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This year there is only one Friday the 13th in the 2022 calendar and it's coming up next week.
Some people consider it an omen for bad luck. Not me for several reasons. I wanted a baby brother; he was born on Friday the 13th and since then I have considered it my lucky number.
When I lived on Main Street, Cambridge, every Friday the 13th a convoy of hundreds of motorcycles would pass by our home.
They were on their way to join thousands of other motorcyclists in Port Dover, a tradition. Sitting on our verandah and watching them was a treat that brought back many memories.
Riding solo or with pillion passengers all were accompanied by cuddly stuffed toys, teddies, dogs, every variety of soft animal, later to be donated to the Children’s hospital.
To me motorcycles are a part of my history.
My father Ivan. B. Wicksteed was passionate about them from an early age until his death in October 1998. He loved motorcycles.
On his death, the family's link with his record-breaking ride on the old Brooklands racetrack at Weybridge, Surrey, was broken.
My dad held the 500cc lap record at Brooklands in perpetuity, with an average speed of 118.02mph on a Triumph motorcycle he built and tuned with an old school friend.
One of the things my dad was most known for was his insistence to Triumph that if they supercharged their Triumph 500 with a twin carburettor, they would get faster speeds. Triumph ignored his suggestion, deciding they knew better than a young upstart university student.
At school his passion for motorbikes overtook academia and he bribed his sister to take him to the IOM TT races on the pillion of her 249 cc BSA.
He illicitly kept a bike in a nearby farmer’s pigsty. When caught riding it the headmaster confiscated the magneto contact breaker points! In July 1934 aged 18 he first raced a 350 cc Cotton Blackburne at Brooklands clocking 76.61 mph over the flying km. He had requested the day off school for a dentist’s appointment.
By now his passion for speed and the racing partnership with his school friend was becoming the major focus of his life. Various machines were developed and tuned by the pair, leading to racing at Brooklands on which he won his Gold Star for a lap at over 100 mph during a race.
That year, Triumph had launched their new 5T “Speed Twin” Edward Turner’s radical 500 cc vertical twin, which the pair chose as being better suited to supercharging than a single, and one was purchased as the basis for their 1928 attempt on the Brooklands 500cc outer circuit lap record.
The development problems were immense, frustrating, and numerous, scrapped cylinder heads, piston seizures, broken cylinder base flanges, conflicting advice from the experts, different wheel sizes etc. But the solutions found by the self-taught tenacious young entrepreneurs were both innovative and legendary. And with the 1938 season ending and in appalling weather conditions a new record of 118.02 mph was established on October 8, 1938.
The offer of support from Triumph for the 1939 season was instantaneous, MD Edward Turner, earlier so very off-hand, now offered them help and recognised their wisdom, in future all kinds of assistance and their racing future looked bright. But events deemed otherwise since the Second World War necessitated the closure of Brooklands circuit forever.
Ivan’s association with Triumphs was not restricted to Brookland’s but continued, and on his 70th birthday my father rode a replica Triumph at the Brooklands Museum to commemorate the record. He was very proud that he could wear the same leathers and helmet he’d worn more than fifty years earlier.
He also raced a Triumph 500 in the Isle of Man T.T. Races for several years. In 1951 in the Senior category my father was well ahead so asked his pit crew if he had enough time in hand to change his spark plugs in hope of breaking a lap record, they said “yes."
He was announced the winner but unfortunately the second-place finisher had a faster overall time, the pit crew mistimed it, so he came second behind Geoff Duke. I recall listening to the radio broadcast as a 9-year-old in hospital and was very upset
Most recently with a new 500 series coming off the production line my brother was asked to be the guest speaker in memory of Ivan Wicksteed and his work supercharging the record-breaking bike, at the unveiling of this splendid machine Michael was privileged to ride the new bike.
All this detail leads me back to my love of motorcycles. I recall as a child being a pillion passenger and one time the immense speed witnessed by my horrified mother watching made her fear (quite correctly) my father had forgotten I was on the back.
When I was ten and my brother seven, we bought our first motorbike for £3. He paid £2 and I paid £1. He joked that meant one third of the time it worked I got to ride it, and the two thirds it didn’t, he got to fix it. An embarrassingly accurate account!
Frequently over the years, I have been a pillion passenger on my brothers’ various bikes. I hope to repeat it when in the U.K. as an early 80th birthday celebration. I love the sound of Triumph engine; it makes me feel young again. But now I feel too old to handle the riding so being a pillion passenger suits me beautifully. Maybe I’m a chip off the old block.
If you are riding from Cambridge to Port Dover on May 13, be safe and enjoy the journey.
