bsa b31

Scooters, Bikes & Trikes

Leaving Shoeburyness after work meant that most of the journey was done in the dark and it was inevitably a lonely ride. It was well before motorways and bypasses so the route was right through everywhere. The road over the Pennines was just an ordinary road, no bypasses or dual carriageway with very little traffic in the night. Fortunately I only had one problem on the road and that was on my first ride down when the lights faded as I left the A1 at Baldock. The problem was that the battery had almost no electrolyte in it. I pulled into a pub car park and slept by the bike until daylight and and carried on at dawn and got to work on time. The battery was nursed back to life by the R.E.M.E. Soldiers on the Shoeburyness gun range and never gave an more trouble.

The winter rides were a challenge with goggles requiring regular cleaning stops. I wore two pairs of goggles which, with my spectacles gave me three sets of ‘windows’ to get dirty before I had to stop.

The BSA B31 was a 350cc single cylinder,four speed bike I bought in 1958 for return trips between Shoeburness in Essex and Cockermouth.

I had started work at the Eskmeals gun range in 1957 but in late 1958 the whole department moved to Shoeburyness in Essex. The route north west across was across Essex to join The Great North Road (A1) at Baldock in Hertfordshire. The A1 was left at Scotch Corner and over the Pennines to Penrith and on to Cockermouth, a distance of about 335 miles.

The B31 outside 2 Kirkfell Avenue