Bored? Racer!

Scrap frame, sprung saddle and a Villiers motor (here in 2F autocycle guise),
and you're well on the way to a midget board racer. This one spotted (not by
me) at the Hotrod Hayride

I know, I know… it's a bit old-hat this midget board racer building. Pretty much everyone with a set of Poundland  spanners and their grandma's old Atco has knocked one together in the 10 minutes between arguing over football formations and ordering the next pint (do football enthusiasts discuss formations anymore or is that just Arthur Askey in The Love Match? Super movie by the way and stage play before it, especially if you like steam engines, 1950s Britain, Shirley Eaton and Danny Ross aka Alf Hall. "What's yer name lad?" "Alf ’All", "I'll catch yer if you do…" being typical of the exchanges therein. But I digress).

I've got a motor or engine, depending upon whether you get hot under the collar over what motorcycle power plants are called, and a sprung leather saddle. I've also got a hankering to build a board racer.

Not much to start with, admittedly.

The thing is, I like board racers, I like building stuff and, as detailed above, I've got a motor and a saddle doing not very much to earn storage space beneath the bench.

Villiers 1F: small, beautiful

The motor's a Villiers 1F which, frankly, is an easy way to begin cos the tinsy 98ccer is a complete two-speed, hand-change, unit construction power plant that's an eager performer in an attractively small package (a bit like Konnie Huq without the power plant stuff). Alternatively, I have a selection of Villiers mower engines in a variety of guises and configurations but then there's the difficulty of jury-rigging a clutch, no gearbox…and on and on blah.

The saddle is leather, sprung, and looks about right. Sitting down and moving forward then, are sorted. All I need now are frame and forks, wheels, white balloon tyres and upside-down handlebars – shouldn't be too difficult…

Sitting down is sorted…

Actually the greatest obstacle is not having any pipe-bending equipment which means adapting a frame to look right will be a matter of welding up odd bits of piping cut at angles to get the required curves. Not ideal, but there's not a lot of stress on the components and if it breaks up at 20mph going round the B&Q car park after they've shut up shop for the evening…well, it's hardly the Los Angeles Motordrome and I've probably had worse spills on my bicycle.

Watch this space.