This is getting dangerously off-topic, but interesting as it reminds us that bicycle mechanics were in the forefront of transport engineering in the early days. By the early twenties at least three ex-bicycle firms had made overhead cam engines (Matchless, Sunbeam and Chater-Lea.) Raleigh (Sturmey-Archer) made engines, gearboxes and complete machines; in fact, their heavyweight gearboxes were fitted to all the big twins at one time. Lea-Francis started as bicycle makers, became motorcycle manufacturers and then car makers ending up with an engine very like the Riley with a camshaft high up on each side of the block. The timber for the estate car bodies of Lea-Francis in the forties and early fifties was cut in a joinery a couple of miles from where I am writing.
As I said, horribly off-topic, but what goes around comes around. In the early fifties, Italy must have been swamped by tiny spindly fifty cc motorcycles. Anyone who has sat astride a Maserati, Motom or Itom will suspect that they were made by bicycle mechanics. Enough of this! I shall cycle my Bates round to the garage where I will work on a car made of tubing brazed into lugs and driven by a chain. Its antecedents were probably on-topic.
Stuart Tallack in West Sussex