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BSA Norton Triumph Ariel and miscellaneous motorbikes and trikes

Morturn said:
That's a super restoration job. I was an apprentice to a guy who rode one of those.
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I really just bought the Raleigh as a project to restore rather than ride and that's exactly what happened. I enjoyed restoring it. I had it on a bench at shoulder height so no climbing under like a car and it took up little room. Nice easy therapeutic job. The side covers were missing but that didn't matter. Sold it on eBay.
 
Morturn said:
I too recall the Ariel Leader and Arrow much berated, all sorts of arguments about they did not have a proper frame etc. I thought they were quite a nice looking bike but the bikers tended to like the big throaty 650 twins with lots of chrome bits to polish. I recall the Arrow had a bit less cladding and was quite nippy.
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I agree, I thought it was an excellent design with the dummy tank as a tool/storage box. I rode it quite a bit and it was fast enough for me, very smooth. They were criticized for the smoky exhaust but we British always over-oiled our two strokes compared with continental makes. The Leader/Arrow was recommended to have 16:1 petroil ratio. The engine, particularly, is a copy of the German Adler design which only needed 24:1 ratio and this is a good example of the practice. Maybe we were just 'playing safe ' but the Germans put much more development into the two stroke engine and produced some good designs.
 
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