[peter wright]

Hi all,
I see I made the common mistake with my original post and forgot the attachment. Here it is now. Check out the registration number on the Tommy Deadman bike in the lower picture and the one on the TT bike in Paul's picture.

Apart from the differences to the TT bike I mentioned below it is also worth noting the similarities. As well as the same registration number it has the large brakes, with the rear one on the left.

Peter

[peter wright]

Excellent, thanks Paul.
The naked bike in the middle has numberplate UK 1724, which is the same as the Tommy Deadman bike in the photo from Bob Champ's book. Is it the same bike? I know they wouldn't be averse to swapping things around if it suited, or was this not the done thing at Sunbeamland?

It looks a bit to me as though the TT bikes do not have the top tube converging to the rear as much as on a Sprint but this could be an illusion. I have never seen a naked Sprint either but here is the picture you sent me before, from the 1925 catalogue I think.

Would anyone be able to comment on this point or provide a picture of a Sprint frame for comparison?

It appears that the only changes made by Deadman might have been replacing the petrol tank, removing the oil tank and fitting a 350 motor. If you look again at the photo of the Deadman bike you might notice something odd about the exhausts -- on the right it has a straight pipe with the end blanked and holes drilled, but on the left it has a barrel silencer!

What is the publication your photo came from?

Regards,
Peter

[phutton]

Have a look at this one Peter! It is of the 1926 TT team at their workshop on the IoM.

P.

[peter wright]

Recently I was looking at the picture of the 1926 TT bike on page 49 of Bob Champs Illustrated book. This is the bike with the rather large, breadbox-like, saddle/pannier tank.

The caption to the picture below this one reads "Works rider Tommy Deadman on his road special, utilising parts from the 1926 TT models, which were broken up or sold after their lack of success". I have looked at this picture before but this time I noticed it had a sloping top frame tube and was fitted with a Sprint style wedge tank. This made me wonder whether this special also used one of the discarded works frames and whether the 1926 TT models actually used the sloping top tube. This seems logical to me because a Sprint style sloping top tube would potentially allow a greater capacity for the saddle tank.

Neither of these frames appear to have a sidecar lug under the front of the tank as the standard frames would have.

Can anyone confirm this, and are there any more pictures of the 1926 TT bikes that would provide more detail?

Regards,
Peter