Have a look at the image above – does it mean anything to you? Just for the heck of it, I went on line and looked up the initials BSA and discovered that those 3 letters can stand for hundreds of different things – everything from Boy Scouts of America, Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, Bulgarian Studies Association and countless others. The particular image shown, however, is the logo for Birmingham Small Arms, a British company that used to manufacture motorcycles. At one time, they were the largest producer of motorcycles in the world, accounting for 1/4 of all sales on the planet. However, in 1973 they stopped production after 63 years. “So what?” you might ask. How did that affect any of us? Well, sit back and let me tell you a tale of my personal involvement with the company.

The year was 1965. In mid-September, I had just returned to Vancouver to continue my studies at the University of British Columbia. To this day, I’m not sure what possessed me to decide that I needed to buy a motorcycle, but I became pretty fixated on the idea. The second of October saw me pay a visit to Fred Deeley Motorcycles at their well-known showroom at 606 E. Broadway. I must have left there with stars in my eyes, because I couldn’t stop thinking about owning a brand-new motorcycle after that. About a week later, my mind was made up – I would buy a BSA 350 Super-Sport, and that’s all there was to it! After paying for tuition, books and room and board for the first semester, I still had $950.00 in the bank. That was enough to buy the bike, but the money was actually earmarked for my school costs for the second semester. Hmmm, how could I make this work? I hit upon the idea of taking out a student loan for those school costs and using what I had in the bank to buy the bike. Problem solved. Was it the smartest decision I had ever made? In hindsight, no, but hell, I had just turned 18 and making good decisions wasn’t my strong suit.

Deeley went ahead and ordered the bike for me. I paid for it up front, and I remember it cost $800.00 plus tax. It seemed like a lot at the time, at least to my way of thinking. I recall that the dealer threw in a free helmet (mandatory in BC even back then). That works out to be the equivalent of just over $8,000.00 in today’s money, so I guess it actually was a pretty big deal at the time. Because of my age, I had to get my mother’s permission to get a learner’s permit to even drive the thing. She signed the form for me to get the license, but I’m sure she had some misgivings – in her place, I would have had plenty. I got the learner’s permit and they delivered the bike to me on October 21st.

The bike was 350 CCs, but it was a single-cylinder. That meant that it was high compression, and was so hard to kick the engine over that the only way you could do it was to use the compression release lever mounted on the handlebars. If you didn’t use that, you could stand up on the kick-starter lever with your entire weight and it wouldn’t even budge. No big deal, I soon got the hang of it. I remember when I went for my first ride – I was so clueless, I didn’t even know how to properly use the clutch to change gears. It’s a wonder I didn’t get myself killed on the first day.

I soon bought a second helmet so I could legally jeopardize the life of a passenger. Before the end of the month, one of my friends at the student residence bought a used Honda Dream, 305 CCs, so now I had some company. A full 2 weeks after I bought the bike, I finally got it insured with State Farm, and also got my permanent license. To do that, I drove it down to the motor vehicle office and, while an agent watched, I drove it around a bit, including a figure-8 in the parking lot.

My mother had to sign the form giving me permission to apply for a student loan to cover my second-term fees, and that all went without a hitch. The dealer told me to take it easy for the first 500 miles to break it in, which I did, but once that was done I still wasn’t a very good driver. One time, I even wiped out on the bike, but fortunately it was on a grassy area and aside from a few small dents, no harm was done. About 3 weeks after I got the bike, I had ridden the 500 miles for the break-in, but still wasn’t a good rider.

My mother had enrolled at a different university across town, and I started riding to visit her each week. The idea of owning a motorcycle must have caught on, because another of the guys at the student dorm went out and bought a 650CC BSA, a used one (1958) in mid-November and now 3 of us could ride together. By early December, I had bought a pair of saddlebags and had logged a thousand miles.

Back in the 1960s, there was a standing joke about British cars, and I suppose it could apply to British motorcycles as well. It was said that you needed 2 – one to drive while the other was in the shop for repairs. I never gave it much thought except when I started to hear a bad noise coming from my transmission. I drove it back to the dealer, who told me that it needed some serious repairs and I’d have to leave it with them. They said it would be covered under the warranty so I shouldn’t worry about it.

An entire month went by – I guess they had to order parts from a planet in another solar system, and didn’t get the bike back until early January. In the meantime, I started to think that maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much money to buy a new bike. Maybe I should have bought a used one, and while I was at it I should have bought a bigger, more powerful bike – a 750CC Norton Atlas, that’s what I needed! In hindsight, knowing how immature I was at the time, I surely would have gotten myself killed on such a beast as that. However, I tried selling my BSA by running an ad in the Vancouver paper, but got little response, and that was probably for the better. I did take it out one day on the highway and cranked it up to just over 90 miles an hour, but somehow felt the need for more speed.

I started to have little problems with the bike: a footrest fell off; the brake light stopped working; there was something that felt odd about the clutch cable. One weekend in mid-February, I took it for a spin down to Washington state. That clutch cable failed while I was in Bellingham, but by some miracle there was a BSA dealer there. I limped over there and, even more miraculously, they had a replacement cable for me. I spent much of the afternoon sitting out at the curb in front of the shop while I actually made the repair myself.

In early March, Keith, another friend who lived at the same student dorm on campus, went out and bought a Suzuki 80CC. He was probably the smartest one of us, getting a bike that was smaller and simpler. Meanwhile, I kept needing to make small repairs on mine: a new dimmer switch; a new headlight bulb; a new spark plug. And the clutch cable still wasn’t quite right. April arrived, and the semester was coming to an end. I needed a new kickstand bolt, and changed the gear oil. My friend with the Honda Dream shipped his bike from Vancouver to his home town of Cranbrook instead of riding it the 525 miles, where he could enjoy it for the summer.

I had a job waiting for me in the Rocky Mountain town of Golden, about 500 miles away, and I decided to ride the bike up there. I stopped part-way in Summerland, the home of my friend George. He had a job at the same sawmill in Golden, and we planned to use the bike as our transportation for the summer. On May 6th, I arrived in Golden and the bike had worked perfectly. As the summer progressed through May, June and July, we used the bike almost every weekend to travel around the Rockies, visiting and camping at such places as Emerald Lake, Radium Hot Springs. Lake Louise. the Columbia Icefields. Banff, Jasper, Kootenay National Park, Nakimu Caves and another trip to Emerald Lake. And here’s the amazing part – not once did the bike give us any trouble. It never let us down, always started every time and always got us to where we wanted to go. We even made a trip back to the Okanagan for a weekend.

As the months passed, something interesting started to happen. People would see the bike on the street and ask if it were for sale. After this occurred a number of times, I started to think that maybe I should take advantage of that interest others were showing. My mind was made up – the next time someone asked me to sell it, I would. A fellow named Jim who worked in Golden offered to buy it and I agreed. Now I have to say that the bike looked pretty sharp – lots of chrome, nice paint job – it had curb appeal, and that must’ve been why so many asked if it were for sale. Here’s what it looked like.

The 350CC BSA

I can’t remember how much our sale price was, but I foolishly let him take the bike after just giving me a modest down-payment – he would pay me the rest within a month. Well, he took off for a trip to Banff the next weekend and barely made it back to Golden. The bike didn’t run after that. To the best of my recollection, here’s what we figured out happened. A bit of metal from the carburetor, possibly from the end of the throttle cable, came loose and was sucked into the engine as it was running. The force of the engine running caused the metal bit to squeeze the compression ring on the piston so that it wasn’t sitting normally and the compression was too low for the engine to operate.

Four days after he returned to Golden, Jim lost his job and now pleaded poor, being unable to pay me the rest of the money for the bike. So there I was, late August, with the bike not running. We had the engine apart and ordered some parts. By early September, we still needed more parts. I decided to ship the bike by rail back to Vancouver, where I could better deal with repairs. On September 15th, that’s what I did, for under 20 dollars. By the 19th, I was back in Vancouver, once again living at the student dorm and reconnected with my bike.

I set about making repairs – with only a single cylinder, working on the engine was fairly straightforward. I needed a push-rod ($2.00) and an inlet valve and guide ($7.00). By early October, I managed to get the bike running again, but with a lot of vibration and an oil leak. Fall turned into winter, and the bloom was definitely off the rose. Only rarely did I even take it out for a spin. By the time spring arrived, my diary notes of early March say that I had the bike running better. It was time for us to part company. I advertised the bike once again and sold it a day later, on March 20th, to a fellow on campus for 400 bucks. I had owned it for a year and 5 months, and sold it for half of what I paid for it.

It was fun while it lasted, but with a lot of misery thrown in for good measure. I never bought another motorcycle, and in fact didn’t even buy my first car until the fall of 1969. It’s a good thing I never bought a bigger motorcycle, because I’m sure that, as reckless as I was, I would have killed myself out on some highway somewhere. Here are a few photos of the BSA in better days.

At the student dorm.

At the Columbia Icefields

At Radium Hot Springs

Near Emerald Lake