What age were you when you were first aware of HRDs or Vincents ?

[ClassicBiker]

I was thirteen. I had gotten my first motorcycle the year before. A little Yamaha 80cc I bought for $60, to go riding with all my friends who had dirt bikes. I bought a subscription to Cycle Weekly, as the name implies a weekly newspaper publication devoted to all things motorcycle. I was looking through the for sale ads hoping to find something spectacular and cheap. I had just read "Motorcycle World" by Phil Schilling and had fallen in love with the 1950 Triumph Thunderbird featured there in. My father having had a Triumphs, BSAs, and Nortons, back in England before he and my mother emigrated to the US, approved of my choice so I was on the hunt. Anyway, I spotted an advertisement for a Vincent Black Shadow, $500 in Ann Arbor, about an hour away. I asked my dad "what's a Black Shadow?". He asked why I asked, so I told him. He immediately took the paper and read the ad, handed it back and "said call him now and get directions" . I told the guy who answered I was calling about the Shadow for my dad and asked a few questions and relayed the answers to dad. Being hard of hearing my dad didn't like talking on the phone to much. Anyway, being satisfied with the answers he got from me, my father got on the phone asked a couple of more questions and got directions. Hooked our dirt bike trailer to the car and took of to Ann Arbor with my mom. They returned a couple of hours later with the Black Shadow, engine and oil tank unit on one side of the trailer, forks and RFM on the other, and the wheels in the trunk. It had been used as a ice race bike pulling a side car. I still have the receipt from seller and my dad's copy of the application for title. That was 45 years ago. I still have the Shadow.
Steven

 

[teunvandriel]

Shortly after the war, the only Dutch Motorcycle Magazine "MOTOR" published a short article about a new 1000 cc HRD Twin, the first Series B, almost 50 HP, with the comment of the editors that such heavy and fast motorbikes should be forbidden by the government, life-threatening. In the years that followed little or nothing was published by this magazine, which may also have been the reason that very few HRDs / Vincents were sold new in Holland. Almost 20 years later in 1965 (in the meantime a new young editor had taken the place of the HRD hater) he wrote an enthusiastic story about a Vincent Special owned by a man called David Granger who was on holiday in Holland with this motorbike. The engine was called ATILLA. The engine came from a Black Shadow and had a special crankshaft, TT carbs and high pistons. The front fork was a type Earles fork and the front brake came from a Gilera, according to the story. I myself was 19 years old in 1965, riding a R69S, and had never heard of a Vincent at that time. Later, in our local motorbike club, there was an older man with a Black Shadow, whom we never saw. I have read the story perhaps 10 times. A few years later I saw Vincents in real life at the big motorbike meetings on the continent like the Zeester rally, Lions meeting and Elefanten meeting.

 

[rapide049]

11 years old
Dad always told me stories about the greatest bike built and How He and his mate rode them

 

[flxible]

When I was 10 years old, (1960) domestic tranquility interruptus landed dad in the hoosegow, (one of the best days of my early life) and had mom and we three lads migrating from the east coast to the midwest, nearby some of her family.
We moved into a tiny apartment, the three of us sharing a room just large enough for a double bunkbed and a single mattress on the floor.
Quite soon eldest brother (he was 15) was lecturing his captive audience (middle bro and myself) on the virtues of motorcycling (we hadn't realized he was an expert) and on all of the best motorcycles; which were all English, and of which the Vincent was most revered but outlawed since it was so bad to the bone, and the specifics were lost in the vagaries of time, but not to worry the Norton was still being produced and probably its equal although although they, too, were soon to be outlawed, and so on...
The lectures ended a year or so later when we moved to a little bungalow, where middle brother and I put our bunkbed into another closet, while oldest brother and his mattress appropriated the cellar, and somehow survived blissfully down there.
Interestingly, as middle brother and I reached 16, we both got our m/c licenses, riding 125 Monkey Ward Benelli's and the like, and we're both still riding today, while eldest brother never rode bikes at all...

Then later when I was 28, a school friend who'd moved to London, (he was a dual national) invited me over to ride up to the IoM (which began a tradition for us, that only ended with his sad passing from cancer) and during that first visit, I happened to take a stroll from his place off Chiswick High down the Goldhawk Road, where I stopped in my tracks when I saw a place called Conway Motors.
They were real... this was the first time I'd seen an actual Vincent, and there was a half dozen of them there in the shop in varying conditions.
When I returned home to the states I was on a serious hunt and purchased the first one I found, ('53 BS) and while it proved to need everything, it's proved to be a good example, and is still with me now, more than 40 years on.
Best-
George

 

[Robert Watson]

It seems like most of us were well under driving age when first diagnosed! At age about 14 or 15 I was out walking my dog when a rather noisy group of black motorcycles drove past. Now I had see lots of Harleys and Nortons etc, but these were different, and had to be those legendary bikes I had read about. Move on 20 odd years and I have a UJM when my Trident riding sibling invites me to go for a ride with him and a couple of friends, So me on my 550 Kawasaki, he on the Trident John McDougall on his Shadow and Dan Smith on the Rapide (that has just been sold to Jim and Liz) ride to the upper reaches of Mt Baker, sit in the still remnant snow and have a beer. Now we coast back down the hill, which is another story and head back home. On one long stretch of straight and clear road I am face down on the tank just managing to see the speedo touch 160 Kph, when Dan pulls along side sitting straight up and shifts in to 4th. That's it, I'm done, within a couple of months there is a large pile of parts in my garage which when done becomes the matching numbers Great Woolly Mammoth, which again is another story, Despite the recent find of a full Mammoth junior carcass here in Canada, mine is just a well used Rapide. Well that was the first one anyway, Vincent HRD that is!

 

[Prince Duster]

Shortly after the war, the only Dutch Motorcycle Magazine "MOTOR" published a short article about a new 1000 cc HRD Twin, the first Series B, almost 50 HP, with the comment of the editors that such heavy and fast motorbikes should be forbidden by the government, life-threatening. In the years that followed little or nothing was published by this magazine, which may also have been the reason that very few HRDs / Vincents were sold new in Holland. Almost 20 years later in 1965 (in the meantime a new young editor had taken the place of the HRD hater) he wrote an enthusiastic story about a Vincent Special owned by a man called David Granger who was on holiday in Holland with this motorbike. The engine was called ATILLA. The engine came from a Black Shadow and had a special crankshaft, TT carbs and high pistons. The front fork was a type Earles fork and the front brake came from a Gilera, according to the story. I myself was 19 years old in 1965, riding a R69S, and had never heard of a Vincent at that time. Later, in our local motorbike club, there was an older man with a Black Shadow, whom we never saw. I have read the story perhaps 10 times. A few years later I saw Vincents in real life at the big motorbike meetings on the continent like the Zeester rally, Lions meeting and Elefanten meeting.

View attachment 51546

That is an interesting machine. Maybe you saw us at the Lion Rally? Picture is me sitting, with my father Alan and his Prince and Ken Chamberlin in background, in 1973.

 

[flxible]

Hi Robert-
The same type of experience must have unfolded in many forms throughout the Vincent world.
For me it was right after first getting my Vincent home, and before getting it together. (the first time...)
An older friend of my brother's in the next town (whom I did not know) heard about my acquisition, he'd been a long time owner in years past, and kindly gifted me his old Rider's Manual, (I didn't even know a manual existed at that point, but I still have it) and said something similar-
".. back when I had mine, there was this Harley guy in town who really wanted to beat me, and he'd come looking for me every time he got himself a new H-D, and we'd go up to old Route 8, [it had some very long straights] we blasted on up the road, an this time he really hung right with me, and when we hit a hundred he was still right there, grinning ear to ear, an that's when I dropped her in fourth. Never saw him again after that."
Sounded like gospel at the time, and so remains lodged in my lore of the marque.
Best-
George

 

[ClassicBiker]

I can also tell you when a friend of mine first encountered the "Snarling Beast". I was in college and still living at my parents. I had started hanging around a bit more with a guy who lived down the street from me. He was 5 years older than me, I had gone all through school with his younger sister, so I knew him fairly well. He had recently bought a Honda Rebel and was getting into motorcycling and was looking for someone to ride with. Well one Saturday morning he comes down to the house to have chat about bikes and starts telling me about this incredible old bike he had just read an article about, called a Vincent Black Shadow. He's really excited about this article and absolutely fixated on wanting to see one in the metal. So as he's going on about it, I gently usher him towards the garage, position him in front of the big door and go inside through the side door. All the time I'm just letting him talk. Now my dad kept the Shadow under a cover when ever it wasn't being ridden. I open the big door from inside, the Shadow is under the cover. My friend is a regular consumer of Marlboro menthol 100s. He had taken one out to light and was taking his first drag when I whipped the cover off and asked if this is what he was talking about. He inhaled so deeply so fast I swear he was down to the filter instantly. He just stood the gasping, coughing, and stammering, "that's a....that's a....that's a....BLACK SHADOW!!" Then I started it. Which just amped up his excitement.

 

[Bill Thomas]

A story a bit like Steven's,
Just this year, I got talking to a chap who lives near me,
While I was cutting my outer Hedge,
Told him my hedge was a cure for Covid !,
After being bad for 2. 1/2 months, The wife came in my room and said,
I don't think you will ride your bikes again !!,
Well that did it, Time to get fit !, Just a small bit at a time ,
I had lost a lot of weight and strength.

So my new friend asked if I still had a bike, And what was it,
Turns out him and his sons are very keen on bikes ,
And send each other photos often, One son is in Wales and another Devon,
So I showed him in my garage, The look on his face said it all,
I took photo of him on my ex L/ning rep',
And told him to send it to his sons, Telling them he had spent there Inheritance .

 

[TouringGodet]

A few of us heard about Vincents while in the womb...