Bike Collection Is a Triumph

Friday, June 26, 2015 TJP1ST 19 NEWS >> FOR THE LATEST NEWS AND SPORT www.getwestlondon.co.uk VERYONE has a story, and thanks to their 200-strong Bike collection is a triumph collection of British classic Pop culture and history meets at the London Emotorbikes, Bill Crosby Motorcycle Museum in Greenford where each machine and his wife Philippa have plenty to tell. tells a story. Jane Kiwanuka-Musoke finds out more. Since May 1999, visitors from all over the ingeniously squeezed in world have marvelled at where space allows. their collection housed at Philippa draws our the London Motorcycle attention to what appears Museum in Oldfield Lane to be an ordinary push South, Greenford, which bike – a Triumph of they run with the help of course. This is how they a group of trusted all started life. volunteers. She asks: “Have you The museum doesn’t heard of a hedge find? look like a museum, in Responding to a few the sense that there are no blank faces she smiles and clinically arranged explains: “Years ago if exhibits here; this may you’d had an accident also be due to the fact while riding, you’d ditch that the collection is the bike on shared between a farmland. converted stable block “A farmer would and a 19th Century barn. come across the Philippa gives our bike and would use group a guided tour of Philippa points out that it to fill in holes in the Triumph brand is still the museum rather than his hedge, hence leaving us to passively going strong. ‘hedge find’.” “Bruce Anstey, who’s a experience the exhibits Philippa briefly through laminated cards. popular figure in the regales us with a racing world, recently She introduces our story about the bike group to the oldest bike in won the Isle of Man TT directly opposite us, Philippa says: (Tourist Trophy) race on their collection, which perched on a shelf. “Ironically, when they was manufactured in 1902 this bike. As you can see, Apparently, a married returned to Coventry it’s no hedge find. by a North London couple, Richard and back in 1985, they found company, Ormonde. It’s The London Mopsa English, left the the Triumph factory had Motorcycle Museum is an early example of the Triumph factory in closed for good.” bicycle to motorbike open Saturdays, Sundays Coventry on “Tommy the However, they recorded and Mondays; 10am- n COLLECTION: The 19th Century converted stable barn at London Motorcycle Museum is metamorphosis. Triumph” and embarked their memoirs in a book Walking further along 4.30pm. See www. home to more than 100 Triumph motorcycles. Above left, This Matchless AFS, G3 played a on a round the world trip. titled Full Circle. london-motorcycle- supporting role in EastEnders. Inset left, a 1933 Drough Superior which featured in the BBC the ramp, Philippa points This was back in 1982. As we leave the barn, out this relatively museum.org. classic, Dad’s Army Photos by Jane Kiwanuka-Musoke developed model of motorbike manufactured by Calthorpe. “You couldn’t just get on it and ride. There was a lot to do before that.” She also tells us that there was no suspension on these earlier bikes so you were in for a bumpy ride. Fortunately, 1923 brought about a more advanced bike manufactured by Wooler a company which ceased trading in 1959 and was based behind the famous Hoover building in Greenford. Moving to the other side of the ramp and all is present and correct with the 1150cc Brough Superior. The laminated information card confirms it is the actual bike that featured in episode 40 of Dad’s Army back in December 1971– Battle of The Giants. As we leave the stable block, Philippa points out an early 1960s Matchless AFS, which means nothing to most of us until she mentions that this is the bike that actor Todd Carty (Mark Fowler) rode in an episode of EastEnders. “Mind you, you could only see the rear tyre as he sped off,” says Philippa. We leave the stable block and soon arrive inside the aptly named Triumph barn. Here, Triumph bikes are .

Load more