TALES FROM THE SHED

I’ve always enjoyed working on and with carbs. Not the edible kind, please be serious. Carbs hold no fears. This is not because I am either skilled or bold, it’s because in these enlightened days I can buy a new one when and if I destroy the old one. This is a good thing, and it was not always the case. At one point I became a sort-of mysteriously partial expert on which carbs from what bikes could be pressed into service on other bikes.

The bikes which needed attention to their carbs were almost always AMC, and usually twins. They were affordable and available, and no one else liked them much. I did. But – truth be told – no more than I liked BSA twins, or non-featherbed Norton twins. I liked all of them more than unit Triumph twins, but no more than the pre-unit variety.

Anyway, in those faraway days, before nostalgia had even been invented, it was easily possible to pick up a cooking AMC twin for almost no money. Or indeed for no money at all, as I demonstrated more than once. They – the very cheap or free bikes – were always vile, always non-runners and very often not very complete. Typically they had lost their magnetos, speedos and carbs, which had some value and were usually removed before the rest of the ruin was consigned to the local tip or the garden.

Back when I was both youthful, fit and very poor indeed, I would enjoy walking the backstreets of wherever it was that I was, gazing over fences and hedges, old