It is with great sadness club member, Culm Vale and FED member Roy Workman passed away 7th November 2024.
The funeral will be held at South Lincolnshire Crematorium, Spalding on Friday 13th December at 1pm.
Webcast details below. and link Streaming | Obitus
No flowers donations to the R.N.L.I.
My last trip out with Roy was to the Newark Bike Show, one of Roy’s favourite shows. Roy was extremely knowledgeable when it came to anything on 2 wheels as well as 3, especially older bikes. He was a member of many clubs and a bit of a scooter fan. He held the post of FED president for quite a few years, making a point to visit all the UK sidecar dealers and manufactures while he was president.
Roy wrote numerous articles for various magazines on a regular basis, book reviews, shows, museum reviews, the list is endless.
Here is one of my favourite reads;
My friend, Wolfgang Weckeck, whom I had not seen since 1969, was recently trawling the internet at his home near Cuxhaven, in Germany, looking for interesting motorcycling items, when he came upon the Sidecarland website. He spotted the picture of his old BMW outfit. He contacted Martyn, who in turn contacted me. The end result was that Wolfgang popped over last week for a few days. He needed to be quick as his passport runs out in early March this year and we could not easily get to him as Chris has all of her leave booked already for 2011.
It was nice to meet up again after so many years. As mentioned in the original article, Wolfgang initially came over to England for a few days and stayed with Les and Rosa Davenport. The few days stretched to three years. He rode a BMW and Steib sidecar, and the chair was mounted on the right of the motorcycle. Wolfgang offered Les a chance to ride the outfit but he declined. I took it out for a ride instead and found that it handled as well, if not better, than my English one. I came back and told Les that it handled well; he then took it out for a run and ended up running a BMW with a right-handed sidecar for many years. The only downside to this set up is that you can not always see to overtake from behind buses and vans, etc. If you had a sidecar passenger then it was not a problem; if the passenger thought that their life insurance policy was about to pay out, they would shout at you and you pulled back in again.
Wolfgang’s BMW was a good bike – a great engine and a bright headlight, but rubbish brakes, compared to my 1951 Triumph outfit. I was told to slow on the gearbox more, but this was not a lot of good in an emergency. On one occasion, Maggie, who was sitting in the sidecar, screamed when I nearly ran into the back of a vehicle. We were three up so the brakes were even more stressed than usual. Luckily I slid the outfit left onto pavement and came safely to a halt.
Wolfgang and I felt that some of the things that we got up to in the 1960s would not be allowed today. One time we rode through Gravesend High Street on two wheels with me sitting in the chair. On a few occasions, when traffic was bad, we would take the sidecar off and leave it by the side of the road and ride on, returning later return to stick the chair back on!!
At the time I was living in what is now known as the Medway Towns in Kent. The A2 was the main road from London to Dover and traffic was always heavy. One bank holiday my friend, Steve, and I rode our solos down the outside of a queue of cars for twelve miles to reach home. The situation improved when the M2 motorway was built in the mid sixties.
Wolfgang and I rode a lot together. Saturday evenings were a favourite. Once we rode to Wales from Kent. Just edging into Wales we spotted a motorcycle and two people by the side of the road; we turned around and came back to find that the Vincent had broken down. The couple had been to the Motorcycle Show at Earls Court. We were riding an NSU Supermax 250cc outfit at the time. The girl went in the sidecar and we tied the Vincent on with a piece of rope. I was passenger on the Vincent and off we went. The 250cc engine pulled a sidecar, four people and a Vincent. All went well for several miles until the Vincent owner dropped the bike and me on the road.
All of our rides were done “on the move”, with no stop over, with one of riding and the other one resting in the sidecar, and then changing over. One time Wolfgang rode alone to Scotland and back over the weekend; on the return trip cigarettes were more important than engine oil, and the engine needed a rebuild soon after. Had I been on the ride with him we would have had money for the oil, as I did not smoke.
On one of our Dragon Rally trips we met a couple of lads with a Sunbeam S7 outfit, and we had a lot of fun racing around with them. The Sunbeam could not keep up, once we had overtaken them. The downside was that the sidecar wheel did not take the strain, and riding back home after the rally half of the spokes had given up the ghost. We felt it was too dangerous to continue, so somewhere near Shrewsbury we removed the chair and dumped it in a ditch and left it there. The next weekend saw us riding back, armed with a pocketful of spokes. We were pleasantly surprised that the Steib was still there! We respoked the wheel, popped the sidecar back on and rode back to Kent.
On another trip to the Dragon Rally we spotted a German-registered Honda 250cc outfit. We commented that it had made it here but would it make it back? I was travelling on Les’ Triumph Thunderbird 650 cc outfit – a nice sidecar bike at the time. On the return trip Les was riding steadily on the ice and snow when the little Honda outfit shot straight past us, followed by his mates riding solos. They get more snow in Germany, so they were used to the conditions that weekend. I had left my solo tucked up nice and warm in the garage, and jumped on the back of Les’ outfit for the Dragon rally run.
The Kent Three Star Sidecar Cub was a well-organised club. We used to hire a coach to take us to the Motorcycle Show at Earls Court. Another thing we did was to meet foreign riders at Dover Docks and see them safely on their way. We (Les and I) were at Dover Docks seeing some riders off when we spotted Wolfgang, who had been home riding an NSU Max outfit. He got stopped at the Customs and Excise Office; he wanted to import the outfit, but he had made the mistake of highly polishing the outfit – it shone and the Customs’ man wanted a lot of money in tax to import the bike. Eventually a price was agreed, and Wolfgang rode the outfit through the gate.
Any British 250cc motorbike with a sidecar would have been lucky to reach 60 mph. The Max was a different ball game. I was riding my Matchless 350cc and pulling out of Dover I cruised at 60 mph – the Max was still there; I upped it to 70 mph and the Max was still there. I thought “I’m not having this” and the Matchless went onto full bore and Wolfgang’s outfit dropped back. It was a great outfit and it would cruise all day at 55 / 60 mph two up, and the brakes were quite good as well. The sidecar was fitted with a three-point fixing, held together with thumb-screw fittings – no spanners required to remove or fit the sidecar. Two people and five minutes could separate the bike from the sidecar. The outfit would reach 80 mph on a decent down slope,
In 1967 I moved to London to get a job. I still saw Les. Rosa and Wolfgang, but much less frequently now. Wolfgang eventually went back to Germany, where he met and married Marion. They both rode motorbikes, with and without sidecars. At one time they had two MZ outfits. Wolfgang had them bored out to 300 cc, He had two 25-litre petrol tanks specially made, so that they could ride for longer periods without stopping. Marion’s MZ was built for the East German market; this was fitted with poorer-quality bearings and the engine failed. Export MZs were fitted with better-quality bearings. Marion could ride well, and one of her bikes was a Honda Pan European; the seat had to be lowered so she that could reach the ground.
Marion and Wolfgang hung up their leathers a couple years ago when they sold their Honda Helix scooter outfit. Wolfgang has been into boats as well for a few years now. He expressed a wish to see the Wash and Skegness, as Skeggy comes up on the German shipping forecast. We had a run up to the Norfolk Broads and had a boat out for an hour. We let Wolfgang do the tricky manoeuvring, whilst Chris and I steered when there was plenty of space! The boat owner congratulated Wolfgang on the way he brought the craft back into the dock.
Sunday saw us at Skeggy, and Wolfgang was amazed at the number of shops that were open on a Sunday. We had a good walk around.
Monday saw the Deadly Duo (Wolfgang and me) out in my outfit having a ride around just like the old days. He felt that my Yamaha was a good touring machine, and we both like shaft drive.
We got talking about Jawa motorcycles. He said that they had basically died out in Germany. I showed him the F2 website and he was very interested in the 350cc bike, as he could hang a sidecar on it.
The result of this trip is that Chris and I will go to Germany when we can and stay with Wolfgang and Marion; this may have to wait until 2012 but it is in mind. Something to think about – in Germany, between October and Easter, vehicles have to run on winter tyres. Last October their government decided that motorcycles needed to use them as well. I believe that Europe is looking at which MOT test would be best for us all – I understand that the German is the toughest one.
Well my friend, you will be missed by many and especially by Lesley and I.
