Riding Barry Sheene's Championship winning bike...

[reggieperrin]

Hi guys,

Some of you will have already seen on the Facebook page that I had rather interesting and satisfying Goodwood this year..
We didn't take any of the Surtees bikes this year but instead were with the Barber Motorsport Museum.
I was supposed to be riding the Britten V1000 once or twice, which in itself is a longstanding dream..
It truly is a thing of beauty and is awesome to be on.
The ride got bumped at the last minute by Mr Barber as he wanted employees only to ride.




Anyway..
I was also asked to help this chap who was having problems with his bike.
He didn't know much about bikes and even less about 2 strokes (his words)
So, I spent the whole of Friday and then Saturday Morning fixing the various and numerous little problems.. Some of them I'm not going to go into to save the blushes of the engine builder..
After a lot of cursing and sweating we got it running for the Saturday afternoon session.

So, the picture below is me sat at the top of the FOS hill having ridden Barry Sheene's 1973 Championship winning Suzuki TR500

A real lifelong ambition..

[lrcarl]

Real shame regarding Britten ride
But riding one of Bazzers bikes had to make up for that
Carl

[reggieperrin]

Exactly, I'll get to ride the Britten later this year in the USA but riding Barry's bike was special, even with all the problems...

[veg]

You lucky lucky lucky b*****d 😀

[dusty350]

Wow, that's fantastic Al, what a great couple of days - to work on and ride Barry's bike .
I know you thought you may not get to ride the Britten anyway, so this was a real bonus Well done mate !

Dusty

[copper99]

Mega, so, the million $ question, what was it like to ride then?

[reggieperrin]

Highly tuned
bouncy (knackered) rear suspension
front brake was pitiful
massively overgeared, probably for Spa
Tiny, I mean really tiny... I had to ride holding the ends of the bars as my hands with gloves wouldn't fit in the fairing..
slight oil leak that was getting on the rear tyre.
Loud... LOUD...!!!!!

But... Amazing...
When it cleared and came on the pipe past the house it was great.

[marsbar350]

not jealous alan
I take it the owner is going to let you finish the rebuild off??
any of the racers at goodwood take an interest?

[reggieperrin]

I'm going to check what stuff he does, he's a great hands on guy, just not very experienced with old 2 strokes..
I've left him a list...

It's pretty good considering it's sat in boxes for over 20 years...

There was some interest, but not something that I can mention on here.
Troy Corser loved it, always have a laugh with him...
Especially when we were running it in the pits..

[donkeychomp]

Good grief! You lucky jammy bas...you know the rest lol! Congrats on the ride, I can't even imagine how that must have felt. Let us know when you climb aboard the Britten...

Alex

[beardy]

was just reading the previous thread titled `ghosts`. so my mindset is on weirdness.
then opened this thread to see you sitting on the britten. which i saw racing and unfortunately crashing at my only visit to the 1994 iom tt. i took lots of photos as its such a good looking bike.
then your next photo was you on barry sheenes bike. which took me back to the mid to late 70`s when i went to brands to watch my mates older brother race (probably) that bike. he told me that the bike used to belong to barry sheene and i was`nt sure if it was true or not. then along comes barry sheene in the paddock and say`s "that`s my old bike". i was only 17 and pretty awestruck so did`nt say to much.
thanks for posting those pics up

[reggieperrin]

If you want weirdness, this fries my noodle..

I've ridden Barry's championship winning bike.
Barry died on March 10th....

I've ridden John Surtees 1960 Championship winning MV 500
John died on March 10th....

I broke my neck on March 10th....

Think I'm going to stay in bed next March 10th.....

[oldbritguy]

Not jealous at all !!
You have managed to get aboard a couple of beautiful machines that us mere peasants can only dream of.
As a kid I had a picture of that TR on my wall.
You lucky man indeed

[veg]

I love the Britten always have and if you want inspiration

He was an amazing bloke that lived more in his short years than most would manage in 10 lifetimes