Back To The Future

Our Allen gets on with making an old-school Brit bike into a V-twin! This month he's concentrating on the motor and making it look 'factory'.

I like to vary the style and era of mymotorcycle projects and not stick rigidly with any one make. ‘If it’s got two wheels and an engine, it’s a motorcycle,’ and that’s good enough for me.

My new Velocette project had got me thinking how amazing this old British bike really was. I remember my dad saying to me years ago how Velocette engines were really well made, and I tend to agree with him. In March 1961 a factory prepared 500cc single-cylinder Velocette Venom set the 24-hour world record at an average speed of 100.05mph, a record which remains unbroken today. The crankcases are very narrow compared to other single cylinder bikes, and it also has a high camshaft like a Honda CX500, but driven with fine helical gears that run almost silent and with total reliability. One advantage for me is that the casting wall thicknesses are relatively thick by modern standards, which gives me more metal to play with to make strong welded joints.