Readers respond with their memories of powered push-bikes.

A 1938 Excelsior Autobyk or Auto-Byk, with a 98cc Villiers Junior engine.

It took our readers a while to get going, but once they were going, there was no stopping them.

A bit like an Excelsior Autobyk, in fact.

When we first published a wartime photograph of Corporal Norbert Sandy on a “mystery machine”, we had a trickle of feedback.

It was suggested that Corporal Sandy, who was an airman in charge of the RAF fixer station at Nedge Hill, Stirchley, was riding a Cyclemaster, which was essentially a conversion putting a little engine on the back wheel of a push bike.

That really stirred things up, sparking memories – largely bad ones – for many readers of machines of yesteryear called autocycles. Uncool even in their day, they were a sort of feeble early moped of the 1930s and 1940s (the Cyclemaster did not appear until the 1950s).

And while there has been a lot of deliberation about the exact model of Corporal Sandy’s mount, the most confident assertions are in favour of the Excelsior Autobyk.

Barry Jasper of The Sheet, Ludlow, sent in a photo of himself on his Autobyk in 1944.

“Bought second-hand from a relative, it had a 97cc Villiers engine,” he said.

“As a farmworker I was allowed a petrol ration of one gallon per week – 120 miles. It had no gears and to start it you pedalled like mad and let the clutch in.

“One gallon of petrol and a quarter of a pint of oil to run the two-stroke engine cost two shillings (10 pence). Very expensive!

“In wartime, spares were unobtainable and it was kept going by a local mechanic, known as ‘Oily Fingers Ernie’, who made or adapted new parts.

“In 1947 I was forced to abandon it in a 12-foot snowdrift and it was never the same again when I recovered it several weeks later. Happy days!”

Don Sheppard of Ketley Grange said: “When we were children a long time ago in Dudley we used to play on one of these machines. It was just after the war and there were a lot of surplus old motorcycles lying about. Things like that were chucked out. If we saw one we would jump on it. The pedals still went round, although we had no petrol.”

Chapter and verse came in a contribution from A. H. Minton, of Abbeyfield, Bridgnorth, who wrote: “The machine that Corporal Sandy is shown riding is almost certainly an autocycle, a primitive light motor-assisted bicycle of which many thousands were made in the 1930s and 1940s.

“The bicycle frame was a heavy-duty device like a delivery bike and it carried a two-stroke engine of originally 75cc, later uprated to 100cc.

“The engine drove the back wheel in one gear only to give a top speed of about 20mph. This could only be achieved on level ground with favourable winds!

“A set of pedals was also fitted, driving the rear wheel, thereby providing a means of turning the engine to start it and also a means of giving ‘light pedal assistance’ on gradients.

“As the autobike was much heavier than even a robust proper bike, the problem of getting up a hill was appalling. I doubt if anyone ever climbed Harley Hill with such a vehicle.

“Nearly all the engines were made by Villiers of Wolverhampton. The design was a grand example of everything the Japanese could do better, but it could be maintained by a complete amateur and every part could be bought off the shelf at the Dawley cycle shop, which was just as well as most bits needed replacement at some time.

“Lighting and ignition were both provided by a flywheel generator. The permanent magnets in this used to get weak, giving rise to mysterious poor performance. This was a little understood fault.

“Nevertheless these distinctly uncool machines were reasonably cheap to buy and achieved 90 to 100 miles per gallon from the petrol of about 75 octane. My very first machine was an autobike and many old men of my era will admit the same. At one of my Army postings I was amazed to see the adjutant arriving to work on an autobike.

“I believe a well-kept autocycle will command a surprisingly high price at a vintage bike sale.”

According to Al Ussher of Church Stretton, autocycles were a favourite of nurses, and in 1940 cost about £22 10s.

Meanwhile the very mention of the Cyclemaster seems to have made Bill Picklescott, of Church Stretton, shudder.

“These contraptions were awful, as they hardly ever ran properly, and were so underpowered as to be nearly useless, except when brand new,” he said.

“I know, because I owned several of these ‘abortions,’ as they were called. With names like Cyclaid, Winged Wheel, Mini Motor, Power Pac, Cyclemaster, Adpower, and so on, very few people persisted with them, and got cars instead.

“The bike in your photo could be an autocycle made by Scott, a machine much stronger than the ad-ons, which had a 98cc motor and more robust frame, dating from the 1930s.

“Regarding the driving test course around the Abbey Church in Shrewsbury, I failed mine on a Raleigh moped, another wretched unreliable motorised bike, which let me down halfway through the test!”

By Toby Neal

• Many thanks to all those readers who contributed information about the autocycle, including Arnie Horton, of Newtown, who had a Velocette autocycle (“If the engine stopped you could pedal them – they were damn heavy to pedal!”); Gordon Jones, of Oswestry; Mrs Sheila Bailey, Telford; John Stokes, Ellesmere; Mrs Elizabeth Taylor, Uffington; Bill Gardiner, Sutton Hill; Brian Groome, Sutton Maddock and Brian Farmer in Australia.