11. Don and Dericks frame up.



Two brothers going by the surname of Rickman were having considerable success scrambler racing. During the winter of 1958/9 they designed and manufactured a new frame to race and the rest as they say is history. The frame has been produced ever since by several different chassis constructors. This is not a flat track frame it has a lazy steering head angle (27 deg) being made for jumps it is well built and strong but  that makes it a bit on the heavy side we are talking dress size 12UK not clinicaly obese.
One builder of the frame kit is WASP MOTORCYCLES they build to all original specifications only in the finest 4130 chrome molytubing. The tubing is brazed together as in the old days oddly this is still the optimum technique after all the years of manufacture. Then the whole frame is bright nickle coated. As you may have guessed this is going to be my frame of choice. Ebay turns up almost anything sooner or later.

Known as the" Mettise" (French for female mongrel) Surely "magnifique" would be more appropriate.

 

May i introduce the Rickman Wasp chassis. This item of aesthetic beauty was advertised as a Matchless G80 frame but i reckoned one old British engine is roughly the same size as another so i should be able to squeeze a Triumph in somehow.  I bit the bullet and here we are. She has never had an engine in her. I rang the very helpful man at Wasp motorcycles with the frame number and he confirmed it was a G80 frame they made in 2006. I enquired if they did Triumph preunit  engine plates this they said they did but two things to note.

1. the mounting plates are only available for amc gearboxes

2. the Triumph and Matchless frame downtubes are subtly different so they would not be a bolt in fit .Between us we decided if they left the front plate frame mount holes undrilled i would take care of any discrepancy.