This is your bike - Race Reps...made in Wales
by John Newman
John Newman
From time to time evidence is published by psychologists, confirming what most of us already know that the advantage of motorcycle riding, maintenance, workshop activity, problem solving, organising and spectating helps to keep reactions sharp, the brain lively and the limbs moving as a person gets older.
Doing what they love best
There's plenty of observational and anecdotal evidence around to prove this too. Turn up at most events, meets, rideouts and bike cafes, and a coterie of older enthusiasts will be doing what they have been doing for years, and what they love best. Gareth Owen is counted among these, at seventy seven he is still building and riding bikes, and supporting his son Paul Owen one of the well known stalwarts of road racing at the NW 200, Isle of Man, Ulster Grand Prix etc: but that's a story for another day.
Gareth on Manx Norton at Ballaugh Bridge
Like many who become involved with and engrossed in two wheels and an engine, there's a history. Gareth's dad rode a string of Nortons, and in 1945 he took the young Gareth and his brother to the Isle of Man to watch a friend competing. He remembers watching the action from the Quarter Bridge.
Ride on 'the Island'
It wasn't long before he was astride his own road bike, and he then took up racing owning a string of bikes whose model names are inscribed through our history...Excelsior Manxman, Model 18 Norton, International Norton, Velocette Thruxton, and the one and only Manx Norton.
He began on the short circuits and in vintage club racing, but his aim was always to ride on 'the island'; which he achieved.
Gareth's workshop walls are covered with significant photos of his own race history and his favourite riders. He proudly pointed out one picture where he was pushing his Manx off the start line on the Glencrutchery Road, and in the background watching are Stanley Woods, Geoff Duke, John 'Mooneyes' Cooper, and Vernon Cooper the senior ACU official.
A running jump
I commented on how much effort it took to heave these bikes off the line for a run and jump on start. On this occasion Gareth had lost the rubber sole of his boot and the shiny leather was making it difficult for him to get proper grip with those vital race seconds ticking away.
People this involved never 'retire'. And Gareth hatched a plan to use his workshop space, a living museum of his motorcycling activity and enthusiasm down the years, to build a series of working mini replicas from the racing period that shaped his life.
Ralph Bryans Replica
Scrapheap challenge
Number one
His first build over an eighteen month period was a Ralph Bryans replica. Bryans, from Northern Ireland, was a works rider for Honda. Most of his rides and victories were in 250cc and 125cc classes, but in 1965 he won the world championship for Honda on one of their amazing little 50cc machines.
Gareth acquired a scrap SS50 Honda (see picture) and turned what most people would consider a heap of junk hardly worth second look, into the Ralph Bryans race rep. He has installed a 98cc single cylinder Honda engine, and even copied the cycle type brake on the front wheel that the works bikes used to have. That's right; despite the technology and outstanding development that went into these racers, Honda relied on a couple of composite blocks rammed against the wheel rim to stop them.
Number two
Bike build number two was a Suzuki racer look a like. Gareth didn't tell me origins of this machine but did mention that the sleek alloy look tank was the result of two Honda fifty tanks reshaped and welded together.
Number three
Bike three is the one he seemed most proud of. His Norton replica with 'Owen Special' painted on the tank. He rode the bike at this years Thundersprint meeting at the Anglesey race circuit, and Paul Owen took the bike to the Isle of Man when he rode in this years Classic TT. Paul's mates, some of our top racers, had fun riding this little bike powered by a 140cc kit engine. The megaphone exhaust sounded great when Gareth kicked it into action.
Although the engine is new Gareth picked up some bargain parts for the rest of the bike. The tank came from a regular car boot sale. It had a ten pound price tag on it, but he bartered it down to eight. The seat was in a loft at a bike breakers. The fly screen mesh came from an old fireguard, and the front mudguard is fashioned from part of a wheelchair. The bike is registered, taxed and MOT'd and when the weather is fair Gareth will take his mobile memory of Manx races for a spin.
On the bench waiting to play
Up on his work bench, an old desk, sits the bike that is currently occupying his time and thoughts; a Honda CM200. In standard trim these are not among the glamour bikes of our era, but a number of folk have turned them into cafe racers. Gareth's bike will be another Honda race rep complete with twin matt black megaphone pipes that adorned the original race bikes.
A story for another day...
The other bike sitting in the workshop belongs to Paul. A '93 Honda RS250 Grand Prix racer, now a valuable machine on which Paul has had some successful rides. These two strokes are not easy to ride and control, with power not kicking in until way up the rev range, and then the power band is very, very narrow. Like I mentioned earlier, a story for another day.
Motorcycle artist
Not content with being a racer and bike builder, in one period Gareth turned his hand to painting the racers he admired the most, in action; Geoff Duke (now 90 years old) and Mike Hailwood. The paintings sit in his second workshop, and Duke has added his signature to one. It depicts the man hurtling down Bray Hill on a Gilera, and Gareth constructed it from the memory of spectating in 1955 from the roof of a cafe. Him and his mate had paid two shillings and sixpence in old money to watch from this vantage point.
Some of them build bikes!
You would have to have been buried underground in a lead coffin to have missed the hand wringing, angst, endless analysis, and political and spending 'crisis' the country will be facing because of the large numbers of citizens living longer. But older people are not all 'burdens', lists of ailments, or candidates for degenerative illness - some of them build bikes!
NB If you have, or know of an: unconventional, unusual, quirky, desirable, delicious or outrageous motorcycle which you would like to tell us about then email John Newman on:
[email protected]
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