55MSS

Well, things are sort of moving, but not necessarily in the direction that I had originally thought or ‘planned’! It COULD be, that the first bike to be restored will still be a Velocette, but a much later model than planned: I spotted the bike pictured above on the ‘net’ for sale in goode olde Engle-land…a tempting idea, what do you think? It’s a ’55 (date of my first registration!) and looks pretty sorry, but with a bit of TLC, could be a winner, actually an ideal restoration object! Just the thing for a long run, too, as it’s an MSS, the ‘touring’ (as in ‘soft’) version, nothing superfast. I had one of these for many years in Germany and when I bought it in England off a well-known Velocettian, it already had 250,000+ Miles on the clock…to this day, it has remained unrestored and is still going strong, to my knowledge.

It’s actually pretty much the same as the one which I restored on the ‘Books’ page, which is a ’56. I would have preferred a Rigid Model, but it would seem that they are not so easy to come by, or that no-one wants to part with them (which I can fully understand, just by the way!). I don’t really want to import a bike (unnecessary extra COST!), so does anyone have an idea where I could get something like this here in the ‘Lucky Country’? (Rigid or Swing-Arm)

© peter gouws 2011

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