'Greeves Tuning' - Barry Hickmott Article - Post #1 of #2.

[Andy Z]

Lol I'm looking just now but can't find it! I don't know if this happens in your house? I know where everything is. It's untidy - but I can usually put my hands on what I'm looking for. I've been out of the country for a month and Mrs N has been at work. The place is spotless, neat and tidy - I can't find anything!

I don't know about others on here but that's a very familiar setup to myself. The house looks a mess, the garage even worse, but I can usually find what I need. Until someone tidies up.....

[46T Sprocket]

Sorry can't find. I'll have another go once my wife gets in from work. There's a christmas tree sitting now where I'm sure I had a box of old magazines.........

Bleeding heck I knocked that over looking and there are golden balls and glitter all over the place now!

[Colin Sparrow]

Hi Brian,

I'm sure it was BH who did a Silverstone racer test in one issue of the same magazine?

They lined up a pukka Silverstone against one converted from a Challenger on a stretch of A road somewhere in England. The test was cut short a bit when a Police car passed one of the Greeves being tested at full chat going the other way.

The Challenger version more than held its own on speed but won even more points on having a bigger spread of usable power right through the rev range.

I have the magazine somewhere with that article in it. Finding it might be a challenge though....... I'm not tidy with mags. Regards,
David.

Interesting to see this emerge again. I owned and raced the scrambler-based racer which featured in the article, and a copy of it came with the bike when I bought it. I passed it on when I sold it. I think it was entitled "Different Strokes"

The bike reappeared on here as a mystery bike when it came up for sale a few years after I sold it. John W will probably be able to find it...

[John Wakefield]

Interesting to see this emerge again. I owned and raced the scrambler-based racer which featured in the article, and a copy of it came with the bike when I bought it. I passed it on when I sold it. I think it was entitled "Different Strokes"

The bike reappeared on here as a mystery bike when it came up for sale a few years after I sold it. John W will probably be able to find it...

Cant find it on the eBay thread Colin, must have dropped off by now, if its the bike I think it was it was last known with a GRA member Brian Parkinson from near Newmarket, used to do a bit of scrambling on a Hawkstone. Used to come to our Cambridge meetings regularly with his lady friend, but we have not seen him for some months, maybe a year. Think he sold the 'Silverstone' He was trying to sell a Griffon (or maybe a Challenger) last time we saw him, he was a bit disappointed that us roadies were not interested in buying it.
Has anyone seen him? hope he is ok.

[46T Sprocket]

Eureka!

I've finally found it! Mrs N had shunted that pile of mags to my library in the bedroom to make room for the tree. Different strokes it was. Peter Crespin was the author and not Barry Hickmont as I originally thought.

Bill Hunter owned the real Silverstone and Bill Beaton the converted one.

I've no scanner but I'll do what I can with my camera to get some images of the 5 pages.

Regards,
David.

No joy i'm afraid. The flash won't do a good job, it will need to wait till I get some decent daylight tomorrow.

[Colin Sparrow]

Cant find it on the eBay thread Colin, must have dropped off by now, if its the bike I think it was it was last known with a GRA member Brian Parkinson from near Newmarket, used to do a bit of scrambling on a Hawkstone. Used to come to our Cambridge meetings regularly with his lady friend, but we have not seen him for some months, maybe a year. Think he sold the 'Silverstone' He was trying to sell a Griffon (or maybe a Challenger) last time we saw him, he was a bit disappointed that us roadies were not interested in buying it.
Has anyone seen him? hope he is ok.

Yes, Brian bought it from me. I saw him at a Pre-65 club scramble a few months ago. He's fine.

Because it was based on an MX5, it had a slightly longer wheelbase than a genuine Silverstone, and that gave it a less "nervous" feel compared with the 24RCS which I also raced.

Both bikes needed a touch of steering damper though. The engines were comparable - the barrel on the replica had had a lot of porting work and it was running a 34mm MkII Concentric.

Happy days!

[Colin Sparrow]

I've tried to go back through my own posts to see if I can find it, but they only date back to last year. I don't know what the policy is on deleting threads, but it looks as if there's been a clear-out or two since the forum started.

Perhaps Capt Mainwaring could enlighten us..?

[John Wakefield]

I've tried to go back through my own posts to see if I can find it, but they only date back to last year. I don't know what the policy is on deleting threads, but it looks as if there's been a clear-out or two since the forum started.

Perhaps Capt Mainwaring could enlighten us..?

The eBay listing will have been deleted by now anyway or at least the pics. I think thats probably why Rob deleted old eBay threads because the links were broken & in some cases brought up other items that were unrelated.

[46T Sprocket]

Silverstone comparison article.

http://www.davidnorwich.com/greevesarticle.htm

Best I could get it pictured with my camera. Click the link and it will open the page with each page from the 5 page article pictured.

If you scroll right down to the bottom you will see my Silverstone conversion from a Challenger. Picture was taken in 1971 or 1972. My niece who is holdng the bike is in her 50s now. It still had the big scrambles back cog on it in this picture. It was road registered. Note the bulb horn sitting in the alloy beam! There where very few cars or bikes that could out drag me at the lights in Edinburgh around then.

David.

[John Wakefield]

http://www.davidnorwich.com/greevesarticle.htm

Best I could get it pictured with my camera. Click the link and it will open the page with each page from the 5 page article pictured.

If you scroll right down to the bottom you will see my Silverstone conversion from a Challenger. Picture was taken in 1971 or 1972. My niece who is holdng the bike is in her 50s now. It still had the big scrambles back cog on it in this picture. It was road registered. Note the bulb horn sitting in the alloy beam! There where very few cars or bikes that could out drag me at the lights in Edinburgh around then.

David.

last page (58) missing

[46T Sprocket]

No need for thanks John doing all that work to let you read the article was a pleasure.

I think you are looking at a cached copy stored on your computer. There is a note saying last page to follow. The rain came on heavy and the light just went and I couldn't get the last shot.

Refresh your page and you should see it.

[Andy Z]

Brilliant, many thanks David!

Very interesting, and although all the bikes are nice, the RES in the last pic is very nice indeed!

[46T Sprocket]

Brilliant, many thanks David!

Very interesting, and although all the bikes are nice, the RES in the last pic is very nice indeed!

Thanks Andy, I'll try and get that last page photographed tomorrow. I starting on doing the photographing of the pages a bit too late today and ran out of decent light. The last page was unreadable and not worth putting on that web page.

I have a good canon scanner that worked fine on XP but my Win 7 Pro doesn't like the driver. It even rejects it in XP mode. Which was why I had to use my camera.

Regards,
David.

[Dogsbody]

Bit like reading a Paperback and finding the last page missing! Where did the left hand gearchange bike go? I thought you had an experimental USA only model. Dogsbody

[46T Sprocket]

Yes it was a special export version. Bert was against it but the importers flashed the cash!

Not having a print, I did that picture by holding the negative up to the light and photographing it. I converted it to a picture in photoshop then got it the wrong way round! All sorted now. It was the best I could do given the negative's age and condition.

How's your Silverstone been going?