Robbing Peter…

Sometimes needs must and cannibalising one bike to forward another is a temporary, necessary evil.

- TIM BRITTON

This was going to be a feature based on fibreglassing, as the mould is made, waxed with release agent and all ready to go. The resin and cloth are also in the workshop – then, looking at the kit, I thought: ‘It’s been a while, maybe I ought to practise on a scrap bit first, to see if I can still do it…’

Top and bottom of it is, I need to do a bit more practise before I create a seat base that will do the bike justice. In the way of these things, once word got out I had some cloth and resin another job or two arrived on the doorstep… literally, as I wasn’t in and a relative dropped off a seat unit fitted to a Montesa trials bike which was cracked and broken where the rear dampers fit on the frame.

Instead of the glass fibre work, what I did was review the project bike to see how it could be advanced for not a lot of cash outlay. This was the idea from the very start, to do a reasonable looking bike for as little as possible. The reason being there are more people who have next to no disposable income to spend on a classic than there are enthusiasts with ultra-deep pockets, which given the current pandemic crisis is even more poignant, and I wondered if it was still possible to put a bike together from autojumble searches. The answer is yes, but it is frustratingly difficult especially when autojumbles and shows – the traditional way to source bits – are being called off.

As this is being written, Kempton had the plug pulled the day before it was due to open… not by Mortons but by the local council. More shows and jumbles will no doubt go the same way, which means my autojumble searching has been curtailed for 2020 and the annoying thing is all the bits holding up my build were available at Stafford last October, but I didn’t pick them up when I should have.