC is pleased to announce the results of its fuel stability additive test programme. This research was designed to test the anti-corrosive properties of proprietary additives claiming to provide a high level of protection against potential corrosion of fuel systems, including tanks, pipework and fuel metering equipment on historic vehicles caused by the addition of ethanol into petrol.
VSPe Power Plus, VSPe and EPS from Millers Oils; Ethomix from Frost A R T Ltd; Ethanolmate from Flexolite all received an A rating in the research which enables all these products carry an endorsement from the FBHVC. The endorsement is in the form of the FBHVC logo and the words: "endorsed by the FBHVC as a fuel additive for protection against corrosion in metals".
All additive manufacturers and suppliers were approached in 2011 to provide test samples for this research which was designed to simulate storage in a vehicle’s fuel tank for a 12 month period.
The FBHVC’s conference last October majored on the effects of ethanol in petrol with presentations from industry experts. It identified three issues to be considered: corrosion, compatibility and combustion. The Federation has been represented at a Fuel Stakeholders meetings with the DfT.
For details of the products please contact:
Millers Oils - website: www.millersoils.co.uk
Frost A R T Ltd - website: www.frost.co.uk
Flexolite - website: www.flexolite.co.uk
Lohmann cyclemotor drive rollers are now being listed at Mopedland in the Rollerdrive section. These are new manufacture components produced from hard rubber compound by Obsolete Engineering. Lohmann components have pretty much been unavailable since the company finished production in the mid 1950s, but Mopedland has recently begun producing some new parts. Its AtoZ Rings section remanufactured and listed new Lohmann piston rings in 2011.
It occurs to us that many people may have never seen the engine that the The National Autocycle and Cyclemotor Club Limited is kicking up a fuss about (see End of an Era below). In fact, when it’s described in the minutes of the NACC’s January 2011 AGM as ‘the Autocycle and Cyclemotor unit that had been donated to the NACC’ it becomes clear that even their own secretary has no idea what it actually is. So, we’ve been doing a bit of delving in our archives to reveal what the all fuss is purportedly about.
Here it is. It’s the engine from a 1952 25cc Cyclemaster that has been sectioned to show its internal mechanism. It’s mounted on its own purpose-made wooden stand with legs that fold up to make it easier to transport.
Our photographs were taken at the East Anglian Run on 15 May 1988 - possibly its last appearence before Andrew Roddham handed it on to another NACC committee member.
Our search also turned up some interesting information, including the fact that it doesn’t even belong to the NACC!
It was part of a collection bought by well-known motor cycle dealer, Andy Tiernan, in the 1980s. Andy lent it to the NACC on a long-term loan so the club could display it at events. It’s still Andy’s engine, the NACC just borrowed it.
It’s even more complicated than that: the NACC transferred all its assets to the The National Autocycle and Cyclemotor Club Limited in 2007. This transfer was ratified at a committee meeting on 4 August that year. The engine was not in the list of assets itemised in the minutes of the meeting (not surprising as they’d forgotten they had it). What’s more it’s doubtful that they would have had any right to transfer the loan; no one asked Andy if it would be all right.
Another fine mess!
The National Autocycle and Cyclemotor Club Limited (NACC) has now completed its mission to get rid of all its founder members. The last remaining one, Andrew Roddham, has been officially notified that he will be expelled in April at the end of his current subscription year.
The pretext given for throwing Andrew out is that he won’t tell them where they’ve put their sectioned cyclemotor engine; they know he had it in 1986! This is clearly just an excuse because a quick look through our old copies of Buzzing (the NACC’s magazine) was enough to tell us that Andrew hasn’t had it since 1988 ... it also revealed who’d had it for several more years after that. If the NACC really wanted to find the engine, all it had to do is read its own magazines. To look at it another way: if they wanted Andrew to give them some information, throwing him out of the club is hardly a sensible way to go about it.
With Andrew’s departure, the NACC severs its last link to the club it used to be. It used to be an active club with an honest, democratic, accountable committee of unpaid volunteers who strived to serve the club’s members. The ‘modern’ NACC Limited is a limited company with only a tiny proportion of its membership taking any active part in club affairs. The self-serving committee is answerable to no one and some of them are even paid to do their jobs. It has become a sad remnant of a once great club.
On 13 December staff of DVLA Local Offices (LO) throughout the UK were told that all LOs would close during 2013. This action will remove all face to face contact between the public and DVLA staff.
This will cause problems for historic vehicle owners. In its latest newsletter, the FBHVC has a list of some of the services that can currently only be done at DVLA local offices:
Taxing an historic vehicle for the first time;
Authentication of copy documentation for transmission to Swansea in lieu of valuable originals;
Same day receipt of replacement tax discs for lost or stolen discs;
Same day receipt of tax discs for taxing at short notice (including paper MoT and insurance cover notes);
Taxing vehicles where there is also a change of taxation class e.g. unlicensed to historic, PSV to PLG;
Taxing a vehicle exempt from MoT (We wonder how long Post Offices will be able do this?);
Reinstatement of an original registration number where this had been replaced at some time in the past but has remained dormant;
Inspection of vehicles which require an age related number or a chassis number;
Inspection of imported vehicles requiring UK registration.
The FBHVC also comments:
Briefly, the DVLA stance is that the progress of computerisation needs to continue. To quote: "This means driving forward existing services such as increasing take up of driver services on-line. It also means making other transactions available electronically where this is cost effective and maximising uptake by making them as user friendly as possible".
The consultation majors on increasing use of their existing vehicle licence transactions on-line (and telephone) services, but their (loaded) figures actually show that more than 50% of private users do not avail themselves of these facilities. Their so-called customer survey was based on on-line users only, ignoring the majority who do not, or cannot, use this facility for their transaction. There are vague promises to engage with ‘intermediaries’ but whether this is to provide computer access only, or a genuine replacement for end users with queries is also unclear. For individuals who are not computer literate are unlikely to use a DVLA provided facility.
It’s not only historic vehicle owners who’ll suffer. It cause problems throughout the motor trade too. There’s widespread opposition to the proposal from both the motor trade and public services unions (the closures will cause the loss of 1,200 jobs.)
There’s an on-line petition at www.savethedvla.co.uk.
You can also respond to the consultation. Hard copies of
the consultation are available by writing to:
Corporate Affairs Directorate,
D16,
DVLA,
Swansea,
SA6 7JL.
(The consultation did not provide a contact name or phone
number.) To respond on-line go to www.dft.gov.uk/dvla then click
on ‘consultation’. The consultation closes on
6 March 2012.
Our recent article Life in the Slow Lane featured a number of electric
bikes and one of the points Mark made was that UK regulations on
electric bikes are out of step with other contries. As part
of its ‘Red Tape Challenge’, the government is going
to bring the regulations into line with the rest of Europe.
The first change will be to increase the maximum allowable power
from 200 to 250 Watts. Other aspects of the regulations
will be changed once a current EU discussion is concluded.
www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/dft-2010-02
Brian Aplin has been trying for ages to get hold of 2.00×19 (23×2) whitewall tyres ... and now he’s succeeded. He has also got hold of a stock of complete pistons for Mobylette engines. You will find Brian’s contact details in our directory.
I am one of the organisers of an event called «la Vie en Bleu» run annually by The Bugatti Owners Club. This is an event celebrating the French motor vehicle in all its forms and from all years. This year it will be held on the weekend of the 26 and 27 May and more details of the Club and our events can be found at at www.bugatti.co.uk/usefulinformation.aspx
For the 2012 event we are very keen to invite owners of those iconic French ‘motor cycles’ the VéloSoleX and their machines for a special display, and we may be able to offer free entry for owners and their partners.
Perhaps you could mention this to any owners of machines who might be interested?
Contact can be made through me in the first instance, either
or at my home address:
Little Wyche,
Upper Colwall,
Malvern,
Worcestershire
WR136PL.
Tel: 01684-563315
Many thanks,
Mike Tebbett
Even older news stories are available in our 2011 News Archive
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