Of all the motorcycles I’ve ridden, I suspect that Velocettes are potentially the most sampled brand. This has come about because of various factors, starting from parental influence, in that my dad has rarely been without one since he started motorcycling in the late 1950s, through geography and friendship; and having bought my own first Velocette when living in Lincolnshire, I was sort of adopted by several people for whom Velocette was almost a religion, a maker on a higher plain and without equal.
Many of these people were generous enough to let me sample their machines too, so, with regards to Velocette four-stroke singles, I reckon I have ridden pretty much most of them, through MOVs and MACs and Model Ks, Vipers, Venom, Thruxtons, KSS, MSS, KTS and – arguably most memorably – KTTs, pretty sure in every iterations, from Mk.I to VIII, though the nearest I have come to riding a Mk.VII KTT was a replica, but with only 37 built, that’s not too hard to rationalise. Of all of those Velos this one, pictured before you, had the lightest clutch of the lot. It was, quite simply, staggeringly light.
The Velocette clutch – a thing of apparent mystery, much head scratching, frustration, bewilderment and frequent bemusement (though try understanding the clutch(es) on a Vincent twin, it makes the Velocette seem oh-so-simple…),
