[Dave] Right Ian, I'd like to talk about your bike, Moody Blue.
[Ian] Moody Blue, okay. Moody Blue, I've known the bike since about 1978. It was built by a good
friend of mine, Dave Archer. The history with the bike, it's a 1955 Triumph 500 Speed Twin.
Story goes it started life as a police bike, and spent most of the rest of its life being chased
by 'em. It's actually, the bike was bought in '78 by a good friend who stripped
it right down. He owned it for 17 years. It's had lots of modifications on it,
including the frame has been shortened by two and a half inches. All of the brazes on the
frame have been unbrazed, repicked, all the joints strengthened and rebrazed.
The engine, it has a one-off head. Triumph made five heads apparently to fit the 500 Speed Twin. The
following year they brought out the Bonneville and they scrapped the heads. There's only five heads
made, they all went in the bin, this head was pulled out. So it's the only one that we know of in existence.
It's got a one piece crank in it, Bonneville conrods and Cosworth pistons.
It's belt drive. The crank and the gearbox was shortened
to actually enable the chain case to make it as narrow as it could so that
actually you had the ground clearance. She's got a four leading shoe Grimeca front brake.
Akront front and rear
rims. Conical rear hub. The tank is an ex-race tank, it's a baffled aluminium race tank. The seat
and the oil tank, unbelievably were handmade out of a fridge door, an aluminium
fridge door because it was the only materials that were available at the time.
[Dave] Not taken from any race components? [Ian] Not taken from anything, it was built by hand.
So a lot of love and attention went into this.
About 20 grand over 17 years, and the bike disappeared in '95 when my mate had to
sell it to fund a house project. And we often wondered what happened to it. And last year, 2021,
it came out, it just came out the woodwork. Apparently it spent 20 odd years in a barn,
so it had to come home. So it now lives in East Sussex where it was built.
[Dave] But you're in touch with the owner? The original owner. [Ian] I am in touch with the the owner, yeah.
The owner lives in Brighton. He's absolutely
just gobsmacked to find his baby again, and so yeah, it's here to stay. [Dave] And we know
that you've ridden this bike here today because you actually were behind me. [Ian] Yeah, yeah. [Dave] So, just
talking about it, it's quite loud isn't it. [Ian] It is. [Ian] It is pretty loud. [Dave] It's on the
road now, and it's like a bit of history now come back. [Ian] Yeah, yeah it's just lovely to have it back, it
really is. To me it's a part of my youth, and to be able to ride it now, it means quite a lot to
be fair. [Dave] This will stay in your ownership now. [Ian] Yeah, yeah, yeah this is not going anywhere ever.
It's there for good. [Dave] Really nice to see it and to hear it as well. [Ian] Yeah and we're going to keep her
as she is now, which is as original as Dave made it. There are bits around it that you
think, oh we could clean this up or change a bit of chrome work, but no no no. [Dave] It would lose the patina,
it would lose that history. [Ian] It's only going to be like this once, and so it's going to
stay like this, just kept in good running order, that's all. [Dave] Well thanks Ian, thanks for talking about
your bike, and thanks for bringing Moody Blue along. [Ian] Wonderful, thank you. [Dave] Great to see, thank you.