February 2010
I had met the owner of this bike some years earlier, but this was my first opportunity to get to know it.
It was the occasion of the 2010 International BSA Rally in Christchurch in 2010. There was a massive lineup of BSA's in Cust. The white one stood out.
I was riding the red one on the far side of it because the owner had recently been diagnosed with a brain tumour and could not ride it himself, so I was his pilot and he was my pillion. So we both got to be there.
Due to the timing of things, I had to return home earlier, so I took the white one back. It was a number of miles down the road that I discovered it had a 5-speed gearbox..!
Turned out it had also been treated to some porting work on the head and carbs, and may have had some steel rods fitted. A serious contender indeed. Shame it still suffered from the lack of ground clearance that these early models were handicapped by.
Because of the International BSA Rally there were a number of Rocket 3's staying. We simply had to arrange a few lineups of the colour schemes.
There was a publicity shot from the early production years that we were all familiar with. It seemed that with Sue's assistance, we might be able to re-create it.
The original looked like this.
Our version was a tad more realistic.
The leathers were the reason that Sue got to be known as "Red".
What is not to like about all this...!