BSA DBD34 Gold Star walk around and start (sorry about the wind noise!)

Apologies for the wind noise, it was very breezy! This Clubmans goldie has been fitted with a Mikuni carburettor, helping hugely with its road manners. The clubmans had clip on bars, the hottest camshafts, highest compression etc and was usually supplied with the RRT2 (Road Racing, Two Torrington roller bearings) gearbox. It was in this form that goldies won either the junior or senior TT pretty much every year between 1949 and 1956, so of course, the boy racers wanted it too, irrespective of how tedious it could be to ride around town! It’s difficult to potter around on a clubmans, it wants to go fast, so your friends quickly tire of you either hanging back, in order to catch up, or blasting off into the distance! It’s better to ride alone, in truth.
Out of town, the goldie offers one of the purest motor cycling experiences it’s possible to have and really is more than the sum of its parts. At nearly 90bhp per litre, the Gold star engine is very close to the limits of what a normally aspirated 2 valve single is capable of producing and is very much the Fireblade of its day. Fifties and sixties rockers invariably aspired to either a Gold Star or Bonneville , even though their own bikes were likely to be more mundane. I’ve owned this particular bike for years and bought it from an original 59 club rocker, Jerry F.
Uncomfortable, challenging, difficult to manage in traffic, hard to start and expensive - all fair criticisms of the BSA Gold Star, but on a quiet winding road it remains the very essence of what riding a classic British motorcycle really is.
You can’t really hear the exhaust ‘Twitter’ but trust me, it’s there 😉

[@philmuskett265]

More than magic, mate. It's an entire epoch in British brilliance never to be repeated on two wheels. Tears in the eye. Fantastic.

[@bartmotorcycle]

Really cool informative video!

[@ingonowack3839]

Ah, what a lovely old gem 💎 of the roads 🤩!
Being german and therefore somehow cut out of some great motors or other great products, which seem to stay kind of limited to certain countries/ markets, one doesn’t get to see and enjoy such rarities 🥰!
Thank you very much for loading this great content up for the interested UA-cam family 🤗😍😘🥳!

[@MotoTingle]

Your bikes always start on the first kick. How you do it is pure class. Never tell anyone your secret

[@paulmiles]

Practice, dear boy!

[@MotoTingle]

@@paulmiles Thats what she said, lol

[@christopherwhite5210]

Very very nice...

[@douglasrichardson8525]

this was the best version, I had the 350cc, not a patch on the 500.

[@peterwebbe28]

Walter (Wal) Handley was not French, he was from Birmingham and I would recommend reading ‘None more Brave’ his biography. Also just for clarification, Gold Stars won Clubman’s TTs which is different to what most people will understand a Senior and Junior TT win to be. Nice bike though 👍

[@daifromwales9543]

Famous, not French! It's the wind noise...

[@paulmiles]

I never said he was French, but yes, it’s quite windy!

[@jonathanhucker4634]

Beautiful 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[@andremenezes6428]

Was wondering Paul does she have race cams?

[@melbinthomas1659]

Does it tick over??

[@paulmiles]

It does now, yes! The only way to get a tickover with the Amal GP is to tension the throttle cable and that’s never a good idea.