The Curious Case of the Black Venom

The Curious Case of the Black Venom

LEANINGS

"ARE YOU DRIVING OUT TO CALIFORNIA to pick up that Velocette?" my friend Mike asked over the phone.

"No," I said. "That would take at least a week, plus all the mountain passes between Wisconsin and California are closed with heavy snow right now. And one of them is named after the Donner Party. I had the bike shipped by truck. It should be here in about a week."

"Oh man, you broke your vow!" Mike said.

"Which vow was that?" I asked. "You mean the one about not buying another bike with magneto ignition?" "The one about Lucas electrics?" "No, not that one." "Ah, you're thinking of the vow about no more old British bikes.. ." "Nope." "You mean that one I made in Mexico, about not making important decisions when I've been drinking mescal with no label on the bottle? "No! You swore you'd never buy an other vehicle sight unseen!" "Oh yeah, that one. .

I'd made this declaration a few years ago, shortly after buying a `53 Cadillac on eBay. I won't say the seller was dishonest, but he omitted many details that might have caused me to call in an air strike on the car instead of buying it.

"This deal's different," I told Mike. "The owner is a retired gentleman who used to work for Rolls-Royce in England. His name is Derek Belvoir, and we have mutual friends who speak highly of him. The bike looks good in pictures, too, and the price seems fair." "Uh huh.. .."

"Also," I added by way of self-assur ance, "the bike was restored by a Velo cette enthusiast named Ellie Taylor, who used to make prescription goggles. Years ago, I wrote a column mentioning my in terest in Velocettes and Ellie wrote me a nice letter. He said if I ever got serious about looking for a Venom or Thruxton, he'd help me find one. And now, 20 years later, I'm buying the Venom he owned when he wrote that letter. It's a small, strange world. . ."

A week later a big box van came slith ering up our icy driveway and two guys got out and opened the back of the truck in 5-below-zero weather. They unhooked four tie-down straps from a wood pallet and rolled a black-and-gold 1961 Velo cette Venom out onto the hydraulic rear lift. They lowered it to the ground and then drove away.

The bike sat alone in the cold winter sunlight, looking great. I carefully rolled it down the shoveled snow path and into the welcome shelter of my heated work shop. My neighbor Chris Beebe (Norton Commando, Ariel Square Four, Honda GB500 owner) came over to have a look.

"Can you imagine what this bike has been thinking?" he asked. "It spends its life in sunny California, then gets load ed onto a truck and spends a week in the dark with the temperature getting colder and colder and frost forming on the in side of the truck. Then the door opens and it's here in the frozen north, getting un loaded in your snow-covered driveway..

I didn't know whether to commit sui cide, move to Florida or just feel bad for the bike, so I walked over and kicked the thermostat up another 2 degrees. When Chris left, I did a light cleanup on the bike and then sat back with a can of Guinness (no tapper in my workshop, alas) to look at the Velocette.

My first British Single, ever, after a lifetime of admiration from afar. And up close as well.

I've always loved the architecture of these beautifully finished 500s from Hall Green-classics, to my mind, right in there with the BSA Gold Star or the AJS 7R. Among these, the Velocette is somehow the most "British," as if the music of Sir Edward Elgar or the novels of Thomas Hardy had been transformed into metal. If Holmes and Watson had lived long enough, they would have owned Velo cettes, the motorcycle counterpart of the Webley revolver. Like Morgan cars, Ve locettes held on to their conservative styl ing long after the world around them moved on, making no changes for change's sake. I have no personal experience with these

bikes, but friends who've owned them say they're surprisingly stout, maybe the most durable of the old Singles. A Venom did set a 24-hour endurance record at Montthéry in 1961, averaging just over 100 mph. Another one, in high perfor mance Thruxton tune, won the Isle of Man Production TT as late as 1967. So why a Velocette Single at this stage of my life? (The bike arrived a j few days after my 60th birthday.) Timing and opportunity, I guess. I've been keeping an eye open for a decent 500 Velo ever since I missed out on a beautiful Thruxton in the mid-Sev enties. Had a photo of it taped above my desk for years. Then, last fall, I drove back to visit my friends Jeff and Nancy Craig in Pennsylvania, and Jeff has four Velos in his garage. This got the gears turning again.

When I got home I called our own resident CWVelocette nut, Mark Hoyer, and told him the hunt was officially on. "I'm buying a KSS from a man named Derek Belvoir in Grass Valley, Califor nia," Mark said. "He's also got a Venom for sale. I'll give you his e-mail address."

Derek e-mailed me photos of the bike and I was stunned. It was exactly the com bination I would have put together, had I built the bike for myself. Thruxton tank, rearsets, clubman exhaust pipe, twin gaug es, flat early-Sixties seat, alloy rims, low sport bars... I was instantly smitten. Still am. I've started the bike up twice in my garage, and it sounds great. While waiting for spring, I've been polishing the bike and listening to Elgar's Sere nade for Strings on our big garage band PA system, which hardly knows how to handle such refinement.

Nice music, but not as good as the geese I heard honking overhead this morning, headed north. I can't wait to ride this thing and see if all those old vows were really meant to be broken. Simultane ously, by just one machine of consider able beauty and extreme Britishness.

Peter Egan