Roger Williams – My First Rally

I’ve known Roger Williams since we were 16, having grown up in the same area and we both got into scooters at the same time. He was always in his shed, fiddling with engines, making scooters go faster – and nothing much has changed 35 years later! He now has his own business, Pro Design, where he uses his wealth of knowledge to build, fabricate and tune all kinds of scooters, from old Series 1 Lambrettas to modern Dragsters and autos.

One of my favourite stories about Roger is from one of my oldest friends, Jon Keen. In 1984 he’d just bought a brand new PX125 and was really excited about taking it to Newark for its first rally. He turned up at Roger’s house bright and early, with all the enthusiasm of a young scooterboy who is about to ride a decent distance on his new scooter with his best mate. As soon as he got there though, his heart sank. Roger was sitting on the drive with his Lambretta engine in bits around him, and Jon immediately presumed that the trip was off. But no – Roger spent the day rebuilding the engine and they set off slightly later than planned, at teatime!

There were a few mishaps on the way, as there always were in those days, a few heat seizes where they had to pour water or lemonade on Roger’s barrel to cool it down, but they eventually arrived at the campsite in one piece, in the wee small hours. I have photographic evidence to prove it too; it’s not my best 80s look, but here’s me, Roger and Jon. For more nostalgic trendsetting looks see my 80s scooter fashions post!

An interesting fact about me is that the only ‘motorbike’ I’ve ever ridden is Roger’s old KE175 trials bike. When we were making our way back after a night out we swapped bikes, I’m not quite sure why, but he was probably egging me on and curious to see how I’d handle a much more powerful engine than my Primavera (or whatever I was riding at the time). It was the first time I’d used a foot gear change – and the last! It was a fun bike to ride but wasn’t for me, and I’ve only used a hand gear change ever since.

I’ve been badgering Roger for a while to share his first rally story, and we finally got together recently, me bribing him with lunch to catch up on the old days. We then sat in his workshop and took a trip down memory lane, with both of us struggling to remember names and places, but it was lovely to catch up with him and he hasn’t changed at all in 35+ years. I even spied a SLUK clip amongst his goodies which he considers ‘a useful bit of kit’, high praise indeed!

For those of you who have only met Roger more recently, or are interested how a scooter tuner started their career, here is the story of his first rally.

Roger Williams – My First Rally

How did you first get into scooters?
It was at school, when we all became mods, although I was a rocker-type mod.  Some lads were into Tamla and soul, but I was into heavier stuff by The Who and The Stones.  I wanted a parka and was determined to buy one from Carnaby Street.  I managed to squirrel away my pocket money and birthday money to buy one, and on a trip to visit family in Camberley I nipped up to London by train for the afternoon to buy it.

I wore the parka quite happily to start with on my first scooter until it suddenly came to a dramatic stop one evening when the fishtail got chewed up in the flywheel!  So I had to take it off, yank it out of the flywheel and then carry on home.  It wasn’t long before I was in combats and a leather jacket as parkas just slowed the scooter down too much!

What was your first scooter?
My first scooter was a gold Vespa 100cc smallframe.  I’m not sure why I never got a 50, but I probably bought the 100 thinking I’d convert it to a 50, but then realised I couldn’t.  For a while I swapped my 100 engine with my mate Reece’s 50, so I was theoretically legal for a few months although I never re-registered it with the smaller engine size. 

I then bought a Primavera that a local girl had crashed, and I ended up putting that engine into my scooter.   I did up the crashed frame, put another engine in it and then sold that for about £30, as you did in those days!

I chopped and built a few Lambrettas too, including the ones below.

What was your first scooter rally?
My first rally was Weston-Super-Mare in July 1983.  For some reason I missed Weymouth, which was in May that year, although my mates Martin and Reece went. 

(Ali : there are photos of Martin and Reece at Weymouth as it was my own first rally – you can read about it here)

What did you ride?
I rode my gold smallframe with my mates Reece Denby and Martin Laugharne, and it’s about 120 miles from Bognor to Weston. 

What job were you doing at the time?
When I first left school I was a packer in a local factory but after that I worked in a local garage and did day release at college learning to be a mechanic, earning £40 a week.  It was a back street garage, so was my kind of place! 

Were you in a club at the time?
Not at that point, no, I’d never really done the club thing.  Bognor was very cliquey, with little groups forming even if they weren’t all in clubs.  There were the SB mods, the Felpham lot, but there was nothing going on in Pagham where I lived. A few clubs popped up in Bognor a couple of years later, including Voice Of A Generation and the Regis Royals, who had something going on.  But the first club I got involved with were the Stormtroopers from Littlehampton and I’ve been with them ever since. 

I knew Shaun Kernoghan from school, who was in the club, so I hung out in Littlehampton and seemed to click with them more than the clubs in Bognor so I eventually joined up.

Do you have any memories of the rally itself?
I don’t have many memories but know that we stopped at a farm in Somerset on the way and bought some scrumpy, as you do.   When we got there we saw some lads on the campsite whizzing around on a 50 Special, telling everyone it was Taffspeed tuned, which it obviously wasn’t.

We had a few beers (or ciders) with some guys and one of them wanted us to offer him money to run across the campsite naked.  I’m not sure why he wanted to do it, it was obviously his party piece or bravado, but we all agreed and he prepped himself.  We got our bikes ready in a horseshoe so that when he set off across the grass we all started them up to light him up as he did it!!  He was a bit of an odd one, that’s for sure…

What type of music were you into?
I was heavily into punk and heavy metal by then and if I had to choose one band then it would have to be Stiff Little Fingers.

What was your favourite custom scooter of that era?
I preferred engineered ones and was always into engineering over aesthetics, I wasn’t interested in any of the standard scooters.  It was always about cutting them down and chopping them about.  My favourites were usually chops, like Exile, and I also liked Howlett’s stuff.  Wake was just superb, and I paid attention to scooters like Dazzle, Dave Oakley’s full frame chopper with and Iron Maiden theme, and a Vespa rally called Psycho Lust which was a bit tasty.

Do you still have a scooter now?  
I’ve got a Series 2 auto Lambretta which I built myself, a water cooled TS1 which is currently in bits, a Gilera Runner and an X9500.   I’ve also still got the P Range I bought in 1984, and a few other bits kicking around.   The Runner is the only one which is running, and might even have a current MOT!

I rode the Series 2 around Europe on a few rallies and want to get it back on the road as it’s a really nice bike.  I love that the auto engine pisses off some people, even now, so that’s worth loads of points just to park it next to them!

What do scooters mean to you now?
To me, scooters mean work, money and a bad back!  Pro Design has been my business for 12 years now so it’s inevitable that it’s taken a shine off my ‘hobby’.  I stopped doing English rallies a few years ago, as I just got fed up off all the numpties you get on them. 

I’m not really interested in seeing Jam tribute bands and queueing at a bar for half an hour to get a drink, waiting behind guys with brand new flight jackets with the labels still hanging out of the back of them.   For a while I stuck to doing the smaller foreign rallies but now even that has dwindled.  I’ve got a camper van and love touring around in that now, but I’ll never say never and wouldn’t ever sell my scooters.

I’ll probably do some rideouts this year because it’s just an afternoon out and you often bump into people you haven’t seen for a while. 

Thanks to Roger for his stories and the brilliant photos!

More My First Rally stories

Read more My First Rally stories using these links (in alphabetic order)
– Ali Richards
– Bill Mac
– Dave Lloyd
– Dean Percival
– Dizzy Holmes
– Iggy Grainger
– Jo Jackson
– Lee Parker
– Lee Richards
– Mike Oxley
– Niamh Pennington
– Nick Jolly
– Norrie Kerr
– Roger Williams
– Sandra Smith
– Sarah George
– Sean Robinson
– Stacey Gardner
– Steve Bone
– Sticky
– Stuart Owen
– Vince Wooloff