I bought when I was 17 in 1965 a Matchless 600 thumper (single Cylinder) British Motorcycle(I believe it was a 1958 or 1959 model) that had been converted for Hillclimbing. It looked exactly like the picture below except it had a huge rear sprocket and a straight pipe that would blow out blue fire with no muffler for added power. It's top speed as a hill climber might have been around 40 mph because of the huge rear sprocket. It was geared so low that I found that if I tried to start moving in low gear often the whole bike would flip me off the back and I would be on my butt. So, after a few times of doing this I learned to always start out in 2nd or 3rd gear so the torc didn't just hurt me by throwing me off the back end. It couldn't be licensed in that form but I think I had a license for it anyway. When you take 600 CCs and a thumper (single cylinder) and gear it down like that you have an amazing amount of power and torque. I loved riding it at night on a warm night across the desert with blue fire coming out of it's straight pipe exhaust which would be around 1965 then. Eventually I traded it for a BSA 500 from World War II used in North Africa during the war there. The BSA 500 was like driving a tank and an antique. It had no rear end suspension at all and no battery. So, you kick started it and even the head light would work directly off the magneto running the engine with no battery at all. Very ingenious! This was the most reliable motorcycle I ever owned and it was happy riding forever as long as you were only riding at about 50 mph across the desert. I kept this World war II BSA 500 into my 30s and it started up right away even if I hadn't ridden it in months while storing it at my Dad's place in the desert. So, I kept it from about age 18 until I was about 37 when my father passed away in the desert where he and I built a retirement home for him and my Mom.
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