Sometimes you can know too much. Since joining the Velocette Owners Club, I have used some of their excellent facilities available online. For example, thanks to their hard work and dedication, I have a better understanding of how the part numbering system worked and most disturbingly (even more disturbing than finding a part numbering system interesting), I have found out when my engine was made - 1958. Cast your eye to the right and you will see that the basis of this project is to rebuild the bike that was registered on the day I was born in 1961.
I was at first disapointed, to say the least. How could it be? Was the market so slow that they didn't sell the bike for three years? I suppose it's possible. As I mentioned before, when it came to me my bike was in fact a bitza and not an original thoroughbread. Could it be that the whole thing is a mish mash of bits from other sources that someone threw together and only one of the wheel spindles is of the original 1961 machine? This is more likely and the fact that the magneto turns out to be a rare competition type (for which parts are difficult to find) seems to support this.
So what? My Venom was never going to be museum material (thank goodness), so why should it matter? I have hung on to this bike all these years because it was important to me and in doing so I have made it into a personal icon. None of that can be erased and so I suppose it is no less special, in fact quite the opposite now. I think Terry Pratchet hit the nail on the head when he wrote in his novel
The Fifth Elephant:
"This will become in time, the axe of someone's grandfather," said the King "and no doubt over the years it will need a new handle or a new blade and over the centuries the shape will change in line with fashion, but it will always be in every detail and respect the axe I give you today. And because it'll change with the times it'll always be sharp. There's a grain of truth in that see."
