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It’s a Rover
This emotive period photograph of an unknown rider with his very old unknown motorcycle appeared when emptying a late elderly relation’s house. The motorcycle appears distinctive with a strange bump on the petrol tank with what looks like a syringe poking through it. Can you identify the machine and have you any notion of the location?
Jonty West, email, UK.
The machine is a circa 1913/14 499cc single cylinder side-valve Rover. And you went some of the way to identifying it, Jonty, by noting it had a distinctive bump with syringe to the side of the fuel tank.
This is its oiling system, with direct Best and Lloyd-type hand pump. The rider would give the engine a couple of squirts of oil on starting and then further squirts of oil every four to five miles, or at least this is what we do with our 1911 Premier and 1910 Campion-JAP fitted with similar pumps.
However, it looks as through the rider in your photo has replaced the original pump knob with the top of a domestic water tap. Perhaps the original fell off on the rough roads of the period.
The machine is fitted with three speed hub gear and clutch to its rear wheel, accessory speedometer driven from the front wheel and acetylene headlamp. No rear lamp is fitted and wasn’t a legal requirement until 1927, although many fitted
