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Back Street Heroes
|November 2020
AS A KID, PAUL MILBOURN WAS FASCINATED BY THE STORY THAT THE STAR OF THE FILM CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG (THE CAR, NOT DICK VAN DYKE) WAS BURIED BENEATH PENDINE SANDS.
Over time, though, he discovered that what was buried there was actually a race car called Babs – an aero engined monster, the fourth in a series built in Canterbury in the 1920s, called ‘Chitty-Bang-Bang’ (only one ‘Chitty’), that’d crashed there in 1927 and been buried beneath the dunes. These cars inspired the film, and as Paul has relations near Canterbury, it sparked a longterm interest in land speed records and Pendine Sands in particular. After chatting with Ben Hall (of Valespeed Motorcycles), who’d raced his custom bikes there, he decided to build his own sand racer.
Just as with his titanium-framed Moto Guzzi, his aim was to make the Pendine bike as featherweight as possible, so the ultra-light material was used once more. He also took inspiration from Guzzi's 500cc V8 race bike of the mid-Fifties (a dustbin-faired bike that weighed just 125kg, and was capable of 180mph), and figured a lightweight, R1-engined (he’s owned a road R1, and likes the engine) bike with a dustbin fairing’d make the most of the power available.
This story is from the November 2020 edition of Back Street Heroes.
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