T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 93

To G. Brough Mount Batten Plymouth 26. 1. 33 Dear Mr Brough I should have acknowledged your catalogue & letter in less than three weeks - but it came to me slowly via Hythe, which I left in November. Speed-boats are finished, for the time being, so I get a little more riding. But the total for the bike is only 6£50, I'm afraid. It is a delightful machine, and not slow in aver-age; though the top speed on the flat comes out about 90. That is the big gear; but I don't really mind, for it has put my average up to nearly 43 m.p.h., a gain of a mile or two above my old speed. Petrol runs out very little above 50 m.p.g. and oil is also heavier. I still oil a back plug occasionally, on a wet day, when I average no more than thirty. I find myself a little "windy" on wet roads, nowadays. A queer thing happened on my last ride. It was very cold; but about an egg-cup full of black grease pumped out of the spring, all in my lap front fork, and spattered all over the petrol tank. Fork seems all right. I can't make it out. Any news of that little engine I saw at Meadows - or is it hush-hush? By the way, I have had a letter from Firth, the stainless... people, saying how my tank is. May I tell them? It is still spotless, whereas all the plating is going rusty by degrees. I have never had such a good tank before. Nor so good a bike, incidentally, for comfort above 55 m.p.h. Below that the carburation is not perfect; bumps a little, as though hunting. No matter. I'm delighted with it all. I hope you are weathering the depressions, commercial, industrial, and meteorological! Yours ever T E Shaw