I bought my Goldi in 1985 and my Dad thought I was completely nuts spending £900 on an old bike, the man I got it from new it was a Cheney but had no other information about it. As the pictures show it has a GP carb and a Lucas 2MTT magneto as fitted to Manx Nortons ,7Rs and G50s, it has road races cams and the Cheney mod taking oil from the pressure feed to the cams up to the rocker feed, when I spoke to Mr Cheney he said he carried out this mod to all his Goldstar mx bikes. The gearbox has scramble ratios and Timkin needle rollers on the lay shaft .
Back in 1996 I was riding the bike at a meeting near Aldershot when I was approached by this tall thin man who introduced himself as Eric Cheney , he asked me if it was my bike and did I know any of it's history which I said only that it was built by you, he then laid on his back and pointed to an old frame repair and said that it was carried out in Czechoslovakia during the 1963 Europeon championship . He said the bike was built for Keith Hickman , he said he built 3 in 1962, 1 for Jerry Scott which he new of its where abouts, 1 for Frank Underwood which he new where it was and 1 for Keith Hickman which untill that day he didnt know where it was.most of his bikes were sold through Ken Covels shop near Cambridge .
I asked him to put it all down on paper and send it to me which he did at a later date, the bike went back to his for major frame repairs in 1998, he could have made a new OIF frame cheaper than it cost to have my frame repaired but I wanted to retain the bikes originality . The job was done and it's now after many years going back together proberbly never to have its neck rung in anger again.
Hopefully the pictures will be clear because they are originally photos which I copied using my iPhone .
Thanks for reading my ramblings,
Simon
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