Saturday, October 18, 2014

Oldtimer Motoren Museum Oudenburg Belgium pt 1

The Oldtimer Motoren Museum is close to Oostende and Calais and situated within the excellent Bikers Loft bar and hotel. The Museum is Johan Schaeverbeke's personal collection of some 100 machines. It's well worth taking the ferry over for the weekend, staying in the Loft, having a look at the collection and exploring the local area. Johan's collection is eclectic and intimate - he will give you a guided tour and pretty much each of the bikes has a story to tell. Johan's passion for the machinery comes across vividly in the tour. Many of the exhibits were bought locally and he's made the sensible decision to keep most of them in as found condition. The collection embraces the unusual and the obscure, you're sure to see machines from factories you had never previously heard of. Well worth visiting. Here are a few pictures....

Emva Belgian motorcyle
Here's one of the 'never heard of those before'. It's an Emva.

1931 La Mondiale motorcycle
Really loved this machine, a 1931 La Mondiale. Pressed frames
were a fashion of the era from Coventry Eagle in the UK, Gnome
et Rhone in France to Zundapp in Germany. The two stroke motor
with in-line crank sets the La Mondiale apart for quirkiness though.

Scott motorcycle
Rigid-framed Scott updated with swinging arm rear and earles
front end. The small tubes and triangulation used in the
conversion match the style of the Scott nicely.

Danish BTC cyclemotor from 1951
1951 BTC (Bror Christensens Fabriker) cyclemotor from Denmark.

Cyclotracteur cyclemotor on Raleigh cross frame cycle
Cyclotracteur cyclemotor mounted in a Raleigh X frame. The
museum has a great collection of first wave post WW1
cyclemotors.

early cyclemotor
Hmmm... wish I'd taken notes as the name of this early
cyclemotor escapes me. A very fragile device with overhead
valves operated by pushrods that look little stronger than
knitting needles.

FN motorcycle
Lovely unrestored FN ohv from early post war years. Very
unusual suspension design.

FN motorcycle
The rear suspension on the FN matches the wonkiness of the
front. Enlarge and see if you can figure out how it all works.

BD Praga motorcycle from 1927
Pride of the collection. a double overhead cam czech Praga
BD from 1927.

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