BSA Bantam by Owen Wright
BSA bantam by Owen Wright
190 page's with mostly text and great pictures & ad’s.I like bike's that have a story behind them. The Bsa Bantam is a very good example of this. It’s not a bike with the most glamour’s lifestyle but it has so much more!
Owen Wright has made a very good book about the bike, some time ago.
The book has one big main development story and from time to time a side story.
It’s about using the bike, maintaining a daily driver, some glimpse about travel story’s.
It also tells how to make it fast, what points you need to watch and where to invest.
Even the GPO & postal bike’s have a nice place in the book!
Main story:
From the early days before the wars, about the factory, the corporate takeover, ...
In what world the D1 got it’s stand in the BSA range and kept in production & development. What they changed and why. Design wise and for the maintaining! You won’t get a technical spec sheet with how many air you need to pump up your tire’s.
But you will know what tire they used at that time for a spare part! He even explains you, why you should be glad you have a bantam instead of another bike!The search from BSA for a rival, for the many Italian style vespa’s & lambretta’s.
Experiments with different new engine’s and how they turned out. The creation of the Beagle with pressed frame. And how the Japanese made a moped after it!
And later on about how Honda made the change. Not about the big CB750. Who was a big dreambike. But how they build a first factory in Europe (Belgium) and made a cub & a Honda dream, who changed the world for lightweight bike’s forever. How BSA could not match the finish of the Honda. But still got a big amount of followers, who loved the simple bike.
The following redesign with the famous 4 speed gearbox, the experiment with auto lube and a how blabliblabla as a new director made the famous BSA bushman a fact. With modern colors and a modified frame! How eventually BSA turned it’s back to small motorcycles and focused on superbike’s.
Thank god the story does not end there! You get a nice idea of many victory’s with bantams. What & how you can find information on how to make your bantam faster without losing to much reliability.
From the book you get a lot of ‘bang for the pound’ much like the bantam (once) was!
Nice written out for you.
I totally enjoyed the book on my 2 weeks holiday trip to Sweden and I now I will fall back on it sometimes
Ruben Deboosere 8 / 08 / 2011
