Just reading a recent book by Max Hastings, "All Hell Let Loose".

Around page 129 Hastings tells of British problems in the Middle East in 1941. The British lagged in this and that, he says: "German tanks were better...... the British tank recovery and repair system was weak, petrol tanks leaked" .... and so on.

Doesn't surprise me. I too had my experiences. Among my first motor cycles was an effort called the Royal Enfield RE 125, two stroke, 125 cc, Army surplus, hand-change three speed gear box.

These were advertised as designed for paratroop support equipment. Having landed, the paratrooper would look anxiously around and By Golly! there would be an entire manna of RE 125s descending all around by little parachutes for his personal transport to meet the Boche. Jolly Good Show!

The only snag with mine and every other example that I came across was the impossibity of getting the engine to start. Rarely indeed would that blessed experience come my way. I was never a paratrooper nor in a tank, but if that had happened to me at Arnhem or wherever, I should have felt resentful.

The only way to get mine started was to pull in the clutch lever, engage middle gear, push the RE 125 at a smart trot, let the clutch go, and occasionally the machine would start. Occasionally, that is. Then the "rider" made a smart leap into the saddle.

As a rule it would not. The lever laughingly called the "Kick-start" was there perhaps for decoration or at best exercise. It never worked. Not for me.

For the past fifty-odd years I have brooded on this, not all the time of course, but when I come across books like the one mentioned above. There are experts here on everything, pretty much. Any on the RE 125? If they owned one they must have been very healthy and fit at one time, from all the pushing, and may therefore still be with us.

The British motor-cycle industry is dead. Not hard to suspect at least one reason. Can anyone offer any history on an RE 125 that truly did work, for either paratrooper or post-war sucker?

I believe, by the way, that the bike that supplanted the RE 125 was the BSA Bantam 125 cc, a design pirated from -- Guess Who! -- the Germans at the end of the war.

I think you can still find the originals in India from bungalow to bungalow.

Royal Enfield-Classic Desert Storm- Pride and Excitement of the Battlefield (http://www.royalenfield.com/motorcycles/motor-cycles-models.aspx?model=25)

Then there was the Welbike? (http://home.earthlink.net/~flyboyken/id15.html)

You might get a better response with "Motorbike experts out there?", or even "RE 125 motorcycle experts out there?" :rolleyes:

Well, well; that engendered a bit of a flashback and, thanks to an amazing piece of luck with my filing system, I have pulled out the Registration Book for KPU86, a Royal Enfield 125cc motor cycle which I bought in 1960 as a non-runner believing, with the arrogance of an 18yo apprentice engineer, that I could get it to go.
I could not. Not, perchance, your old bike?

You should have hung on to it Mr Davaar it would probably be worth a few quid now.
Your steed?
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a194/Deaddogbay/ROYAL-ENFIELD-125-RE-1.jpg
:)

RE the German connection and slightly off thread, there I was in a bar (NSS) in the Middle East having a beer or three with a British flight engineer and two German pilot colleagues.
The conversation turned to motor bikes and one of the German pilots said that he had a Russian copy of the WW2 Wermacht motorcycle and sidecar.
He went on to say that they had two wheel drive, the motorcycle wheel connected by a common shaft to the sidecar wheel. We were suitably impressed, remarking upon the advantage this would confer on sand or mud.
Encouraged by our interest, our colleague then mentioned that the German combination also had a reverse gear.
You know when you have an 'Oh f**k!' moment? I just knew that the FE was going to say something but didn't have the confidence in my judgement to start talking just to prevent him saying anything so out it came:
"Well, that must have come in useful in North Africa!" :eek:

Shit in the carburetor.

(Don't do it - look for it !!)

Lid

Astonishingly Triumph has been successfully re-born , is profitable and is now a major brand in the 750 cc + (?) bracket .

The photo of the Enfield looks very much like a Bantam: which was the German make that gave it life ?

I think this explains things better
royal enfield flying flea - Home (http://royalenfieldflyingflea.weebly.com/)

Gentlemen, Thank you for replies.

Lon More: Your Welbike looks to me much like s form of "Corgi". I never had one myself, but knew a chap who did. He and a companion, both students, he on a Corgi and the other on an RE 350 ohv set forth to tour "the Continent", especially The East, in the dark days of 1950, both clad in kilt appropriate to his clan. They got as far as the Iron Curtain, where they were met with dropped jaws and incredulity on the part of the Guardians of Communist Purity, and denied forther progress. Such was the end of the Drang nach Osten.

Basil: You are too harsh on yourself. The fault was not in you but in the machine. Each one came with a Curse, and certainly ended with one.

Tony: Your picture far transcends mine. I had girder forks and hand change, nothing so luxurious as telescopic forks and foot change.

Flying: Sure! Could have been the carburettor. Who can tell? I tended to fault the ignition.

I think you're over complicating it. It's a *British* bike and designed to be airdropped. Of course it has some vital part that's impossible to fit correctly during assembly or repair but is supposed to drop into place after the hefty thump of a parachute landing while the bike's in its special alignment frame.

Either that or it's the 0 'g' during free fall that gets it positioned.

Quite obvious, really.

Corgis used to fly.


Google Image Result for http://motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/classic_bikes/brockhouse_folding_Scooter.jpg (http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&biw=1440&bih=796&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=17IgNxL8vfJZiM:&imgrefurl=http://motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/classic_bikes/brockhouse-corgi-classic-scooters.php&docid=vPnaq571MKXJAM&imgurl=http://motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/classic_bikes/brockhouse_folding_Scooter.jpg&w=480&h=405&ei=iUQnUO7FA4ftqAGMzYDQCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=609&sig=105844023666317149810&page=1&tbnh=147&tbnw=165&start=0&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:82&tx=107&ty=91)

The British motor-cycle industry is dead. Not hard to suspect at least one reason.I remember the days when, "If it doesn't leak oil, its run out of oil"

How right you are, Tins and siti.

One remembers the Morgan and its oil puddle, and the standard order at the petrol station in dear old Blighty: "Fill it up, please, and give me a couple of pints of oil".

And then the unease that constantly gnawed with the New World's: "Fill it please with Regular", tout simplement, with silence as to oil, even on the fifth or tenth or twentieth fill after a service. Was one not missing an essential element?

So: "And would you check the oil level, please. Oh, it's OK?"

(Followed by, sotto voce. "'It's OK!', you say. Yeah, so you say".; but it was OK, and the car but a modest Chevrolet).

Seeing a BSA 500 twin bleeding oil copiously from the sump I asked the owner, "Mate, is that a dry sump engine?"

He replied in the negative, so then I said, "Well it will be soon!"

The look on his mates faces was priceless...

I believe the BSA Bantam was a copy of an NSU (or was it a DKW?), except they reversed the negative (well it looked like they did).
My first bike was a '52 Bantam, then a B31, Norton, Ariel, Honda, Triumph, Matchless, BMW...I'm still riding that one!
The modern Triumphs seem to be doing well, and holding up.
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