Hello All
My comments on how to encourage more members, based on my own experience of owning a Vincent for two years.
1. I struggled to find and buy a Vincent. Even though I attended a club meeting where they lamented the demise of rallies and meets because of not enough attendees and enthusiasm. Even though two of the attendees had Vincents in bits and were clearly never going to put them back together they would not sell them to me. If you want to encourage new riders sell the dismantled bikes that you are never going to put back together and ride.
2. The manuals are impenetrable. A Haynes type manual with photos and instructions written in a modern idiom would be a boon for new riders. This is something the club could encourage. I believe it would be highly valued.
3. Get rid of the obituaries in MPH. I am interested in the future of my bike. Publish articles on how to maintain a Vincent. Look to the future not the past.
Having lit blue touch paper I will retire.
Kevin
I cannot agree with the above remarks
1. there is a constant churn of owners bikes for sale at Vincent spares at the moment there is a project Comet for sale. And once you have obtained the major components I venture there is not another machine that has such good spares availability.
2. I would never hold Haynes manuals up as a paragon of mechanical information having just suffered one on a R100 BMW
but the Vincent is awash with information. For a start you are sitting here on an accessible searchable archive of gigabytes and helpful owners ready to help, just look at today someone asked how to save his fingers putting on a brake shoe, and there came a full comprehensive answer from a fellow owner. If you want youtube answers (and I must confess I dont) there is the current '51 Vincent' series being aired. And as for books just see all the books and manuals available (see the Vincent spares help page)
https://www.vincentspares.co.uk/help/ some only produced a couple of years ago. You must remember we are dealing with an engineering product you need some engineering knowledge its not a consumable durable with an owners manual that after telling you where to find the spark plug eternally says 'return to the dealers'
3 As for obituaries this is a Social club as well as a mechanics convention. I will simply say there is a section to welcome new members as well.. its called life.