Dr. George Cohen at the Brooklands Centenary in 2007

One of my favorite characters in the old bike scene has left the saddle, and the world is poorer for his absence. Dr. George Cohen, otherwise known as 'Norton George' for his devotion to single-cylinder Nortons (plus a certain Rem Fowler's Peugeot-engined TT racer), fought well against an aggressive cancer diagnosed late last year, but knew the jig was up, that swarf had fouled his mains and blocked the oil lines.  What he leaves behind for those lucky enough to have called him friend, is a ton of wry memories, and his distinctive voice echoing through our heads, with some crack about our terrible workshops, ill-prepared machinery, or silly ideas.  He was mad as a hatter for sure, but a hell of a lot of fun to be around.

A favorite image of George Cohen blasting along on his 1927 Norton Model 18 TT racer on the Isle of Man

George was also a devotee of using his vintage machinery to the hilt, blasting his favorite 1927 Model 18 Norton racer on the Isle of Man, and the roads around his 'Somerset Shed'.  Arriving by train for a visit to George's sprawling country estate was an exercise in bravery, as he'd likely pick you up in his 1926 Norton Model 44 racer with alloy 'zeppelin' sidecar. Strapping your luggage on the back, and no helmet required, meant you experienced the full terror of an ancient, poorly braked but surprisingly quick big single in flight along the ultra-narrow, deeply dug-in Roman roads of the area. The mighty Bonk of the Norton's empty Brooklands 'can' reverberated along the 8' deep earthen walls, as we tore around blind corners of these unique Somerset roads like Mr Toad and Co., headed for home the fastest way possible.  Unforgettable!

George and myself in 2008, with my Velocette KTT and Sunbeam TT90 - sorry no Nortons that day!

George visited the USA a few times, and we were fellow judges at the Legends of the Motorcycle Concours in 2008, at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Half Moon Bay.  I'd brought two bikes for us to swap on the Sunday morning Legends Ride - neither a Norton, although I had a 1925 Model 18 racer at the time (it was hors de combat from my own relentless flogging).   So George got to experience a vintage Sunbeam for the first time, as the photos show, which he quite liked ('My Norton is faster', of course he said), but preferred a spin on 'The Mule', my 1933 Velocette KTT mk4, which shared his favorite Norton's camshaft up top.  Well actually it was the other way 'round, as Norton copied the Velocette design!  Which he grudgingly admitted with a half-smile as he hand-rolled another cig.

George on his only Sunbeam outing, in 2008

A few days prior, we'd picked up a pair of racing Nortons from California collector Paul Adams, which were entered into the Concours, and it would be hard to imagine two more dissimilar characters, who both loved Nortons with passion.  Paul Adams is an ex-Navy pilot of many years' experience, with the unflappable reserve of a military man, and George, well, flapped.  Those two were chalk and cheese, and barely kept from breaking into open argument! Still, George later admitted Paul had a very nice collection, and that his workshop was really clean.

George with one of his many 'specials' built for customers like Dunhill.

Something else he left behind; his incredible self-published love poem to Norton, created from his personal archive of early factory press materials, photos, and documents - 'Flat Tank Norton'. If you're a fan of early Nortons, it's essential reading, and an entertaining mix - some of the early photos of James Landsdowne Norton himself can be found nowhere else.  'Flat Tank Norton' is the kind of book only a devoted enthusiast can produce, as a publisher would have squeezed out the quirks to increase 'general interest', but they would have taken out the George factor, which is what give the book its tremendous charm.  It needs a reprint, as copies run on Amazon for nearly $1000!
Another memorable moment with George came not on a bike, but in one of his select few cars, at the 2013 Vintage Revival Montlh�ry meeting.  He'd brought his c.1908 Brasier Voiture de Course after breaking down somewhere in France, while driving the all-chain drive monster all the way from his Somerset home.  He'd sorted the brakeless beast, and was enjoying flying laps around the banking, and offered me a ride, which I accepted with something like fear.  George drove like he rode, and the Brasier had no seat belts, roll bars, suspension to speak of, or front brakes, but it did have an enormous 12 Liter Hispano-Suiza V-8 OHC aeroplane engine with 220hp on tap!  I put myself in the hands of Fate, and George.  I climbed aboard, clinging to the scuttle, and filmed the ordeal with one hand, laughing 100% of the time, as he slid the rear end on the short corners, and got as high up the banking as he could, while the behemoth shuddered, roared, bucked, and squealed.  Unforgettable, just like the man.

With George in his epic 1908 Brasier de Course, with its 12 liter OHC Hispano-suiza aero engine, with 220hp!  Insane for a car with no brakes, and all-chain drive...

George with the re-created Rem Fowler Norton, winner of the very first Isle of Man TT in 1907.  He rebuilt the machine entirely after the disastrous National Motorcycle Museum fire.

Thumbs up George!  I hate to say it, but goodbye friend.

If you care to send a note to his wife Sarah and his family, I'll gladly forward George's address - shoot me an email.

Buy your tickets HERE for the Quail Motorcycle Gathering on May 14th, 2016

It's Quail time again!  What's become the best moto-Concours show in America has its 8th edition next week, with the Quail Ride (an instant sellout - fehgeddaboutit) on Friday May 13th, and the Quail Motorcycle Gathering on Saturday May 15th.  The show gained real traction about 3 years ago, with participants and machines coming from all over the US and abroad, as word spread about the superb facilities and organization of the Quail Lodge event.  This year there's a Cycle World tour on Saturday morning - click here for details - for those not quick enough to snatch Quail Ride tickets, and the roads around Carmel Valley are fantastic.

Cycle World will lead a ride through the winding roads of Carmel Valley on Saturday morning

There aren't many motorcycle shows where you can rub elbows with World Champion GP racers (Kenny Roberts, Wayne Rainey, and Eddie Lawson are regulars) and superstars like Mert Lawill, while strolling in a beautiful spot, eating fantastic food (and drinks!) and looking at a world-class selection of motorcycles.  The Quail is top-class, as anyone who's attended knows, and why more folks show up every year.  Still, it never feels crowded, as the facility simply expands as necessary, and more vendor/exhibit/food/champagne tents line the field. The Quail put together a terrific video of last year's event, check it out:
As usual, I'll be your emcee for the event, and if I can duck out of Concours judging duty this year, might have time for a chat if you collar me on the field.  I definitely prefer offers of a ride on your groovy bike!

The cool mix of machines typical of the Quail's field display

Taking care of emcee duties with the captain of the ship, Gordon McCall

Fringe benefits; riding the rare and unique!  In this case, a 1930 HRD-Vincent Python

Be there!

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A 1930 BSA S30 Sloper Deluxe captured in 1930 in St. Hubert, Quebec, during the R100's cross-Atlantic tour that year - evidence of damage on the lower tailfin, incurred while crossing the Atlantic, give the clue, as does the Canadian registration of the bike!

A picture proverbially equals a thousand words, but if those words are lost to popular history, they bear repeating. A pair of images posted by Jim 'Buster' Culling on Instagram piqued my interest; their superficial charm lays with the old bike/dirigible mashup, but there's a terrific tale behind these images, pinpointing exactly where and when they were taken, and what was happening with British aviation.  The photos show a couple of friends posing aboard a 1930 BSA 'Sloper' S30 Deluxe (the model # changed by year from 1927-35), with its chrome tank and fishtail muffler, which was designed by Harold Briggs (who'd left Daimler) for BSA in 1926, for the '27 season.  It used a wet-sump design, and proved a very quiet and fast machine, and a big seller for BSA. The gents in the photo are enjoying their triple good fortune on that day, with clear bluebird skies, a lovely BSA to ride, and the added interest of Britain's fantastic new dirigible, the R100, moored on a special mast which allowed 360deg of movement in case of shifts in the wind. The photos are shot in St. Hubert, Quebec, the only dirigible mooring in Canada, where the R100 arrived on August 1st, 1930, and stayed until August 11th, after which it traveled to Toronto.  The lower failfin had been damaged on the Atlantic crossing, as shown in the top (higher resolution) photo.  Photos of the R100 over Toronto on Aug. 12/13 show the lower tailfin had been repaired, so these photos must have been shot the first week of August, 1930.

Likely a friend of the BSA's owner with the new 1930 BSA Sloper and the R100 moored in St Huber, Canada.

The origins of lighter-than-air craft is documented as far back as the AD200s in China, when floating lanterns were used for signaling - 'Kongming lanterns'. The first Europeans saw of aerial lanterns was during the invasion of the Khans in the 1200s, as the Mongols studied captured Chinese signal-lanterns, and replicated them... which is exactly how Europeans were introduced to gunpowder,too. It took another 500 years for the first documented human flight in a hot-air balloon, in 1709, when Bartolomeu de Gusmao demonstrated the principle to the King of Portugal. Balloons grew in popularity through the 1700s and into the 1800s, for both popular and military/surveillance uses. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin witnessed observation balloons on a visit to the US during the Civil War, and was keenly interested in their potential.  A lecture on lighter-than-air craft for postal and commercial travel in 1874 inspired Zeppelin to sketch out his first dirigible that year, a rigid-framed airship using bags of hydrogen to lift the craft, and engines slung beneath for direction and power. Zeppelin patented his design in Germany and the US, and his first, privately-funded airship, the LZ-1, flew over the beguiling waters of the Bodensee on July 2, 1900.  Experiments, crashes, and a huge public interest in the project meant by 1914 the new Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH factory (still in business!) had built 24 ever more capable dirigibles, with over 1500 flights and 10,000 paying passengers under its belt. They proved unreliable and dangerous for anything but observation during WW1, and most bombers-dirigibles were destroyed by weather or enemy bullets, as giant hydrogen bas bags are easy, and spectacularly flammable targets.

The R100 on its mooring mast in Cardington, the HQ of the British Dirigible Project, looking very much like the landscape in our BSA Sloper photos

Post-war, the dream of regular dirigible airline service was realized by the Zeppelin company, who circumvented postwar restrictions on large aircraft by building Zeppelins for American companies!  And while they knew helium was the safer lighter-than-air medium, American patent holders on helium production refused to license rights, so the rest of the world carried on with hydrogen dirigibles, with occasionally spectacular failures. While Britain experimented with its own dirigibles in the 'Teens, they weren't particularly successful.  Still, it galled the British Air Ministry that Zeppelins were making great strides in Arctic exploration, global circumnavigation, and a popular passenger service.  In 1924, the Air Ministry launched the Imperial Airship Scheme to connect its far-flung empire with dirigibles. Two teams competed for a new design; the R100 by Vickers-Armstrongs, and the R101 by the Air Ministry itself. The R100 was built using 'conventional' Zeppelin practice, headed by Barnes Wallis who had experience with dirigible design (and who later used the truss dirigible frame design for the structure of Wellington bombers), which proved an exceptionally air-worthy craft, while the R101 was more experimental, terribly overweight, and unstable.  The R100 successfully crossed the Atlantic, made numerous test flights, and garnered excellent press. Politics within the Air Ministry meant the R101 was pushed into service.  In October 1930, the R101, on its first overseas flight, crashed in France, killing its design team and the Air Minister himself, Lord Thomson. That was the end of the British Dirigible project; the R100 was immediately grounded, and destroyed the following year. The story of the R100 is fascinating, and told brilliantly by engineer Nevil Shute in his book 'Slide Rule'.  Shute was Deputy Engineer on the R100 project under Barnes Wallis, and took over as Chief Engineer in 1929.  'Slide Rule' was recommended to me by Dennis Quinlan, and I'm passing the favor along to you; like books by Phil Irving, or Kevin Cameron's Cycle World columns, Shute manages to wrest very technical matters into an entertaining read.

The majesty of an enormous Zeppelin is undeniable, and when the LZ-26 was flown over the White House in 1926, president Calvin Coolidge called it 'an angel of peace.' After Count von Zeppelin died in 1917, the company was taken over by Dr Hugo Eckener, who was adamant the airship be used for peaceful purposes.  He was a vocal anti-nazi, and made an official 'non-person' during WW2, and only intervention by Hindenburg prevented his arrest.