VINTAGE
MOTORBIKES
My grandad, Brook Donkersley (1906 - 1976), was involved with both Stocksbridge and Hillsborough Motor Clubs, and loved his cars and motorbikes, as well as the horses that preceded them, which were used to make deliveries from the family's butchers shop.
Here are a few extra photographs of old motorbikes in addition to those on the Stocksbridge Motor Club page.
The website Red Devil Motors has similar photographs to the ones above featuring the 1927 Coventry Eagle and the motorbike and sidecar with Tom Farrow on the bike.
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The article wonders if the Coventry Eagle in the photograph was the "most photographed vintage bike ever."
The author writes, "Every weekend the seaside towns of England would be full of people bused in on Charabancs for day trips. Once you got there you promenaded, quite probably sank a brown ale or two and many folks popped in to a photo studio to have a picture taken for memories of the day. Motorcycles were popular props and in Blackpool one particular studio seemed to favour Coventry Eagles. I've come across literally countless snaps of this solo CE as well as a few of another CE with sidecar at the same studio. It seems pretty sure that with several photos taken every day for a period of a few years this Coventry Eagle would have been the most photographed bike, maybe ever or perhaps just up until the digital age." There are a great many studio photographs which feature this bike and the author wonders whether there was some kind of sponsorship deal going on.
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Below are some photographs taken from the Red Devil website featuring the Coventry Eagle. They are reproduced by kind permission of Richard Miller at Red Devil Motors.
Additional research by Ian Sutton
More photographs...