No dyce

Triumph, Harley and (yes!) Honda dealer Skip Fordyce set up shop in 1941 in Riverside, California after a career in daredevil riding during the 1930s. Within a few years and following a move to larger premises at 3698 14th Street, Fordyce was popularly credited with having America’s largest motorcycle dealership. The Fordyce Riverside Harley dealership was sold in 2013.

SoCal so cool

Not that it looked quite like this when I was last in southern California visiting (among other things) NAMM at Anaheim and the Fender museum in Corona (some bastard nicked the camera at LAX before I’d downloaded the pics), but the quality of light is instantly recognisable as overwhelming and unforgettable, the wide streets stretch arrow-straight for miles, the palm trees grow like weeds at the roadside and everywhere, in all things, California speaks with a unique voice.

Good times, bad times

Gimme some of that…

Ironic that it’s the bad times – squatting at the side of the road fixing a puncture – which make the good memories right? As a student in the 1980s, living on a grant in central London, my primary mode of transport (other than the CZ combination documented elsewhere at Mondo) was a scrap of cardboard and my thumb. The card bearing a destination – 'Further' to paraphrase Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters – and my thumb frantically flagging down passing (unfortunately male) motorists generally interested only in the contents of my Levis than any desire to whisk me from A to there.

And of course it’s the trips that went horribly wrong that are the most memorable. I certainly won’t bore you by recounting them here, suffice it to say that the next time you’re crouched in the dust poking an unsuitable tool into a flat tyre in a bid to pry it from a recalcitrant rim, bear in mind you’re making memories. Good memories.

Balancing act

Bringing up the rear on a big twin in the California sunshine while wrestling an Agfa 120 Isolette folder…

Remember, if it ain't cool cycles…

…it ain't worth Jack!

The Black Rider – all aboard for derring-do in deepest Dorset!

It's 1953 and America is thrilling to, and not a little disgusted by, the gloriously anarchic, devil-may-care outlaw bikers as depicted in The Wild One, all dusty open roads, Perfecto black leather, hep jive talk and road captain hats worn at dangerously rakish angles.

Banned in Britain of course. Our roads are damp or frosty even in summer, leather is largely for the patched shoulders of roadmenders' donkey jackets, road captain hats are for bus conductors and we don't like 'slang' at any price, especially not the transatlantic variety, and those who try it come off as agonisingly awkward and uncomfortable (presaging British porn of 50 years or so later).

What we do have in common is a love of motorcycles and especially, but not exclusively, the Triumph variety. So fast forward a year to 1954 and here's the Brit answer to biker movies: The Black Rider, a pale and sickly cousin if ever there was one, featuring a sprinkling of c-list contract players of the day (with Lionel Jeffries and Kenneth Connor in early roles the exceptions), a thin plot about spies and miniature atom bombs guarded by a ghostly monk astride a BSA Bantam and a 'handsome' leading couple mounted on a lovely Triumph twin.

"I say Jerry, that's a damn fine mount", "Thanks old boy,
and the bike's none too shabby either!"

In fact, the movie's not half bad and anyone nostalgic for a lost era of helmetless ’50s outings will certainly spend an enjoyable 90 minutes in the company of cub reporter (and erstwhile army dispatch rider) Jerry Marsh as he foils the unpleasant plans of a lot of beastly foreigners bent on mischief with remotely-triggered atom bombs.

Set in the fictional Swanhaven, the locations are actually Swanage, Purbeck and Corfe Castle in Dorset and there's plenty of biking action including classic 1950s club trials and gymkhanas and a lovely insight into the 'compete sunday, ride to work monday' ethos of the day, when the luxury of two bikes was an impossible dream and you simply used your road-going machine with an entrant number stuck over the headlamp. Oh, for a return to what our American cousins cheerfully call: 'run what you brung'!

The glorious English countryside…

…and motorcycles, what could be better?

"Spotted any bleeding-heart tree-huggers Bert?" "Not this morning Sid,
I'd give it about another 50 years..."

"I'm afraid I've run over a few dozen small animals and decimated the
wild flower population Sid…" "Don't you worry about that Fred,
it's all good clean fun!"

The movie features a range of bikes including an Enfield Meteor, various Triumphs, BSAs, AJSs and Ariels, an Excelsior Villiers 250cc twin, and two scooters which I'm guessing are Douglas-built Vespas.

Douglas Vespa and Excelsior twin side by side

Egg & spoon race ’cycle style

There are some interesting registrations to be seen too including a brace of Warwickshire WDs on consecutively-numbered machines PWD17 (Jerry's Triumph) and PWD18, and a sprinkling of Birmingham OCs and OKs.

Jerry and his MC club chums prepare to foil Johnny Foreigner's wicked ways

Watch it here

NB Thanks to the forum members at Enfield parts supplier Hitchcock's for locating the source of the movie.

And when did you last see your Father?

Sometime in 1983 is the short answer, just before he died, which means I can't ask him about this picture – date, location and so on. However, I do know he owned a James in his late teens and here he is astride the machine in a recently discovered negative from a 127 roll film.

The bike is a mid-’50s 200cc James Captain in smart maroon livery with pinstriping detail on the tank. Beyond, at the top of the hill, is what looks like a Standard Eight (’53-’59).

I love the (probably inadvertent) painting-like quality of this photograph and for me, it epitomises all that motorcycling was in the 1950s: a care-free, no helmet ride on quiet roads with the sun always shining.