BSA B31 RealClassic
Have you spotted the remarkable similarity between plunger BSAs and London buses? Correct! You don't see any for ages and then two come along at once. OK. It was a feeble joke. What do you expect? Wit? Certainly not wisdom. surely…
As always, I would like to be able to pretend that the bikes I borrow are all part of a carefully constructed, entirely professional plan to maintain the balance of content in our most remarkable magazine. But it's not. They just happen, somehow. Like this time. I saw the bike leaning against the wall of a shed – a rather familiar shed, to be fair – and wondered whether I could borrow it. It was a lovely day, after all, blue birds, singing skies, things like that.
I've said before (and several times) that I really do enjoy riding plunger BSAs, and indeed I've ridden lots of them, ranging from 600cc sidevalves to 650cc twins. Among them have been quite a few ohv singles, including several B31 350s. The only reason I can think of – memory is sadly hazy – that I never owned one myself in my formative years, although a lot of my friends did, is that I stumbled across an AJS Model 18 when young and impressionable and have been something of an AJS and Matchless fan ever since. And then there's the image thing. Even the most pedestrian of
AJS and Matchless singles could, with the application of youthful enthusiasm and a pair of
