Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Three Beautiful Motorcycles

..as seen in Normandy, France this past summer

I'm curious to see if folks here agree....







Some seriously vintage iron here, not exactly brimming with horsepower either. Me and them followed the same route from Vierville-sur-Mere to Saint-Mere-Eglise, ended up in the same campground at the end of the day. I told them they were happy to see me on account of I was the only vehicle on the road even slower than they were

Birdwatcher

That is some cool old Iron. I don't know what any of them are but they are still very cool! What were you driving that was slower?

Those are really nice bikes. The BSA might be the newest of the three. Interesting that they all have springer front ends.

That beauty in pic #3 seems to have the headlight aimed awfully high. Cool old bikes, though.

Looks to me that they all have some type of girder front ends, not springer as you mentioned

They are all very cool for sure !!!

Really neat old bikes birdy.

Neat pics!

Love em

Nice

Bicycle. See....

http://www.bikeforums.net/touring/1083877-roots-40-day-bicycle-journey.html

(I go by "Sharpshin" on that forum).

I did some googling around.

All these bikes are most likely 1920's and 1930's. The BSA appears to be a BSA Empire Star ('36-'39), dunno if its the 250cc, 350cc or 500cc version, looks pretty small.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_Empire_Star



This one is a Raleigh, which has to date prior to 1933...

http://motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/classic_bikes/raleigh-classic-motorcycles.php



As to this one, badged "Kerr" (??), I can find no info on the 'net...







I ain't an expert or even particularly well-informed, but if that thing was cranking much more than 15 horsepower I'd be surprised. Same goes for all of these machines.

These guys first passed me doing about 40, you could sure hear them coming, they were taking the same backroads as me so I caught up to them maybe three times along the way.

There was a fourth bike in the group, which they were wrenching on when I took the above photos. I have only one photo of it, not a very good one, from later on outside of Carentan.



I was in Normandy visiting the D-Day beaches, these machines were already around for some years, maybe more than 10, prior to that event. As old or older than the Spits and Hurricanes in service when the war broke out.

Cool beans

Birdwatcher

Nice vintage rides! Well used too, by the look of them, as they should be.

Were any of the riders of those vintage motorcycles wearing kndney belts, Birdwatcher?

Set up for hill climbs.

Very nice! Enjoyed looking at them.

Motorcycles , guns and young women ... some may look better than others ...

but they all look good to me.