OzVMX Forum
Marque Remarks => British (BSA, Greeves, Triumph etc) => Topic started by: mx250 on September 17, 2009, 10:48:00 pm
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(http://i323.photobucket.com/albums/nn458/mx250syd/OzVMX/bsa1.jpg)
http://vmxracing.com/bsa001.htm
(http://i323.photobucket.com/albums/nn458/mx250syd/OzVMX/cheney1.jpg)
http://vmxracing.com/cheney001.htm
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Thanks mx250 now that's a nice start to the eyes for the day :)
These bikes go like a power too,good to see some clean ones ;) ;D
cheers
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Nice conversion to a Scrambles bike....B44R is a "Roadster"...first appears in 1967..
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very nice...... like the attention to detail, chromed swingarm and tasty chain adjustors. Plus Black and polished metal always works well togther.
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I love 'em both but the Cheney is especially nice. The bike is conceptually very similar to my under construction Cheney RT1 (Same tank, Rickman hubs, CZ forks etc) . I was originally going with the bare, blasted, sand cast look on the engine but the black engine in this beauty has shown me that shine + black looks great. I like the satin black Rickman hubs too, although I've already had mine polished it's no biggy to paint 'em I suppose. Just when you think you've seen every way possible of dressing a Cheney someone else comes along with another take on it.
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Since we're on to British today, i'd like to mention that a customer has dropped off a Royal Enfield Flying Flea for us to restow for him. Bit of a basket case but he assures me 'it used to run' mmmmm!
He said if I get it going i can ride it at the scrambles for him!!
Now I'm only new back to this VMX stuff but does anyone have another Flying Flea so I can challenge him to a shoot out-or will I have to go in the pre75 with the Elsinores??
I can see why the used to throw them out of aeroplanes during the second war-only way they could possibly get the holeshot!!
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I knew a bloke a few years ago who bought an old war service house at Matraville. A few months after moving in he was excavating under the house to build a cellar/garage he found two Flying Fleas buried complete. The'd been wrapped in a tarp and buried. We figured that they had to have been buried before the house had been built as it was impossible to have manhandled them under and between the pillars. The house had been built in 1946 or 1947 so the Fleas must have been fairly new when buried. They were pretty cactus but I remember the engines were still free, I guess you can't kill those old Villiers units. Unfortunately I can't remember what Mick did with them. I reckon they were way ahead of their time, one of the first big wheel mini bikes.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/Flying%20Flea%20WWII.jpg)
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Correct me if Iam wrong the frames both look like victor GP's but one has a channy/wasp swinging arm. Why did I not think of it instead of stuffing around to fix my GP arm.
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Com'on Firko, how do I get it out the gate 1st and will it hold a line thru a berm??
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Com'on Firko, how do I get it out the gate 1st and will it hold a line thru a berm??
enter it in the right class ;) ;D
http://ozvmx.com/community/index.php?topic=3350.0
cheers
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Real motorcross bikes didn't exist until the Japanese entered the market!!! Well for a young 40 year old they didn't.
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i'm only 39, and they sure as hell look like MX bikes to me
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Real motorcross bikes didn't exist until the Japanese entered the market!!! Well for a young 40 year old they didn't.
I started out buying the VMX bikes of my youth, but then found the old pommy stuff had a different dimension and the Rickmans and Cheneys are very cool.
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check this out Dave and tell me it is not sweet.
Its a bit like old pommy cars, a Riley Kestrel may not get you going like an SLR5000 but allow some time to appreciate the walnut dash and leather...parallel universe and not directly comparable but still cool.
(http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg71/marcFX_photo/0260390260.jpg)
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Thanks marcFX for the pic :-*
How can you not be in love with that :P
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Bike cool ???? , why run pipe's so you can't read LHS numbers ???
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Bike cool ???? , why run pipe's so you can't read LHS numbers ???
they change em for race days ;) ;D
cheers
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Just bought a set like that for my Rickman. ;)
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The following two Cheneys ring my bell. The top B44 engined version was recently for sale in Queensland and the bottom New Zealand B50 BSA powered bike is reputedly an absolute rocketship. What a pity Simon Cheney's such a shocker to deal with.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/che.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/nz8.jpg)
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like the bottom one Firko, good ole Kiwi build quality. I have similar bike under way.
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Yeah OK I agree they do look real nice (kinda like awesome converted road bikes in my humble opinion hehehe). Tell me if I'm wrong, but when mass produced motocross bikes became available to the average bloke the sport exploded and legends emerged from all countries not just England or Europe. My youth was spent reading and dreaming about riders like Bob Hannah, Mark Barnett, Hekki Mikkola, Hakan Carlquist, Roger De Coster, Gerrit Wolsink, Brad Lackey, Joel Robert, Adolf Weil, Guennnady Moisseev, Gaston Rahier, Marty Smith, Eric Geboers, Kent Howerton, Chuck Sun, Goat Breker, Magoo, ohh and so many more! Hey my uncles rode those Brit sleds and they still do. I didn't say they weren't cool.
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I must be in that parallel universe because I dreamt of Wasps and EMLs (virtually the same as Cheney et al except in sidecar versions) and the likes of Robert Grogg(only sidecar xers can have a name like that as a champion) and Bolholder and Bachtold each multi winners of the world title.
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when mass produced motocross bikes became available
thats it see mass produced....... recently had an opportunity to check out a G85 Rickman, it had trial AJ front hub, 600cc on alchohol, custom tank by local artist.....just years of love sitting in one bike. You probably only get that feeling with works bikes and specials. Buying a mass produced bike is a trite forgettable affair, like buying a Hyundai.
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Yeah OK I agree they do look real nice (kinda like awesome converted road bikes in my humble opinion hehehe). Tell me if I'm wrong, but when mass produced motocross bikes became available to the average bloke the sport exploded and legends emerged from all countries not just England or Europe. My youth was spent reading and dreaming about riders like Bob Hannah, Mark Barnett, Hekki Mikkola, Hakan Carlquist, Roger De Coster, Gerrit Wolsink, Brad Lackey, Joel Robert, Adolf Weil, Guennnady Moisseev, Gaston Rahier, Marty Smith, Eric Geboers, Kent Howerton, Chuck Sun, Goat Breker, Magoo, ohh and so many more! Hey my uncles rode those Brit sleds and they still do. I didn't say they weren't cool.
Dave, you're not wrong, just from a different era. I also idolised the very same riders you mention but because I'm probably a wee bit older to you can add guys like Derek and Don Rickman, Jeff Smith, Roy East, Paul Friedrichs, Sten Lundin, Torsten Hallman and many more.
Real motorcross bikes didn't exist until the Japanese entered the market!!! Well for a young 40 year old they didn't.
The whole problem with that opinion is that 'real' motocross bikes existed way before the Japanese 'explosion' and in fact the first Japanese bikes were based on road bikes way more than the British or European bikes that they were trying to take on. The Rickmans and Cheneys of the mid sixties were the first bikes designed purely for motocross and not adapted from a road going bike. The Euro bikes from that era created the 'motocross explosion' of the late sixties that prompted the Japanese to enter the market. The motocross boom had been well underway for at least five years before the Japanese released their first serious motocross bike for the masses that hadn't evolved from a road registerable bike, the Honda Elsinore, of 1973. It was only then that the motocross market realised that the Japanese were serious contenders.
It's my theory that the motocross boom took off not because of any particular brand of bike or the emergence of the Japanese into the market but by the publishing of Dirt Bike Magazine in 1971. That magazine did more to make motocross cool to the masses of coming of age baby boomers than any other single factor.
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Ok fella's could you please tell me when a wide variety of affordable mini-motocrossers 50cc to 80cc became available outside of Japan? I clearly remember standing with both feet on top of my uncle's 500 Matchless kick starter and it wouldn't move with them laughing and saying to me that "if you can kick it over you can have a drive" at my Opa's (Dutch for grandpa) farm just down the road from Amaroo park. I do concede there were some "real" motocross bike before the Japanese invasion but they were really out of reach for the average bloke let alone a young kid with a paper run. The manufacturers didn't really consider the mini-motocrosser make prior to that. That's when motocross really took off.
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You're really drawing a long bow now....The Euros were doing the 80-100cc thing in the fifties and they were everywhere.......way, way before the Japs. It may pay to read a few history books Dave, especially "The Big Leap" by Frank Melling which explains the Japanese influence on the motocross world. The books conclusions are a lot way different from yours. ;D
Just to adjust your perception that motocrosses wide acceptence started with the Japanese involvement from the early 70's, here's a couple of shots from the late 50s showing 120 000 screaming fans at a stadium motocross in Prague Czechoslovakia.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/czech%20racing%2020.bmp.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/czech%20racing21.bmp.jpg)
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Hey Wasp not many Euro mini's were under kids bums to ride that's for certain! And Firko they're spectators not participants. I just typed in RM 80 into Goggle = 1,660,000!! hits, XR 75 = 96,200, YZ 80 = 4,350,000!! Zuendapps* = 1750, Kreidlers* = 925,000 *all models including road bikes (the majority built). You can't tell me that the Japanese didn't bring motocross riding to the masses! If they didn't I would have given up trying to kick that Matchless beast over and would be a surfer now :D :D :D
This article below refers to the US, but you can't say our market didn't follow suit.
http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/exhibits/mx/history6.asp
It's not just my opinion. Is it?
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I still like the way they used to buy one model of bike-no matter what make and then decide to either road race, scramble or trial it just by changing the bars, tyres and gearing-that to me is real racing.
Just think about going into a shop today to buy a new 250-they only have a twin commuter to sell you but you want to do a scramble on sunday-so you pull the front guard off, change the tyres and line up on sunday morning-along with your mates on similar bikes.
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(http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/albrid3/001.jpg)
This is a nice bike, l don`t know who built it, but l admire him for it he did a very nice job.
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(http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/albrid3/003.jpg)
This was my Wasp Metisse. Loved this bike.
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Mr Firko, are Patterson-Cheney anything to do with Cheney, jus a very unusual name and they have a helmet and googles as their logo??
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I had to look up who Patterson Cheney were..Apparently they're a Holden Dealer amongst other makes. To answer your question...No, Simon Cheney took over his old man Erics frame building business when the old codger died. I doubt he sold any Holdens, especially in Hampshire, UK. ;D
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I still like the way they used to buy one model of bike-no matter what make and then decide to either road race, scramble or trial it .
I think that is what made the Enduro bikes really appealing in the 80s, if you were a struggling apprentice like me you could ride your PE175 to work all week, then ride 70 kms on it to an MX meet....race the local MX and cruise home. Never road raced it or changed the piston for that matter.
So bikes like the TT500 and the XR500 really were go anywhere do anything like the Brit stuff before them.
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A TT500 or XR is a far stretch from a 350 Matchy but you;re on the right trail. So why no roadracing on the PE?? that long range tank would have suited the Castrol 6 hour!! lol
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The Beso No6 looks to me like an ESO or early Jawa bottom end with one of the numerous 4 Valve conversions on it?
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A TT500 or XR is a far stretch from a 350 Matchy but you;re on the right trail. So why no roadracing on the PE?? that long range tank would have suited the Castrol 6 hour!! lol
Yep race the PE on Sunday, ride to work on Monday, no wonder i was so slow, scared of breaking something.
My mate won an off road hill climb on a Ducati 851 with knobbies....legend
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The Beso No6 looks to me like an ESO or early Jawa bottom end with one of the numerous 4 Valve conversions on it?
The 'Beso' has a Briggo top end which is a bit dumb as Briggos didn't come out until the mid 70's which buggers the bike for pre '65. With a stock head it'd make a good pre '65er.
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Mr Firko, are Patterson-Cheney anything to do with Cheney, jus a very unusual name and they have a helmet and googles as their logo??
This company used to be known as Bill Patterson Holden. Bill was one of Australia's top resident race drivers of the fifties and early sixties, thus explaining their helmet and goggles logo, and the company was for years a strong sponsor in Aussie motorsport long after his retirement from competition. The Cheney addition to the company name is much more recent.
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Thanks GD6, that clears that up.
Back to the Beso, do you recall the Bergmeiers raced an outfit with a 500 Jap or Westlake or Eso or some such thing- I recall it was very quick out the gate. We finished second to it at Toowomba(Echo Valley) in 1982. We were on the DR500 with alloy chair.
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Cheney Motors were a long established car dealer in Melbourne selling Vauxhall and later Holden vehicles.
Their headquarters was in Flinders Street near the Herald Sun building. The business was sold to Bill Patterson, and the names amalgamated.
Cheney, Sydney Albert (1883 - 1968)
Birth:
22 March 1883, Smithfield, South Australia, Australia
Death:
22 April 1968, Toorak, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Religious Influence:
Baptist
Occupation:
autobiographer/memoirist
car importer and assembler
motor dealer
service station/garage owner
Life Summary
Resources
Abbreviations
CHENEY, SYDNEY ALBERT (1883-1968), car salesman, was born on 22 March 1883 at Smithfield, South Australia, fifth son of Samuel Cheney, labourer, and his wife Mary Ann, née Goodger. He left the local state school at 12, became a farm-hand and then worked in a fruit-shop in Adelaide. He joined a Baptist young men's Bible class, of which he was secretary for eight years, studied fitting, turning and drawing at the South Australian School of Mines and Industries and took lessons in accountancy and commercial law. When 20 he put an advertisement in a newspaper, offering his services free to an employer for three months. The coachbuilders, Duncan & Fraser, engaged him to sell Oldsmobile cars at £2 a week and commission; he became the State's first car-salesman. He switched to selling Argyll cars and, for publicity, sensationally drove to the top of the Mount Gambier crater; in 1905 he took part in a Melbourne-Sydney reliability trial. Aided by his skill in conjuring, card tricks and recounting yarns, he sold many cars to farmers on Yorke Peninsula. On 4 May 1907 at the Baptist church, Mount Barker, he married Marjorie Olive Fidler.
After selling Fords by the hundred, Cheney resigned from Duncan & Fraser in 1914 and went to the United States of American to seek a Dodge agency. He won it by pertinacity, floated the Cheney Motor Co. Ltd in 1915, had 130 employees next year, and made three more trips to the U.S.A. in the next three years. In 1917 the Federal government imposed a wartime ban on imported completed cars but allowed unrestricted entry of chassis. Alert to the opportunity of developing a new Australian industry, Cheney approached Holden & Frost, saddlers, and enthused H. J. and (Sir) E. W. Holden who agreed to build Dodge bodies and formed a new company. The results, in the long term, were to be momentous. Early profits were so great that Cheney voluntarily abandoned the part of the original agreement whereby his share was 1 per cent of turnover.
In 1920 Cheney decided to take up a Chevrolet agency, left his Adelaide company and founded S. A. Cheney Pty Ltd in Melbourne; he soon climbed Mount Buffalo in thirty-seven minutes in top gear to demonstrate what a Chevrolet could do. In 1922 in South Melbourne he set up the first assembly line in the Australian motor industry. However, when General Motors themselves opened assembly works in 1926, Cheney switched to selling Austin and Morris cars, launched an advertising campaign to 'Buy British and be proud of it!', and persuaded William Morris (Lord Nuffield) to visit Australia to see why his cars were unsuited to local conditions.
Early in the Depression, after successful efforts to place his employees elsewhere, Cheney closed down his business in good order, and had a year's holiday. He then began selling used cars and in 1932 took an agency for Vauxhall cars and Bedford trucks, which he continued until the late 1950s when he finally took a Holden agency. He had also operated Sanderson & Cheney Pty Ltd as a large service station enterprise. During World War II he was active, with governmental support, in promoting gas-producers and charcoal production. In Adelaide in 1965 he published his autobiography From Horse to Horsepower.
Predeceased by his wife, Cheney died on 22 April 1968 at Toorak and was cremated. He was survived by two sons, and a daughter who for many years was Australian golf champion. His estate was sworn for probate at $135,477.
Select Bibliography
C. Foster, Industrial Development in Australia 1920-1930 (Canb, 1964); L. J. Hartnett, Big Wheels and Little Wheels (Melb, 1964); Age (Melbourne), 13 Apr 1968. More on the resources
Author: L. J. Hartnett
Print Publication Details: L. J. Hartnett, 'Cheney, Sydney Albert (1883 - 1968)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, Melbourne University Press, 1979, p. 631.
Footer information (A-Z) Chelmsford, third Baron (1868 - 1933) (A-Z) Cheong Cheok Hong (1853? - 1928)
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Russel Bergmier started out in 74 on his dads T100 triumph wasp and 850 Norton wasp to cover both the Junior and Senior sidecar classes. He went to CCMs 500s and an 850 weslake in the later part of the 70s and continued into the eighties. He used his dad's 600 Jap in a dirt track frame which was called the Arab and his Dad raced one of the first Lindsay Urquart centre hub steering frames with a cb750 honda motor at the Avalon International road race meet. Ron sold most of his gear off in the late eighties which I picked yp the dirt track and rtoad racing sidecar as well as a few ccm motors. Wish I could have afforded the Brough Superior that was alos in the shed in mint condition. Russel drove speedway cars for quite a while and raced vmx with me in the early ninties. If someone can lend him a sidecar for any of the big meets I'm sure the old four fingered bandit could be enticed back. (lost his right thumb feeding the cable into a winch when he was 16). I gave both the sidecar outfits less motors to the 2 Peters who had Beaudesert Motorcycles in 1994 but am unsure what happened to them as I moved to Nth Qld.
Dave, why sell the metisse you built? Sometimes you just have to keep a slice of heaven.
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Thanks Rosco, that info fills in alot of blanks. It must have been a 500CCM that we raced against at Toowomba. I'll call Beaudesert m/cs tomorrow to see if they know where those chairs went. I also know that the Carline store at Beauey has/had a family link to Ton Van Heugten the Dutch world champ and he visited them a couple of years before he passed away. Small world sometimes.
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Rosco, I have`nt heard from you in years, the last time l was talking and camping next to you and Russell Bergmeier was at fish greek. Vic. To answer your question why l sold my Metisse, My wife and l went our seperate ways, and they where tuff times for me. cheers Dave (PS. good to here from you Rosco, have you still got the Maicos.
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Hey David
Sorry to hear about the split, obviously makes sense. Yep still got a couple of maicos and the CCM and Metisse garage queens. Bummer I didn't catch up with you at Conondale, only just read you were there. Always feel sorry for Russell, his first ex wife burnt all his photos and sashes and had all his trophies buried at the tip, not flash when you get to be an Aussie champ. Maybe sometimes better being an old hack. Loved all the photos you post, brings back heaps of memories. Have just converted all my slides and prints to digital copies and when son shows me how to use photo bucket I'll put a few on from the old Vicy tracks, back in the day and also some of the early VMX stuff. Was glad to see you were still around as there are not too many of the originals from the late 80s/early 90s of VMX still about. I see that Johnny Selva is still crankin it and Drakie becomes a bigger Legend every year. Gotta admit I really felt a symmetry with his article in the latest VMX. Do you know if Mick Murnane stil has any interst? Have some of your early newsletter, must be a real horder. If up in NQ give me a tinkle you will be well looked after. stay well and we will catchup in the future.
Rosco
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Hello Rosco
That will be great to catch up in the future, brake ups can destroy a man sometimes, but one has to move on. and that is what l did all good now. cheers David
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The #8 cheney was built and is raced by the ex Britten Race bike engineer and is seriously fast as jeff Smith said its as fast as any ive seen.
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Always feel sorry for Russell, his first ex wife burnt all his photos and sashes and had all his trophies buried at the tip,
justifiable homicide I would say, I mean what do most of these bitches ever achieve in life by themselves without screwing over a man or two.