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Memories of a Very Rare Bike |
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 Derek Pickard recalls the way - as a teenager - he developed his own versionof a very rare Enfield twin.
I¹d nearly forgotten about my big Enfield until this photograph emerged lastweek. It was taken in the 1960s with me aboard my own version of a Royal Enfield 750 Interceptor.
It all started when I bought a 1959 Constellation 700 with a loan from mydad as I was still at school. I¹d been riding a 350 Enfield Bullet and found it had much better low-down torque than my previous 350 BSA.
The
reasons for this better pulling power had been explained to me by one of the schoolmasters who had a Constellation powered sidecar outfit. And he¹d bought his Enfield twin because of the long 90mm stroke which gave
a real advantage over the relatively short stroke but more popular Triumph and BSA 650 twins.
If
I remember rightly, I paid 69 quid and the bike was originally stock
standard even to the frustrating Amal TT, which had no idle speed
control. But that carb was soon to be altered as were a lot of other
bits on the bike as this very enthusiastic teenager set about building
his dream machine.
Those were the days when Royal Enfield were not only still in business,
but the Bradford on Avon plant was just up the road from where I lived
and I soon found I could front-up on a Saturday morning and buy
virtually any part at the factory¹s back door for five quid.
Understandably I made many trips to the factory and soon acquired the
vital crank, barrels and pistons I need
to make my Constellation into a Series One Interceptor (692 to 736cc).
But the work didn¹t stop with the fitting of bigger cubes. I realised
the engine shook a lot above 4000rpm so I preferred to keep the revs
down. This justified my decision to retain a single carb, which became
a 30mm Monobloc. The torquey engine was also fitted with slightly
milder Super Meteor cams but the 8.5:1 high compression pistons
remained.
I may have disliked the huge lift to get the bike on and off of its
center stand (the only stand) and the way I had to jump on the
kick-starter to fire the engine, but I loved the way the engine would
effortlessly accelerate and pull a high gear quickly. I also had no
problems with the double-sided front drum brake and general road
manners.
Particularly liked were the manual control of the Lucas magneto and the
fabulous ease of operation for the one-click neutral finder. To this
day I cannot understand which such an obvious device has never been
popular for many other motorcycles with their multi-speed gearboxes.
Being an engineering student soon after acquiring the bike, I put on
many oddball fittings. This included fitting oil pressure and
temperature gauges , which made me, worry as much as teaching me
anything about engines.
The only other mods I can remember making were the adding of the then
fashionable Gold Star muffler and the full dustbin fairing. Actually
over the years I had two dustbins on the big Enfield, the cheap and
lighter one (photographed) where the headlight shone thru the front
screen and the heavier Avon version where the cooling inlets and
headlight were out in front.
At the time the big Enfield has my only transport and I rode it
everywhere. That meant to school, paper round (yes you read that
right), commuting, weekend tear-arsing about and holidays. Nothing blew
up and it never let me down during years I kept the machine.
A little point is that the photo was taken by my then girlfriend who
has been my wife for all the years since. Which proves you can impress
the nicest people with an Enfield.
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