The Last of the British Lightweights | 1968 Cotton Trials | Bike and a Beer

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[Applause] look at that lighter it’s [Music] stronger what’s up finish Moto fans and welcome to another episode of a bike and a beer the show where we learn about old vintage motorcycles with appropriately paired beers today I’ve got a 1968 cotton trials bike with me here you may have never even heard of cotton as a manufacturer but that’s okay we’re going to learn all about that we’re going to learn about what makes this bike special but before we do all that we need to pick the right beer to go with this bike so I’ll be right back okay this is a really weird beer today and you guys will have to stick with me for a little bit so I can explain why I chose it but this is called IL vanilla it’s a milkshake India pale ale and it’s by Full Circle Brewing there’s a little hint to why I picked it let’s crack this thing open let’s see what it tastes like now this this is a British manufacturer cotton motorcycles and so today although we’re not drinking a British beer I do have a non-old glass here so we can drink this thing at room temperature which I get a lot of comments about from my friends over in the UK I appreciate your comments by the way I love it all right let’s see what this beer looks like o very nice very nice golden beautiful color hazy man that is a beautiful golden color hey chicken always chickens around look at that that’s a nice looking beer right there I have no idea what it’s going to taste like since it’s advertised as a milkshake IPA but let’s end the suspense oh I taste it it’s got like a sugary aftertaste a little bit uh not malty but like just sweet but it’s not overbearing it’s pretty darn good yeah I like it it’s not like crazy milkshake oh it’s vanilla I got I just got the vanilla wonderful way to go Full Circle Brewing okay so let’s talk about this bike this is a competition British lightweight trials bike now if you’re unfamiliar with trials it’s a basically a very slow competition there’s a very technical course that may go over rocks or through a river or on some very very steep technical terrain and you have to go through where the area that’s flagged is and you can’t put your foot down or crash or stop and if you do you get points which are assigned to you by a judge who’s watching you go through the course and the person at the end of the competition with the least amount of points is the winner so that’s what this bike is made for but before we go into all the technical attributes of this bike let’s learn a little bit about the history of cotton motorcycle mes and Villar cotton motorcycles was founded in 1918 by a gentleman named Frank Willoughby cotton 5 years earlier he had designed a triangulated frame which would prove to be a really great engineering solution for rigid frame motorcycles like most early motorcycle manufacturers cotton motorcycles outsourced the engines that they used in their bikes they Ed jaap Motors Blackburn Motors and of course Villar Motors like the one we see in the bike we’re discussing today Villers was founded even earlier in 1898 by John marsten and Son as a component manufacturer for Sunbeam motorcycles their first engine was built in 1911 and the first two strokes which were 270 CC’s were produced in 19113 Cotton had some great racing success in the 1920s including winds at the aisle of M they kind of just managed to survive in the 30s and 40s and then in 1953 Frank Willoughby caught and retired and the company got reconstituted as ecoton motorcycles from here on out they really focused on scrambles and trials machines offering their first dedicated trials bike in 1956 the 1960s really served as the swans song decade for cotton motorcycles in ‘ 61 they released the 250 cougar Scrambler which was a big success and in ‘ 62 the Viller starmaker Racing Engine was introduced and allowed cotton motorcycles to be competitive in the road racing World they were experienc experiencing racing success again but unfortunately in 1968 Villers announced that they would no longer be making Preparatory engines and unfortunately at that point the company began to unravel and ultimately ended up closing its doors in 1980 so now that we know a little bit more about the manufacturers let’s talk about what comprises this specific bike so this bike has a really tight geometry with not too much rake on the forks and the stops allow you to turn the bars really far left to the right that makes it so you can make really tight technical turns no matter how slow you’re going or what you need to get around it’s a very lightweight design the motor is light this is a fiberglass tank There’s No Frills on this bike aluminum fenders everything is really really lightweight and compact go on chicken get out of here go on you squawker this Villar motor is called a 37a and it’s a trial specific motor that was used on Trials bikes in the ‘ 60s it’s got an iron barrel and this bike has some really cool Parts on the lower end so let’s come around here and take a look okay so check this out this bike has a really cool setup for the bottom end this is a Parkinson crank case so you can see it’s got ribs here which makes it stronger and I believe it’s lighter too but here we go inside that is an alpha full circle crank hence the reason I chose this Brew by Full Circle Brewing so there it is now this Alpha crank vibrates a lot less than the stock Crank that would have come in here which was a bobweight style crank so this setup is lighter it’s stronger it’s smoother and it has better crank case compression pretty cool all right back up here so I love the exhaust on this bike it’s just very unique and this is the stock setup header and Muffler and you can see it exits on the front of the cylinder of course on the left hand side goes straight up comes back crosses goes through the frame and then you have this very custom specific uh Muffler here that exits nice and tight so you can move your legs all around here without getting it hung up on uh the exhaust and it just exits right out here so it’s just not in the way of anything I love that couple of modernities on this bike like these NJB shocks these are Amal style competition levers probably by MGO this bike has a four-speed gearbox and the shift pattern is one up three down it’s got a real interesting casing here of the gearbox where the gear shift lever is it’s just kind of unique and cool to look at this bike currently has an AML concentric carburetor on it with a custom manifold here it would have actually had a villar’s carburetor I believe um from the factory but uh this is obviously a very um reliable and it’s still a British carburetor so quite appropriate for this bike this seat I believe has a newer cover on it but this is how the factory seat would have been actually now that I’m looking at it it could be original I’m not quite sure on that the hubs are made by a British Hub company we’ve got some work to do on that front hub before we take it out on a real ride which I want to do on next week’s video um because it’s not working too well I’m going to take it apart see what’s going on in there maybe there’s some contamination of the pads or something like that because the action seems to be working properly but we’ll see what’s going on with that this bike has great gearing that’s a 7 to rear sprocket for a real solid trial setup these weld on pegs here you can get those from Matt over at Speed and Sport put them on any bike you want they’re really nice folding pegs and actually you need to fold this one up in order to start it with this Terry weedi Kickstarter here this bike has Dunlop trials tires on it the 803s I love these tires they’re really sticky Dunlop steel rims front and rear and that front is a 21 in which is really nice for trials riding gets up and over rocks and logs and any other obstacles with ease all right I think I hit all the important points that I wanted to hit which means it’s my favorite time it’s time to start this thing up so real simple setup here um I’ve got the petcock on already we’re going to tickle this Amal concentric that looks good pull out this Cherry weedy Kickstarter we’re going to flip up that foot Peg there and uh see how she goes right into a nice idle I love that very very important for a trials by to have a solid Idol he [Applause] [Applause] see how tight this bike turn that front break is not feeling that bad wow not bad beautiful machine what a unique bike we have the pleasure of featuring on this show thanks again to my buddy Allan okay folks so what I’d like to do on this bike is I would really like to take this out on some real triy type stuff so I think that’s what we’re going to do with next week’s video we’ll take this bike out put it through the paces and I’ll give a full review on how I think this thing is other than that that’s all I got for you today thank you so much for watching liking subscribing buying t-shirts you can do so on the website I’ll put a link to it thank you guys so much appreciate all of you [Music] [Applause] [Music] cheers thanks so much for watching that video be sure to tune in every Saturday morning for more fun and Adventures there’s over 30 motorcycles to check out on the bike and a beer series and we now have T-shirts available for sale follow along for some Epic adventures in the High Sierra on all types of rare and incredible motorcycles there’s a workshop element to this channel too as I do a lot of my own mechanical work I’ll share all the tips and tricks I’ve learned show you all the tools I use to get it done and there’ll be some exciting new products to promote as well so join in every Saturday morning and don’t forget to subscribe like and turn on notifications thanks [Music]