I don't recall the names Johnny Malone or Roland Barry amongst the motorcycle magazine contributors I dealt with from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Stan Barrett rings bells for some reason. I do remember a bloke who had LDs, but only because he fell off outside the pub a couple of times. Don't remember that he had a Vincent though.
Very few of the faces on the London bike scene at the time rode Vincents. Nobody had the money, even when they only cost five grand, or a grand and a half for a Comet. I'm not talking VOC scene. I'm talking getting drunk and stoned and racing through London on Friday and Saturday nights from pub to pub or to Chelsea Bridge on old motorcycles. I can only think of three or four with Vincents and most of those bikes were rather dodgy and doggy.
Hell, my Rapide was a serious heap, as some members here will recall. I did, once, see about 70 mph on it coming down off the raised section of the M3. But it looked good, parked with the rest of the lash-ups outside the pub, in the half-light. The first time I rode a decent Vincent was when I roadtested Rex Martin's Shadowised Rapide. And then I rode Alan Lancaster's old Prince to Brittany. I started realising that they were damn fine machines, as long as they were properly put together.
The guys who wrote these articles - which could do with a bit of editing - are describing experiences that were not unusual in the days when Vincents were, in the main, old bikes that were not worth a great deal and had been through the hands of motorcycling's financially and mechanically challenged. Most VOC members maintained their machines lovingly but there were a lot of awful heaps out there. There still are! I tried one out recently and it was an alarming trip down memory lane to when many Vins, especially Comets, were owned by apes whose tool kits were limited to a mole grip, lump hammer and a cold chisel.
In the end, they're not all that rude about Vincents. It is obvious that they aren't slagging the marque. They were just riding heaps.
PK