Jump to content

Old Motorcycle Shops In Sheffield!


popadodge

Recommended Posts

Does anyone remember or do you have any photo's...that would be great!

Frank Smiths on spital hill 60s/70s

Smith's Attercliffe Common same era

Grays Bridge street early 60s

Tom's Copper street shalesmoor a great little shop...bought my first norton 250cc from him 1969

Scott road bike scrapyard...2 old brothers...great charactors

smiths Ecclesfield...spares...reputation for been very expensive.

DC Cooks west street Harley Davidsons late 70s

Wilf Green Abbydale Rd

Bill Beavers Firth Park...Saw The First Honda 750 four in there...What a sight back then after only seeing twins before.

The list goes on!

As a kid about 10 or 11yrs old I was mad on and still am British motorbikes...Grays was my saturday morning dissapearing act up early catch the 49 bus from ecclesfield to bridge street and straight into Grays for a couple of hrs sitting on the bikes with sidecars on and sitting in the odd three wheeler Bonds and reliants in the back of the shop. I can still remember the feeling of sitting on a1962 Triumph Bonneville ice blue and silver petrol tank with little chrome rack on tank...a memory I still dream about some nights. That shop had a smell too, oil and petrol and true british engineering! lovely...wouldn't swap my childhood memories for anything.

As I got older I then ventured further into town and up spital hill to Frank Smiths Shop where just above there was a bikers cafe where I could sit with a drink of orange and gaze at the rockers coming up and down spital hill showing off their new Goldie silencers as they changed gear and made them suck and roar like only a goldie could...ahh girls in leathers and knee high boots stood at the juke box playing the likes of The Who and Stones etc with their fav bands name painted white across the rear bottom of the leather jackets..My path was layed and there was never gonna be any turning back! As I got older some mates got scooter's and cars for me It had to be Nortons, triumph's, and BSA's, all the way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember Bill Beavers. My Uncle lived at Firvale and always had a motorbike when we were kids. Bill Beevers (?) was where he went for everything. Later he switched to a scooter, Lambretta Li150, which he eventially passed on to me, but BB was still the place for spares, MOT etc. A really nice bloke.

My uncle reckoned he was a racing motorcyclist and rode in the TT. Don't know whether that's true or not?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have a look at this for a discussion of bikeshops in Sheffield

I mentioned the Scott Road bike wreckers, originally there were 3 brothers. I once bought a Matchless engine from them, as we lived close by, on Earl Marshall Road, they lent me a wheelbarrow to take it home.

Also, there is a good photo in D.J.Richardson's book 'Sheffield Pictorial' of Smiths on Spital Hill.

Really enjoyed reading your post which brought back many happy memories.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have a look at this for a discussion of bikeshops in Sheffield

I mentioned the Scott Road bike wreckers, originally there were 3 brothers. I once bought a Matchless engine from them, as we lived close by, on Earl Marshall Road, they lent me a wheelbarrow to take it home.

Also, there is a good photo in D.J.Richardson's book 'Sheffield Pictorial' of Smiths on Spital Hill.

Really enjoyed reading your post which brought back many happy memories.

Thanks for the link.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have a look at this for a discussion of bikeshops in Sheffield

I mentioned the Scott Road bike wreckers, originally there were 3 brothers. I once bought a Matchless engine from them, as we lived close by, on Earl Marshall Road, they lent me a wheelbarrow to take it home.

Also, there is a good photo in D.J.Richardson's book 'Sheffield Pictorial' of Smiths on Spital Hill.

Really enjoyed reading your post which brought back many happy memories.

We must have been almost neighbours Thylacine. Most of my family lived on Skinnerthorpe Rd. We moved to Longley about 1952, and my auntie moved to Earl Marshal Rd around 1960.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We must have been almost neighbours Thylacine. Most of my family lived on Skinnerthorpe Rd. We moved to Longley about 1952, and my auntie moved to Earl Marshal Rd around 1960.

We were later than that, this was the family home, near the top of Earl Marshal Rd from 1967 to the mid-eighties when my parents moved to Mosborough Moor. A typical Saturday night for my brother and I was a skinfull at the Cannon Hall and curried chicken & chips from the Rushby St. chippie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest proterra

There was Armandos ( i think how you spel it) on Hill street who used to do scooters like Lambretta & Vespas. Where I got my mirrors and crash bars for my Lilac & lime green Lambretta ( no accounting for taste) in the late 60's

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was Armandos ( i think how you spel it) on Hill street who used to do scooters like Lambretta & Vespas. Where I got my mirrors and crash bars for my Lilac & lime green Lambretta ( no accounting for taste) in the late 60's

It used to be here, a tiny corner shop on the junction of John St and Hill St

http://goo.gl/maps/795AH

New place - (relatively speaking) is further down Hill Street on the corner with Randall Street

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In 1979 I took my BSA B31 for an MOT test at Armandos. Before I arrived there it started to snow. I parked up outside and after reporting in, went across the road and spent 45 minutes defrosting by the stove of a mate who was a toolmaker and had a workshop in the Portland Works. When I went back across to Armandos there were no footprints around the bike which was still where I'd left it. I collected the MOT certificate and still wonder about the methodology he employed for the inspection.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bullerboy

The 3 brothers were the Storeys.Bill Beevers road in many TTs both solo and Sidecar and at one time held the most replicas of any TT rider,he finished his bike career as a travelling marshall.Bill and his wife Lilly retired to a bungalow at Castletown in the IOM where they both passed away in their eighties.Bill was one of the first in sheffield to have an Etype Jag they were both friends of mine and a still possess a few xmas cards and letters from them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bullerboy

Does any one remember my Triumph Trobon,half Bonnie Half Trophy,it was possibly the cleanest and prettiest bike around at the time,I was well known in sheffield with that bike,it had high level exhausts with racing reverse cone megas with nothing inside it was really loud,full of chrome and two blues paint scheme,all the gold lining was 18crt done by a sign writer friend,it had a 5gallon fi-glass Gold Star tank fitted,rearset footrests,clip ons and rev counter kit fitted,every single nut bolt and washer was chromed and it was VERY quick.I used to hang out at the Disc Jockey and Flamingo also was well known in Hillsboro.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest bullerboy

Just about where the bus stop is.At one time in the 50s Bill displayed all ,his trophies in the window imagine that now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In 1979 I took my BSA B31 for an MOT test at Armandos. Before I arrived there it started to snow. I parked up outside and after reporting in, went across the road and spent 45 minutes defrosting by the stove of a mate who was a toolmaker and had a workshop in the Portland Works. When I went back across to Armandos there were no footprints around the bike which was still where I'd left it. I collected the MOT certificate and still wonder about the methodology he employed for the inspection.....

Sounds like he inspected the bike with a pair of binoculars through the shop window, - then just wrote out the MOT certificate for another year.

Great if the bike was in good roadworthy condition and would have passed anyway.

Rubbish if the bike would have failed on an unseen / unidentified fault and you spent a year driving around with it at great risk to yourself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...