SV650.org - SV650 & Gladius 650 Forum - Brooklands Re-lived

I've been to Brooklands today, was a really good day out. Co-incided with a themed day of old bikes, some road, some race some interesting looking stuff, I like the older bikes with everything on display to be looked at, watching the valve gear / springs work...

Bikes

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This Henderson really was a piece of art as well as bike..

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Has Kwak been here ( part 1 )

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Giving it the beans up the test hill

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Nice Gloves... I dont think these were Alpinestars !!

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Period riding gear...

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Cutting a dash.. the Ariel this guy is sat on sounded absoloutly beautiful, crackling, popping burbling all on the other run, brilliant.

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Alot of the race bikes above were "Sprinters" run over a timed 1/4 mile against the clock, hence the small fuel tanks and open pipes.

Brooklands itself

The banking

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Kin hell is it steep I walked up to the top and could barely stand up, I popped the camera down on the track and took this picture, compare the angle of the bridge against the pic above, it must have been an awesome sight to watch those massive cars thundering round that flat out in the 20's and 30's. Just sitting there in the sun today it was easy to let the imagination run away and try and call up the sights and sounds.

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The Test Hill

They were running the old bikes up this as well today, its very steep, goes from 1 in 8 at the bottom to 1 in 5, to 1 in 4 at the top..

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Other stuff.. If you like historic racing then its worth a visit, theres loads of stuff tucked away to ogle over.

This particualrly took my eye a Napier Railton 24 litres 12 cyclinders arranged in 3 banks of 4, all I can say is the crank in this bad boy must been some piece of work.

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Kwak Part 2, its not Autosol though, its Auto Glym metal polish.

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Pistons the size of dinner plates

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Theres also a whole section devoted to planes that were built by Armstrong Vickers on site, also a Concorde that you can have a tour off.

Pic of the Concorde Cockpit

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First time I've seen a Concorde at that close quarters, amazing machine, lots of little details like the twist on the wing tips and stuff I've never seen before. It really is a shame that they pensioned the old girl off.

Was an ace day out, if you like this kind of thing pay them a visit.