NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM, ENGLAND ~ Motorcycle Fashions

It's a pilgrimage to a messy shrine, the quintessential English shed grown wild with money, but the shed-mind remains, and the hallowed relics within overwhelm visitors in a nearly-stacked jumble. The National Motorcycle Museum, phoenix risen from its own-damn-fault ashes, warehouse of glistening talismans, entombing shrine of Speed and a glorious, vanished industry.

Can you spot the...? Neither can I.

Anyone who loves British motorcycles simply must make the trip to Birmingham, and spend a few hours soaking in the oily ambience...not that the pyramidal halls are anything but clean, and their 'NMM'-logo carpet well vac'd. The bikes are fantastic, some of the most historic British prototypes, racers, and roadsters anywhere, a cornucopia really of the stuff you want to see, because the collection is just amazing.

Double Trouble Twins; Brough SS100 with JAP and MX engines

As with every time I've stopped in, the halls were nearly pedestrian-free when I visited this week, which is shameful for such a fantastic collection of machinery. But, some basic rules of museum management are roundly ignored at the NMM... imagine if MOMA or the Tate stuffed every artwork in their collection to their walls in a vertical paintstorm, some pressed into corners, far away from their roped-off viewers. Things may have been done that way in the 1800s, but in the century since, Museum Studies has emerged as a discipline, and people get advanced college degrees in curation and display, studying ways for museums to attract viewers, and properly display their wares.

The Triumph zone was better accessible than other areas...

The NMM ignores most of this accumulated wisdom and pursues a used-moto-lot aesthetic, bikes jostling handlebars in long lines, with terrible sightlines and an utter impossibility to gain any detailed visual information from most of the displays. A few sit on plinths, arranged so timing and primary sides can be examined close-up, but these are the exception, and if you're interested in figuring out how a 1908 Humber sorts out its magneto position, you'll have x-ray through several similar-era Triumphs and Rexes...in other words, impossible.

Collection as a numbers game; a lineup of the Norton rotary racers

Because the motorcycles themselves matter, it would be a revelation if we were actually able to see them in the round, well lit and fully visible. I reckon that if the NMM held back part of its collection to give breathing space, and rotated themed 'blockbuster' exhibits like any other museum, visitors would find reasons to return, and the halls wouldn't be empty. Better still, we'd be able to actually see these fantastic machines.

'Nero' and 'Super Nero' Vincent sprinters (one supercharged, one not)...would that I could have taken decent photos of the whole machines...

The incredible AJS ohc 1000cc v-twin one-off record breaker, which never really set records, but was stuck at around 130mph. Note long induction tube from the blower, with blowoff valve at the top, and super large magnesium cam chain (and magneto chain) covers...

Second primary chain drives the blower, atop the gearbox. Bronze heads, hairpin valve springs, that crazy teardrop tank; simply stunning.

The placard claimed this BSA Rocket 3 with Gold Star bodywork was a suggestion from a US dealer for a potential big seller...I want one too!

Vincents don't look so bad now...this is the TRUE plumber's nightmare!

Bronze head on a semi-radial valve Rudge TT Replica racer

A short row of Brough Superiors of all varieties; an early MAG-engined Mk1 in front

Now those are Brooklands cans...on the back of a McEvoy 1000cc racer

Cutaway Triumph cylinder head

Italian sauce, English-style. Lovely home-built 125cc dohc racer, the 'LCH', built by Leonard Clifford Harfield of Hampshire. Gear-driven double overhead camshafts, he based the engine on Rudge 250cc crankcases, and cast up the rest. The engine would reliably rev to 11,000rpm, making 18hp, good enough for 95mph, and first privateer home in the 1957 Ultra-Lightweight TT.

The front brake of a 1950 Douglas 90+ racer

A much earlier Douglas, this is Freddie Dixon's 1928 Isle of Man TT racer, with wet sump under the engine, and an oil pressure gauge just behind the oil filler. He made 18th in the Junior TT that year, and fell off in the Senior (same bike apparently, with different cylinders and heads), injuring his hands and ending his bike racing career. Dixon, a gifted development engineer, switched to racing cars, and won the 1935 and '36 TT Auto races...the only man to have won TTs on two (1927 Junior TT), three (1923 Sidecar TT), and four wheels!

The Brough Superior 'Dream', with 4-cylinder flat-4 engine, shaft drive, and groovy gold paint job. Basically two Triumph twins on a common crankcase, it never ran properly as GB didn't have the cash for development work, and realized the market for such a machine was too small to justify the expense...

The 'Dream' cylinder head and exhaust manifold...grace in alloy. The cylinder barrels were cast into the crankcases - one less joint to leak. As far as I know, only Wooler and Brough attempted an ohv "H-four" motorcycle of this configuration.