(05-08-2009, 11:14 PM)ancient Wrote: how nice to see mention of the wonderful side valve sunbeams.there cannot be many reading this who have ridden or even seen one.but i started racing on a 1928 longstroke in 1953 at silverstone saturday.it was an amazing bike but i would have preferred a model 90.but that was out of reach.coming back from a rally in reading,and going quite fast a model 90 caught me up had a word and then said i must go and disappeared in the distance.now where is r cordon champs great book,i must read it again.

The 20's ended in the 50's. The 'longstroke' was a very longeve bike. I do not have the Sunbeam "bible" by Champ, but on the book "The complete illustrated encyclopedia of the world's motorcycles" written by Erwin Tragatsch I read that 'in 1925 there were a few 498cc ohc racing models for the works rider only'. Was the Sunbeam used by the great Charles Dodson for winning 1928 and 1929 Senior TT races a "simple" 493cc ohv Model TT 90?