'Go play in traffic' is wrong for kids

 The kid was maybe a high school freshman, but probably even younger. He was riding what is usually called an "electric bicycle" on a two-lane road heavily used by commuters cutting through our neighborhood to get to work. 

The commuters are in a hurry, always, so traffic moves fast here. The city has installed "speed platforms" to slow things down, and they work, but 30 mph is still possible and seems very fast on this narrow, winding road. 

The kid was keeping up with the cars, his electric bike emitting a distressed whine at what probably was its top speed. 

He was using the "bicycle lane" on the edge of the road as if it was another full traffic lane. I saw him glance at the car running directly alongside him, only inches away. Was he worried? 

Trouble is, the bicycle lane is very narrow, not physically separated from the cars, and is not continuous. He'd have to negotiate those challenges — and at considerable speed.

He was dressed for school, in shoes, long pants and a back pack, and he was wearing a helmet. But his relatively high speed for conditions was working against his safety.

What would his parents — the people who likely purchased the machine for him — think if they saw him on the road?

Riding himself to school no doubt saves his parents the time and bother of dropping him off. Is that worth the risk? Probably he could take the school bus for free, in absolute safety.

Riding is, no doubt, more fun than the bus, and would enable him to stay after school if he wanted to participate in some school activity.

The electric bike is cheap to run, demands no registration or insurance, and no one enforces how fast it goes.

He is too young to even have a license to drive a car. No permit requires him to take a safety course and a test before hitting the road. 

Literally, hitting the road.

As a parent myself, and a licensed motorcyclist, I found the sight of this kid terrifying.

The child can not know the potential high cost of the risk he is taking with his life. He is the wrong person to be weighing how valuable those years hopefully to come can be.

Now, it's true that getting hit on an ordinary bicycle would be dangerous as well, and plenty of kids bicycle to school. I did.

I'll argue, though, that it is a different equation when speeds rise.

His electric "bicycle" is not automatically slower than the automobile traffic, on this residential street. That makes him unpredictable. At his speed, the kid I saw is dicing with traffic, not staying out of its way.

It's an unequal contest, and there is no doubt, in case of accident, who has everything to lose.

Now we're cooking with gas; finally

Plastic casing of gas line regulator mimics original metal version.

 I wrote here recently that one thing keeping me from riding my Royal Enfield was, of all things, the barbecue grill. 

"That's no excuse," you think. 

And I'd have agreed — a week ago. 

The issue first arose when the grill failed to light to cook dinner. It was very evidently out of gas. 

My wife retired to the kitchen, to use her stove, and I made plans to go exchange the used propane tank for a new one in the morning. 

So I did.

To my horror, opening the valve of the new tank to light the grill resulted in a rush of smelly gas from the tank. This occurred no matter how tightly I screwed on the regulator and hose assembly.

Evidently, my 10-year-old regulator-hose must be faulty, I thought. Perhaps the threads of the screw-on regulator had worn out.

I ordered a new assembly directly from the brand-name grill company, so as to be certain to get the correct replacement. Delivery took a week.

The new regulator appeared likely to fit, but I was disappointed to see that the regulator was now made of plastic, instead of the heavy metal of the original.

Incredibly, the name-brand grill company has fashioned the new plastic part to mimic the original metal part in appearance! I wasn't fooled.

But the new assembly did fit on my new tank. Ready for results, I opened the valve to light the grill.

Nothing happened. No matter what I did, no gas emerged from the tank.

What the...? As an experiment, I refit the old regulator. Still no gas. The problem must be the new tank!

So I took it back to the store. The clerks at this point weren't sure I knew what I was doing, but the tank was once again exchanged.

This time the grill did light.

Now wait a minute, you think: the guy says it took a week for the part to arrive, during which he did nothing. Couldn't he have ridden the motorcycle during that week?

Don't make me tell you about the refrigerator going on the blink...

Riding an Enfield with Henry Manney III

Garbed for colonial duty —in America.
(Cycle World Photo)

 Henry N. Manney III was a legendary automotive columnist whose writing invariably was salted with humorous wisecracks. 

I was delighted, recently, when I came across Manney's appreciation of the Royal Enfield Bullet of 1977, published that year in Cycle World magazine. 

Keep reading and I will submit for your appreciation some of what he wrote about the Royal Enfield 350. 

Or, you can read the whole article here. 

Somehow I had vaguely assumed Manney the Third was British. He did put on a faux Colonel Blimp accent ("...they may well larf...") for the Royal Enfield article. 

But no, he was an American, born in Virginia, the son of a decorated Marine colonel and grandson of an admiral. 

A World War II veteran himself, he used his G.I. Bill educational benefits to take ballet lessons. He'd have seen the humor in that.

He raced cars (including the tiny Crosley Hotshot), and became a motorsports journalists in 1955, when invited to submit an article for Motorcycling magazine.

Discovering that, as a journalist, he could get into races for free, "I have never looked back," he wrote.

His description of racing in the 1957 Mille Miglia in his Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce was a true classic of his style. He was the passenger (navigator), but his main role was "extruding the floorboards with my legs" as the car approached turns.

Today, Manney's many jibes at India, Indians and the Royal Enfield of that day could raise an eyebrow. Or two. But some context is necessary.

In the day, it was clear to readers that Manney was joshing. His digs were meant to be read as endearments. Obviously exaggerated and outdated, even when they were written, his criticisms typically brought a rueful smile, even from victims.

Among those victims would be the readers, whom Manney playfully demanded know what he meant by dubbing the Bullet a "coelacanth." That's a fish thought extinct for 66 million years, but found alive in 1938. You couldn't just Google that definition in 1977.

Nothing and no one was immune to his deliberate slander, which always seem to be made more in passing than in anger. How could you take it seriously?

It helped that Manney posed for goofy pictures of himself in costume, to accompany some articles. This one shows him dressed like a Victorian colonial gentleman. He once posed for an article dressed in a suit of armor.

I think it's fair to say that Manney wrote for an audience that would understand his asides.

An example here is his repeated insistence that the Royal Enfield Bullet did not need its neutral finder lever because neutral was "child's play to find" on an Enfield!

Later he would add "you could find neutral with your eyes closed."

Though he never explained, I assume, by this, he was making the point that a "false neutral" lurks between every gear on those old Albion gearboxes.

So, it's easy to find a neutral, wanted or not, right?

The neutral finder lever is often the only way to find the intended neutral. It's not useless; it's indispensable. But never mind.

Manney certainly would have believed that, if you recognized his distinctive byline, you were looking for entertainment.

And I like to think that he also believed that if you were interested in an article on the Royal Enfield Bullet you probably already were sold on liking it, flaws and all.

He died in 1988. I miss him still.

Quotes:

"Just getting on the bike shoots one backward 30 years in time — a time with clean teenagers, cheap gas and about 1/100th of the stoplights we now have."

"What we have here is a motorcycle for people

who

like

motorcycles

to look like motorcycles and act like them, preferably English motorcycles of the early Fifties."

"The whole picture may seem a bit dumpy in these days of streamlined cylinder head nuts, and the Madras Enfield budget apparently doesn't extend to buying quite enough spaghetti to cover the electrical wiring completely, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"He rode it straight through the shop to the accompaniment of the clatter of downed tools and remarks like why would anybody want to restore an Enfield? followed by you don't mean that's NEW?"

"Gracious me, how the twilight of the British Raz has lingered on in Madras as, for old time's sake, the Enfield even showed the statutory float bowl drip and occasional oil leak."

"About the only complaints I can think of, as I really like the bike, are a too-stiff throttle return spring, miniscule grips, and a front brake too tiny and inefficient to ever stop before nailing your ever present sacred cow."

"Long stroke is not dead, good shifting is not dead: long live a 350 overhead that feels like a fussless 500 flathead! join us as we putt off into the distance on our Instant Classic..."

One final swipe, although possibly an honest error: the "Specification" box attached to the article lists the Enfield lubrication system as "wet sump."

Yeah; but it's supposed to be a dry sump system (I say, as I wave away clouds of oil smoke on start-up).

Here's what it looks like when a Royal Enfield Bullet "wet sumps."

Just let me ride my Royal Enfield!

 I am miserable. I haven't ridden my Royal Enfield motorcycle in weeks. 

Life, as they say, has intervened. 

Only in small ways, fortunately. I am healthy, for my age. My immediate family is not in crisis, although there are some health challenges ahead. 

Officially I don't even "work." I am "retired." 

Some retirement. The list of duties is laughably small, but it's enough to be distracting.

It's summer; the yard needs tending. The barbecue grill is out of gas. My wife thinks the air conditioner is failing. Friends came over for lunch (a welcome diversion). 

My mailbox is crammed with pleas for help from organizations that aid people facing starvation, or death from disease or missile attack. What right have I to complain?

And yet, I do.

I know that it is me who is making me miserable. I'm focusing on the wrong stuff.

My key problem is the struggle with technology and modern "conveniences." In the process I  have virtually managed to derange my entire digital life as I flounder with online apps, sign-on protections, and general paranoia.

Today I had to admit to myself that I am no longer really a motorcyclist. I am a motorcycle blogger who spends time he should be riding instead wrestling with the internet.

Yesterday's hassle, with my "domain provider," left me unsure whether I still have a domain (although I paid for it), how safe it is, and what its password might be?

Last night I dreamed I was back in college, with an essay due at a 10 a.m. class. All I could do was bash out a plea for more time on the back of a menu from a Chinese restaurant, using a broken typewriter. I began running, barefoot, across campus to deliver it, knowing I would be late and the teacher would refuse.

For some reason the path I was running on was ankle deep in water. I never got to class.

That's what it's like, for me, dealing with the internet!

Luckily I know the cure. All I have to do is ride my motorcycle.

Motorcycles rode the rails in Norway

Norwegian made Tempo motorcycle with Sachs fan-cooled motor, converted to run on railroad tracks.

 My wife and I took a ride this summer down the Flåm Railway in Norway, on the way to a fjord cruise. 

For great scenery the ride on the railroad rivaled the cruise through two famous fjords. 

That's because the railroad is very steep as it descends from the top of a mountain range to sea level. 

Its claim to being Europe's steepest standard railway relies on the fact that its steel wheels run on ordinary rails. No racks or cogs to keep this train from skidding off. 

The train does have back-up braking systems, though, and the freight it carries is limited, to prevent building up too much speed.

Two 180-degree curves help level things out, too. Impressively, one of those big turns is inside a tunnel. No scenery inside there, unfortunately.

Very popular with tourists, the Flåmbana, as it is called, gets its own museum, at the end of the line in Flåm, Norway.

That's where you board a boat (hardly big enough to be called a ship, although cruise ships do visit this port) to carry on your journey through the world-class fjords.

But first, you should visit the railway museum. It's free, and right there on the docks. It houses a 1944 electric railway locomotive and, incredible to me, vintage motorcycles.

Rude and crude. Sachs powered railroad bike, carrying the rider's skis.

Yup, motorcycles. Motorcycles that ran on railroad tracks, with the help of a third wheel on an outrigger, sidecar style.

Dubbed "fireflies" by their riders, the odd devices were used for track maintenance and inspection — weather permitting, I assume.

A video in the museum explains that the obviously crude devices, originally pedaled like bicycles, weren't expected to crawl back up the steep railroad. They only went downhill, being loaded onto trains for the trip back up.

Old photo in museum shows riders on a pedal-powered firefly.

You only have to look at them to realize how dangerous they'd be to ride. Speeds of 60 kmph could be achieved downhill, and even a rock on a rail could mean disaster, according to a worker shown in the video.

There were fatalities, up to 1988. The fireflies were replaced with four-wheeled vehicles that must have been more stable, and even offered weather protection.

Similar three-wheeled handcars were used in other countries, of course. I have never come across any others with motorcycle power, but that seems like a natural step. Their formal name seems to be "draisine."

EL9 locomotive in the museum had five braking systems, including rail brakes. They were the first to have electrical resistance braking.

The Flåmbana is really just a 12-mile spur line off the main railroad from Oslo to Bergen. It has 20 tunnels. A river adjacent to its route was put into water tunnels to reduce the number of railroad bridges necessary. That's engineering.

Building the line, from 1923-1947, was a major expense. It cost lives not just in accidents but, for the miners, the fatal lung disease silicosis.

German occupiers continued the construction project through World War II. The area was strategically important — a ship sunk by the Luftwaffe during the invasion of 1940 remains under water in the fjord at Flåm.

The train stops so passengers can view the Kjosfossen waterfall. Look closely to the left of the ruined building for a sight of the fairy/witch of the valley. Not too close, gentlemen; she's a seducer.

Civilian passenger traffic increased after the war, but the line was always in danger of being closed down as a sort of railroad-to-nowhere, especially after a year-around automobile route to the region opened in the 1990s. 

Investments in facilities and rolling stock, and the creation of branded "Norway in a Nutshell" tourist packages, helped save the line.

The Flåmbana has been called one of Europe's most scenic trains.

In two weeks of riding trains in central Norway, I came to feel that the whole country is curated for attractiveness. Mountains and streams are a given, of course, but those romantic looking farmsteads always in the distance...

View from the Flåmbana.

New magazine features Royal Enfield

"1901" is the name of a new magazine devoted to Royal Enfield. 

 Named "1901" for the first year Royal Enfield built motorcycles, a slick new magazine seeks to promote the brand while exciting "riders who live by just one code — the motorcycling way of life." 

Volume 01, 2026 is online now, and it is impressive for its high quality photos and interesting stories. 

It describes itself as "First published in India by HarperVintage 2026, an imprint of HaperCollins Publishers." 

Copyright is held by six individuals. Beyond that, it's a bit coy, explaining: 

"These are stories about motorcycling and experiences it enables the riders to live. 

"The fact that the machines are all Royal Enfields, well that is just a happy coincidence. Or is it?"

Well, maybe not, since the publication is featured on the RoyalEnfield.com website.

Online, 1901 looks and "turns pages" like a glossy print magazine. The copyright page states that it is "Printed and bound at Thomson Press (India) Ltd." That suggests it is a physical magazine, but no "cover price" or subscription information appears.

Online, the magazine format means the photographs are lush and lavishly display. But I had to constantly zoom in to read the type. Obviously, this gets annoying.

The nine stories in Volume 01 are:

The Last Degree — Santhosh Vijay's account of motorcycling to the South Pole.

Custom Act — Norman Fields' description of a vintage custom show bike built around a Royal Enfield iron barrel motor.

Chasing the Buddha — Santosh Vijay dares to penetrate the Tibetan plateau against all the rules.

Factory Reset — Kartik Ware enters Royal Enfield's first factory in India, built in 1955 in Chennai.

Peak Valley  — Santhosh Vijay on experiencing the Mustang Valley of Nepal for the first, but not the last time.

The Last Potters of Likir — Clifton Shipway visits the vanishing practitioners of a thousand-year-old craft.

Easy on the Ice — Louis Rudd crosses the Ladakh region of the Himalayas in winter, when the road is closed.

Story of My Life — Kartik Ware fulfills his father's dream of riding his 1975 Bullet back to the factory where it was built.

The Bike Bandit — Rishad Saam Mehta on escaping from a mountain man who demanded to have his Bullet.

It's all fun reading. As you see, life changing adventures in the high mountains dominate. The magazine is aimed at an audience in India, and at one point it presents several lines of untranslated Hindi. (You'll get the drift, in context.)

Ironically, for a magazine devoted to a brand of motorcycle, the South Pole episode highlights the quote "I'd never been so glad to not ride a motorcycle in my life."

The Story of My Life article lingers long on how unreliable the old Royal Enfield Bullets were. As usual, in tales of travel by Royal Enfield, this disaster prone tendency is treated as somehow endearing. 

You would not find this in a magazine devoted to Honda.

The last "page" closes the book with the Royal Enfield cannon logo — probably not a coincidence.

Will there be a Volume 02? When? Next month? Next quarter? Next year? This is not revealed.

So don't wait. Go read "1901," or, at least, feast your eyes on the gorgeous photos it contains.

Who was the girl in the Royal Enfield ads?

A man and woman seated on Royal Enfield motorcycles gaze at one another. But her face is turned away.

 Who is she? An intriguing wartime Royal Enfield photograph, undoubtedly shot for an advertisement, shows a young woman with her face turned away from the camera. She hasn't been identified, as far as I know. 

But I think I do know her name. Follow along as I explain: 

The photo was probably one of several meant for a series of patriotic Royal Enfield advertisements placed in late 1941. 

As was the practice at the time, the photos used would be traced by an artist to make highly detailed drawings. The finished drawings would be used in the ads. Of course, to Royal Enfield, the precise details of the motorcycles shown were much more important than the exact features of the human models used. 

In the process of producing the ads, details (presumably even including the clothes) could be changed and "mistakes" removed. For instance, in the photograph, props are seen holding the motorcycles steady. Those would have to be erased. 

But some unusual details remained that I think give away the identity of the young woman. 

In late 1941, World War II in Europe was beginning to look up for Britain. 

While the United States was still not in the war at her side, the U.S. was beginning to supply armaments in quantity. Meanwhile, Germany had attacked the Soviet Union in May, which at least distracted the Luftwaffe's attention.

As Christmas approached, Royal Enfield decided to place a series of patriotic advertisements looking toward prospects for happier times to come.

The ads would suggest the Royal Enfields of the peaceful future, with civilian paint, set in nostalgic countryside settings. The young couple shown are nicely dressed. Him always in a suit, usually with striped tie, her in a variety of outfits.

It's partly the man's suit, striped tie, the high part in his hair, and the curls in her hair that encourage me to think all the photos for this series feature not only the same man, but the same woman, despite her clothing changes.

Royal Enfield motorcycles weren't for sale to civilians in 1941, of course, but the company apparently wanted to remind potential future customers of the joys of riding. The ads ran in both leading motorcycle magazines — dates varied.

As far as I can tell, the first ad in the series was entitled "There'll Come Another Day," placed in The Motor Cycle on Aug. 7, 1941. This shows the young lady, dressed in what may be a woman's horse riding outfit (jodhpurs), pausing to talk with a horse rider engaged in that distinctly British sport: hunting.

Her clothes are different but her curls and the motorcycle are the same.

The copy is corny, but optimistic: "When we're no longer petrol-conscious and signposts guide the way, we'll ride down Victory's pleasant lanes and along Peacetime's happy highroads..."

Note the references to gas rationing and the removal of road signs to foil German invaders! The ad includes a reminder to support the National Air Raid Distress Fund.

The second ad in the series was "There'll Always Be An England," placed in Motor Cycling on Oct. 23, 1941. Our girl is now dismounted and wearing a skirt. The ad title is a reference to a patriotic song that includes the lyric "There'll always be an England, while there's a country lane..."

Another outfit.

It's certainly a pleasant association for motorcyclists, and the ad copy takes advantage of it, reading: "There'll always be an England, whilst there's a country lane to ride down on that brand new after-the-war Royal Enfield Motor Cycle."

Then came "It's a Lovely Day To-Morrow," placed in Motor Cycling on Nov. 6, 1941. Here again, it's based on a song title, this time written by American Irving Berlin, but first performed in London, in 1939. British singer Vera Lynn recorded it in 1940.

Different clothes, again.

The ad copy began "When Victory has been achieved, we'll ride once more through the England that is ours, ten times more conscious of its beauty..."

That speaks of determination. They'd need it, as rationing and sacrifice in Britain did not end with the end of the war.

"What More Can We Ask?" appeared in The Motor Cycle on Dec. 11, 1941. Here we have our young couple posed just as they are in the original photograph, although the woman is, once again, not in the same clothes.

Different outfit but the same pose as the original photo.

The ad copy here suggests that all we really need is sunshine and a new Royal Enfield, and England as "her old happy self."

As far as I can tell, this was the end of the original patriotic series of ads. But the photo would get one more outing.

Years later, as Victory in Europe approached, there was "Joys to Look Forward To," an ad placed in The Motor Cycle on April 26, 1945. The copy is very similar to that of the original series, but adds a twist: "When the guns have fired their last shots..." there will be motorcycles "Made Like a Gun." Clever.

As the war in Europe came to an end, someone remembered this.

So who is the woman?

According to Anne Bradford, author of the book "Royal Enfield, The Story of the Company and the People Who Made It Great: 1851-1969," the young woman riding the back of the motorcycle in the ad "It's A Lovely Day To-Morrow" is Royal Enfield employee Barbara Seviour. This is the one positive identification we have.

In the book, Barbara talks about posing.

"Royal Enfield sometimes asked me to model for them. I'm featured in two 1941 advertisements sitting with a young man on a motor bike. The illustrations are sketched from photographs. I would hasten to add that I was used as a model not so much for my looks but for the simple fact that, as Tony Wilson-Jones's secretary, I was on hand. He was the technical manager of the experimental department which looked after buyers' interests and he therefore worked closely with Ed Blanden in the publicity department."

She is too modest about her looks. She was, after all, chosen Redditch Carnival Queen in 1943.

True, she mentions only "two" advertisements. But note that she says Royal Enfield "sometimes" asked her to pose. Were the two advertisements she mentioned just meant as examples (a "for instance"), and she in fact posed for still others?

Let's look at the five advertisements, taking them from the first one, entitled "There'll Come Another Day," with our girl, wearing horse riding pants, seated on a motorcycle and looking at a rider on a horse.

Her posture is very similar to the original photo, but not exact: she doesn't have her left hand on the handlebar, as she does in the photo, the tilt of her head is different and the wheel of the motorcycle is not turned to the left. Perhaps this pose was a companion shot to our original photograph.

Which makes sense, because SHE IS SITTING ON THE VERY SAME MOTORCYCLE. Pay no attention to the registration number on the front fender. The artist added the mythical "R.E.1941."

What is distinctive is that the motorcycle is a flathead Model CO with a civilian tank and paint at a time when Royal Enfield was making only military models. The photo was shared with me by an expert on wartime Royal Enfield motorcycles.

That motorcycle is a prototype, the rare sort of thing only the factory would have, and appropriate in an ad praising the new motorcycles they'd be able to ride when peace comes.

She is in pants, practical shoes, and riding gloves, when the other ads show her with bare legs and hands, and high heels. The ad wants to associate her with riding to the hunt.

The artist may had to change a lot of details, and perhaps the ad was based on a lost companion to the original photo we have, but how many curly haired young women got to sit on that rare motorcycle?

Next came "There'll Always be an England," with our girl dismounted and looking at a pair of piglets. Here again she is not dressed as in the original photo, but the gentleman certainly is: striped tie, pocket handkerchief, hair parted just off center.

What about the woman? Look back at the original photo, at her right wrist. She's wearing a wristwatch, somewhat unusually, on the right wrist. If you strain your eyes looking at the ad you can see what probably is that wristwatch on that right wrist.

See the wristwatch on the right wrist? Now compare the shoes to the original photo.

How unusual is it to wear a wristwatch on the right? Lots of people are left handed. But that doesn't explain it. My father was left handed, but wore his watch on the left. Most wristwatches of that day have the winding/adjusting knob on the right side of the case — it's difficult to adjust the watch or (in 1941) even keep it wound if it is on the right hand. This is very unusual. Our girl is one in thousands even if she happens to be left handed.

Case closed? Almost. Look at her shoes. The shoes in the ad feature the same backward swirl seen in the shoes of the original photo. She changed her outfit (or the artist changed it for her), but the shoes were unchanged.

Next up is "It's a Lovely Day To-Morrow," and we know from Anne Bradford's book that this is Barbara Seviour, riding pillion. Her outfit has changed again, but look closely and you'll see the same right-hand wristwatch and the backward swirl on the shoes.

Wristwatch and shoe in photo and ad. We know from Anne Bradford that this ad shows Barbara Seviour, so it must be her in the original photo.

And now, at last, comes "What More Can We Ask?" and we see the exact pose of the original photograph, with the young couple gazing into one another's eyes. Her outfit has changed again, certainly the work of the final artist, as the pose is otherwise perfectly identical to the photo.

Why all the outfit changes? Keep in mind that this series of four ads was meant to run one after the other. The gentleman could wear the same tie, as nobody was looking at him. The woman's clothes could not escape attention.

But, then, there was one more!

"Joys To Look Forward To" appeared at the war's end, re-using the pose in the original photo. Someone remembered the ad series, and thought it appropriate, now that the peace so desired was finally come.

It had been a long time since "What More Can We Ask" so it was judged OK not to bother drawing a new outfit for the woman.

Barbara Seviour's memories of Royal Enfield appear in Anne Bradford's book. Fortunately, there is a bit more about Barbara in the out-takes from the book that the author put in the custody of the Royal Enfield Owners Club (UK) and the Redditch Library. And there are some basic facts on MyHeritage.

Barbara's maiden name was Lealand. Her father and only sister (Cynthia R. Lealand) also worked for Royal Enfield. She went to work at 18, in the offices of the Redditch factory in 1940. She admired her boss, "Mr. Wilson-Jones," who was kind enough to help when she couldn't make out the shorthand dictation she took from him.

Her recollections of wartime ("it was so exciting working during the war") are those of a young girl experiencing the challenges and dangers of the home front, with her eye on a young man. Harold Thomas Seviour had joined Royal Enfield in the Industrial Engine Department during the war and rose to be an executive. 

She felt it was "the biggest mistake of my life" when, after the war, she left Royal Enfield to commute to a job at BSA in Birmingham. It was a relief when, having found a home to rent in Studley, she and Harold could marry and she could leave work. Former boss Wilson-Jones was best man at her wedding.

When Royal Enfield was sold to E and H.P. Smith in 1962, Harold was made redundant. "He was devastated... he loved work and his whole life revolved around it." Unemployed for two years, his health began to fail and this would force him to finally retire after 10 years at a new job.

Barbara Mary Seviour passed away in 2010, at 87.

My analysis may be all wrong, but it seems certain to me that the young stenographer and carnival queen did her duty posing as a patriotic inspiration when having hope for a better future was not only natural, but vital.

I'd like to know more about her. Anybody?

Illustrations for this article came from Rockers Bike Ads database.

The best collection of high-quality prints of these advertisements for sale I have seen is TheNostalgiaShop in the UK. 

How Royal Enfield workers talked

Slang words and phrases always fascinate me.

 The Three Lions Pub in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, advertises itself as an authentic British pub. 

The decor certainly makes an effort, including a clever framed sign, "I Want to Be British, Then I Could Say..." And then it lists and defines some pretty familiar slang expressions. 

You will recognize most of them. 

But see if you recognize these additional Britishisms below (definitions are at the end of this item). 

I came across them (and had to look them up on the Internet) while reading outtakes from Anne Bradford's book "Royal Enfield, The Story of the Company and the People Who Made It Great, 1851-1969." 

Bradford's book is composed of conversational contributions from the people who worked in Royal Enfield's UK factories up to 1969. Their language is sprinkled with delightful terms of that place and time.

Do you know what they mean?

"My foreman was Harry Hay, he was a proper toff." — Wilf Kinchin

"Those of us who were not on tour used to doss down on the factory floor by the old cost office." — Wilf Kinchin

"In those prewar days nearly everybody had an allotment and a 'pig on the wall.'" — Edna Kinchin

"Apprentices were not, as a general matter, treated as navvies." — Mac McGowan

"I used to collect up the orders for the canteen from the men and get their Tizer." — Mervyn Panting

"We finished stocking after two days and spent the rest of the week doing crosswords and playing noughts and crosses." — Mervyn Panting

"I've never known a palaver like it!" — Raymond Jones

"Being a stroppy youngster..." — Paul Savage

"They went into twinsets and straight skirts and that was it." — Sally Hawthorne

"He was as fair as he could be in those days  —  a foreman had to be the gaffer." — Wilf Kinchin

"We went in two charabancs." — Harry Hughes

"He was a tubby man, a bit shandy." — Louise Challice

"Albert was off sick, he was probably swinging the lead." — John Latter

"If you wanted you could have a ha'porth of milk in your tea." — Bert Wedgebury

"The Tannoy had been installed during the war to warn the workers if any enemy planes were coming over." — Eddie Wright

DEFINITIONS

Proper toff — Stylishly dressed upper class man.

Doss down — Bed down in a convenient place.

Pig on the wall — A joking phrase about a simpleton lifting a pig so it could look over a wall to see a passing parade, but in context it seems more likely the meaning here is that the family had a dressed and smoked pig in the larder.

Navvies — Common laborers.

Tizer — Citrus flavored orange soft drink.

Noughts and crosses  — Tic-tac-toe.

Palaver — A fuss.

Stroppy youngster — A difficult or contrary child.

Twinsets —  A matching pair of women's sweaters, a pullover and a cardigan, intended to be worn together.

Gaffer — Manager. Context here is that the foreman had to take charge.

Charabancs — Horse drawn or open topped coaches.

Shandy — Redheaded.

Swinging the lead — Dodging work. A sailor tasked with measuring the depth of the water would swing a lead weight ahead on a knotted rope and then, when the ship passed directly over the lead, now on the bottom, announce its depth. Pulling up the weight was hard work, so the sailor would swing the rope as long as he could get away with before letting it fly.

Ha'porth — A halfpenny's worth; in other words, not very much.

Tannoy — The first public address system of loud speakers for buildings.

Royal Enfield remembers which way is up

A simple Royal Enfield motorcycle can teach lessons.

 I suppose you could say my old Royal Enfield motorcycle keeps me "grounded."

It might be better to say that my old Royal Enfield motorcycle keeps me "humble."

My mistake would be in ever thinking that I am, in any way, smarter than the men and women who designed and created this physical wonder of metal and petroleum products that, operated as intended, turns noise and heat into mobility.

And, yet, I forget this basic rule: The Royal Enfield motorcycle may be a simple, single-cylinder machine, but it knows which way is up. And it insists on it.

A Royal Enfield most recently brought me down to earth when I encountered an eBay advertisement out of Texas for a 1957 Indian Fire Arrow, a 250cc motorcycle built by Royal and marketed in the U.S. by Indian dealers.

It's an obviously rare and, to me, historically interesting motorcycle. The seller admitted not knowing much about it. He wrote:

"Southwest desert motorcycle. Frame and gas tank were stripped and repainted years ago. Has been in indoor storage for 35 years. Basket case motorcycle I don’t know anything about these. Includes everything pictured and a clear New Mexico title."

Among "everything pictured" was a photograph of the frame number. Here was a chance to get some real information!

The frame number.

I copied the photo of the frame number onto my computer, and rotated it to make it easier to read left-to-right. Then I wrote an email to Graham Scarth, of the Royal Enfield Owners Club, who keeps track of Royal Enfield numbers.

Rotating, zooming in and brightening the photo makes it easier.
And wrong.

"Looks like it might be 36001 to me," I wrote to Graham. He caught my error at once.

"Hi David," he replied.  "The frame number reads from top to bottom and is 10096."

Well, that's what I get. I was too lazy to read the number vertically, so I had rotated the photo, turning the numerals not only sideways, but upside down!

What I had taken for a distorted "3" was a distorted "6." What I had taken for a "6" was a "9."

It is easy to forget that, although everything is now on electronic screens, we still live in a real, physical world, in which there is still such a thing as "right side up."

Luckily, I have Royal Enfields to remind me.

Find the motorcycle in this picture

Motorcycles can make us feel both powerful and small.

 "Why we ride." 

It's a phrase motorcyclists keep trying to complete. 

"Why we ride" has many explanations. Riders probably will not agree on all of them. 

Why do we ride? For the mountains, the prairies, the straights, the curves, the company, the solitude, the joy, the relief, the excitement, the thrill, the relaxation, the destinations. 

All of those, plus a lot more. 

It's safe to say, though, that when I pick up my quarterly copy of "Blue Ridge Motorcycling," the emphasis will not be on speed. 

"I ride to escape computer screens," editor-in-chief Michael E. Gouge writes in his Notes From the Road column in the Summer, 2026 edition, recently arrived in my mailbox.

"The summer weather adds to my enjoyment of today's road trip," he explains.

"I glance down at the (route) numbers I wrote on masking tape attached to the gauge cluster. I have the usual navigation gadgets like most long-distance riders, but they tend to annoy and distract me...

"I keep thinking how great it feels to be back on the bike heading out for a three-day adventure, exploring backroads I've never ridden. The sky shines so bright it hurts my eyes."

Well, alright, we now know what kind of coverage to expect as we page through this magazine.

The Summer edition contains at least two articles by writer Michael Erwin, who also favors taking time to appreciate the scenery.

"On a clear day, you can look a very long way and still not see anything that needs improving," he writes. Well, at least you can from the Blue Ridge.

And he proves it by stopping his ride at all four of the scenic overlooks on his route through the mountains.

Here are some more words from him to ponder:

"There is a modern disease among riders, and perhaps among Americans generally, that causes us to hurry through beautiful places so we can say later we covered them. Route 150 encourages better manners...

"Motorcycles are full of useful contradictions, and one of them is this: They make you feel both powerful and small...

"These are not dramatic side trips. They are modest, civilizing pauses that make a day ride feel generous rather than efficient. The nature center tells you what you are seeing. The lake gives you a place to sit still long enough to believe it...

"Fuel up before you go. Carry water. Do not assume lunch will appear at the next bend in gravy form. This is not deprivation. It is simply the old rule of mountain travel. The place does not organize itself around your appetite...

"Sit down long enough for ice tea to sweat on the table and you notice how people talk, how they nod to one another, how the place wears its wear and tear...

"There was a time when I judged a road mostly by how quickly it could be ridden. That is one of the less useful enthusiasms of youth. A scenic highway deserves better than conquest. It deserves attention. Speed can heighten sensation, but it can also erase memory...

"The motor is not frantic, and I am not heroic. The day becomes less about performance than fluency...

"The best motorcycle roads are not always the fastest, hardest or most famous. Sometimes the best ones are the roads that help you notice your own life again."

The legendary fire that destroyed the original Royal Enfield factory

Fire fighters couldn't save the blazing factory.

 Half a century before Royal Enfield motorcycles were made in India, they were produced in the English industrial midlands, in the town of Redditch, an ancient village that by the 1870s had become the center of the needle and fishing tackle industry. 

Incredibly, it's claimed that Redditch and surrounding districts made 90 percent of the world's needles by the 1870s. (I was amazed when my wife found a circa-1935 packet of Redditch needles in a sewing kit left by the elderly previous owners of our house!) 

From precision engineering of pins and needles grew new technologies, first of bicycles, and then of motorcars and motorcycles.

There's a plaque on the wall of a building on Hewell Road, in Redditch, marking the location of the immense factory that once stood around it, turning out Royal Enfield bicycles and motorcycles by the thousands.

You can see a photo of that building on Jorge Pullin's blog, My Royal Enfields. (Jorge has done a series of articles about Royal Enfield factories in Britain.)

But the Hewell Road factory wasn't the birth place of Royal Enfield. The bicycle and motorcycle company grew out of a building then just outside Redditch, in a building where sewing pins had been made.

Until last week, the site of that original Royal Enfield factory was unmarked. The location is at 196 Enfield Road, in the leafy Redditch district of Hunt End. (Of course the road wasn't originally called "Enfield Road" before the Enfield Cycle Co. located there; it had been called Hunt End Lane, a name since reapplied to a new road in a nearby subdivision.)

Royal Enfield historian Gordon May relates history of the Hunt End Works before unveiling of the new plaque. Project Origin, a replica of the first Royal Enfield motorcycle, is at left.

The plaque in place.

The new plaque was placed June 21 on the remains of a brick wall said to have surrounded the original factory. The wall is all that's left now. 

That's because the factory burned beyond saving in a dramatic fire on March 8, 1969.

The first factory was built, sometime after 1851, as a needle factory named "Givry Works." The Red Lion pub was on Enfield Road nearby, and may have been associated with the factory: workers likely got part of their pay in tokens for use in the pub. (The pub still stands on Enfield Road.)

The Red Lion pub saw Royal Enfield come and go next door.

Expanded over time, the Givry Works at Hunt End was producing bicycles by 1888. Those bicycles eventually began being branded as Royal Enfields.

This is where the first Royal Enfield motorcycle would have been assembled, in 1901.

By the Spring of 1904 this factory in Hunt End had added a purpose built-facility, between the original Givry Works and the Red Lion pub, specifically for production of motorcycles and motor cars.

The Hunt End Works, circa 1904, with new addition in the foreground.

Despite economic ups and downs, the Enfield Cycle Co. then managed to approve construction of the different, much grander factory, on Hewell Road in Redditch proper.

Royal Enfield would move out of the Hunt End factory in 1907, repurchase it in 1912, and finally vacate it for good in 1920.

The Hunt End Works would go on to serve other businesses, eventually becoming a storage facility for Dunlop Tyres.

The Hunt End Works in 1935, when it housed Batteries Limited. 
Note Red Lion pub at extreme left. (Historic England Photo)

And this sets up the story of former Enfield employee Les "Kipper" Gibbs, who was, by 1969, a Dunlop employee.

In Anne Bradford's book "Royal Enfield, The Story of the Company and the People Who Made It Great," Gibbs told how he was the last worker out of the Dunlop warehouse the Saturday of the fire.

He found it ironic that a former Royal Enfield man was the last one out of the first Royal Enfield factory before it was gone forever.

Whoever told it, the tale gets more colorful yet. According to the RedditchVirtualMuseum:

"One of the caretakers liked a hot lunch so at midday he would take an old tyre up to the top floor, spread it out, put his little stove in the centre and heat his lunch. Unfortunately, one day he went to sleep. When the fire brigade arrived they discovered that all the water pipes in Redditch were (what they described as) Victorian and very narrow, and totally impossible to carry enough water to put out a fire. They had to get water from Redditch."

The Redditch Indicator covered the fire.

The Redditch Indicator newspaper captured the blaze in a full-page story the next day, Sunday, March 9, 1969, with photographs. The Redditch Library reproduced the newspaper page in a Facebook post in 2021.

The type is too small to read the Redditch Indicator article in the Facebook post, but an account from the Sunday Birmingham Mercury is online at the British Newspaper Archive, and is readable. Some excerpts:

"At Redditch, in the biggest fire of the day nearly 20,000 car tyres went up in flames at the Dunlop Tyre Company's storage depot. Fifty firemen from all parts of Worcestershire and reinforcements from Warwickshire fought the huge blaze for hours before getting it under control.

"The depot is one of the biggest of Dunlop's 50 storage depots. A huge pall of smoke rose high over Redditch and flames leaping 60 feet into the air could be seen in Birmingham, 16 miles away.

"A Dunlop spokesman said: 'A large number of Mini car tyres are stored at this depot and it may result in temporary shortage of some sizes of tyres for perhaps a week or a fortnight...'

"The fire in the depot at Enfield Road, Hunt End, was discovered just after six o'clock last night. One half of the building was alight when firemen arrived.

Fire fighters arrived to find the Hunt End Works ablaze.

"The man who gave the alarm, Mr. Samuel Brookes, is the owner of a timber yard next door to the store.

"He said: 'I saw black smoke coming from the roof. After I told the fire brigade I saw the roof rapidly disintegrate as flames shot 60 feet into the air. It was fantastic...'

"Last man to leave the store was the gateman Mr. Edgar Vale who locked up at 12:45 p.m. The night man was not due to report until 7 p.m...

"As fireman fought the blaze people crowded into the street, and traffic jammed the surrounding roads.

"Housewives took cups of tea to the firemen and police were called in to deal with the crowds.

"After a series of muffled explosions from the building, residents in houses near the depot were warned by the police that they might have to be evacuated. But firemen prevented flames threatening their homes."

Homes line one side of Enfield Road, across from factory.

The factory site would be cleared, and the modern Hunt End Industrial Estate occupies the space today, behind a tree line, its entrance being not on Enfield Road but off Dunlop Road, to the north.

Yet, in an odd way, a related bit of the Givry Works remains on Enfield Road.

Author Anne Bradford lived at 66 Enfield Road, less than a mile away from the Givry site, and always said that her home was a "replica" of the original Givry Works. In fact, she said this was what inspired her to write about Royal Enfield history.

The Givry Works needle mill as it appeared in 1869.

From left, 66, 64 and 62 Enfield Road as they appeared in 2020.

The resemblance is apparent, if you compare 66, 64 and 62 Enfield Road on Google Streetview to the 1869 illustration of the Givry Works. The side-by-side fronts of the main buildings appear very similar, although not identical.

An explanation for this is in RedditchVirtualMuseum:

"In the 1830s, all the land in the Crabbs Cross area was owned by Farmer Eades. Then he sold a small piece of ground to William Welch to build a needle mill. Welch had a relative who was so taken with the needle mill that he asked Farmer Eades for permission to build an identical mill a bit further along the road. Consequently two identical mills were built, the oldest was Ashberry House, near the top end of Enfield Road (number 66), and the second was Givry Works, halfway along."

Royal Enfield cured his mid-life crisis

Here's a portrait of a very happy me, with my daughters, in 2001.

 People often ask me about my old Royal Enfield Bullet. One question though, isn't asked as often now as it used to be. 

That question is: "Did you restore it yourself?" 

The answer was always "no, I bought it new. It's an old design, still made in India." 

Probably the reason no one asks anymore if I restored the motorcycle is the fact that I now look as old as it does! 

Sure, they don't necessarily assume I'd bought it new in 1955 (when I was five years old). But they'd be justified in thinking, "Hey, this guy is old enough to have bought it in 1970." 

In 1970, at age 20, I would very much have liked to have had a motorcycle. But a car seemed more practical and, soon, I had a wife and children and buying a motorcycle seemed irresponsible. 

Then, at 50, came my mid-life crisis. I realized that if I didn't get a motorcycle soon, I wouldn't have a motorcycle, ever. I decided to get one. 

Still, I didn't have much hope I would find the motorcycle of my childhood dreams. In 2001  motorcycles popular in the U.S. were big, powerful and flashy.

But I still wanted the sort of motorcycle that had existed in 1955 — or 1945, for that matter. It would be simple, naked and probably slow. These vintage machines were available used, but I was no mechanic.

I had tried to restore vintage cars, and it didn't work out well. I didn't want a motorcycle I would have to restore.

Then I found out about the Royal Enfield Bullet from India. It seemed like a miracle. The motorcycle of my dreams still existed, and there was a dealer right in my home town!

Buying a motorcycle remained a selfish, and, I suppose, irresponsible, action.

But confronting midlife answered that concern: it was now or never. This was my last chance. The only question was how to quiet family concerns.

I don't claim to be an expert at subterfuge. But my campaign of small steps gradually made it happen.

My mid-life crisis is now a quarter-century back in my rearview mirror.

I don't necessarily recommend buying a motorcycle. It's a personal decision, worth serious thought.

I'll just say that, for me, at mid-life, it was the right medicine.

Will California finally tame e-bikes?

An e-biker reports what California is considering doing about them.

 Bear with me for a moment. I want to applaud California for regulating so-called electric "bicycles," the fast ones that we call "bicycles," even if they don't have pedals! 

I'm reacting to an informative video by an e-bike rider that explains what is under consideration. 

But, first, a little background. 

I've just returned from a family reunion, held in California, my first visit to the Golden State in years. California has changed a lot in the decades since I lived there, but there was one thing I was sure to keep in mind, something I remembered from my days there as a young driver: 

California actually enforces pedestrians' right of way in crosswalks.

Driving our rental car, I paused when pedestrians stepped off the curb and, when I was a pedestrian myself, I had the unusual experience of cars stopping to let me get safely across the street. It was nice. It seemed civilized.

This is not generally the case in any other U.S. state I've visited. Drivers routinely —maybe even intentionally — intimidate people in crosswalks into letting the cars barrel through first, regardless of the "Walk" signal.

If the traffic light changes to "Don't Walk" before the pedestrians make it across, well, that's just too bad.

This is the law of the urban jungle. Pedestrians have a lot more to lose in case of collision with a car, so they must beware.

Unfortunately, now, with the advent of electric (so-called) bicycles, the same intimidating danger of collision extends to sidewalks and pathways almost everywhere. Not all riders of electrics use the walkways, of course, but enough do, in cities, to create a whole new dynamic.

Parents pushing strollers, children walking to school, seniors moving slowly and people walking dogs on leashes are forced, by the fast-moving (and silent!) danger, to give way to what are in fact, whether legally defined as such or not, motor vehicles on the sidewalks.

Ironically, these riders use the sidewalk ramps at intersections that were originally intended to ease the way for the handicapped — not for motorized traffic. Well, that certainly didn't work out as planned!

Finding a way under law to enhance safety is complicated, and California may or may not get it right.

The e-bike riders fear and oppose having to register, pay taxes, display license plates, wear safety gear, carry required lighting, and endure speed limits far below their speed capabilities. These are all things most motorcyclists accept without complaint.

Most basic to motorcycling law are age limits on when a young adult can ride.

Increasingly, these fast-moving electric machines, purchased by adults, are being ridden by their children. Age limits? My home state doesn't seem to have them.

Obviously, no one expects to ride a motorcycle on a sidewalk. Yet, understandably, e-bike riders want to ride on sidewalks and pathways. It's safer for them than riding in the street and, besides, the practice is that, on the sidewalk, you can ride "against traffic." 

It seems pretty clear that the future is electric. There will be more electric motorcycles that will obey all  the standards set for motorcycles. Good.

Increasingly, there also will be forms of electric mobility that may require lesser standards.

Although, if  you think about it: why?

If you're going that fast, don't you need to be on the street, obeying the laws that apply on the street?