Ariel Owners MotorCycle Club

I thought the name was familiar:

viewtopic.php?t=6816

Same chap?

I had a plan once too and a 1949 Ariel and a pile of bits.

I managed to mislay the plan years ago. Now there are eight Ariels and a much larger
collection of bits.

You know what happens, don't you?

As you push the replica HT out of the workshop and into the warm spring sunshine you look back
into the workshop and think 'Mmm.There's nearly enough bits left over to build another bike'.

Swapping an HT frame for a duplex frame isn't that simple. Not much will fit. The fork yokes
are different although I think they can be made to fit, I'm pretty sure the swinging arm is smaller
at the pivot end on the HT, the engine plates and the gearbox are different as it the rear wheel.

Looking at the photos I think all that has been done is to extend the forks legs. The frame looks unmolested - at the headset at least. As far as making a trials bike out of it the duplex framed Ariels are not light. They work well with a sidecar but they can be a handful solo off-road. Your other s...

I think the rough ones are for BSAs and the polished ones Ariels. Wasn't there
an article in Cheval a good few years ago about the differences?

These are the later ones - 1952 or 1953 on from memory.

There is a photo in Bacon's Motorcycles of the 50's which shows a 1945 HS at Earl's Court. Behind the HS is what must be a rigid HT. I can't see the detail of the front forks and yokes but it does seem to have the catalogue bottom rail. The catalogue photo above does have Ariel yokes. All the swingi...

Just looked a little closer - the headstock appears fabricated which is the mark of an all-welded frame, one of the things differentiating the rigid HT from the VCH. Also interesting are the BSA yokes. These are narrower than the Ariel yokes to the point where the standard half width Ariel hub is no...

If my memory serves Ray Pettit had one of these many years ago. I used to meet him at the VMCCs Taverner's Section trials. It was a lovely light-looking 'bike, nothing like this offering. Incidentally the registration comes back as November 1982 with a declared date of 1953. This particular 'bike lo...