Britbike forum Forums British Motorcycle specific Brands Bsa bulletin board Thunderbolts and Lightning

Wife got me Thunderbolts and Lightning by Peter Crawford for Xmas. (Book was on my list recommended by Ken Rowarrk from hereabouts) great book!

Many of the strange model quirks oft discussed here are put in consise timeline and reasoning and with anecdotal quotes about what was going on at BSA and the industry. UK book but well worth the postage. With Bacons twin book, I can get a good grasp on the tech and situations that normally only folks on here ( in a disjointedly internet way) provide.

Definitely recommend!

In that case I would forget the confusion that Bacon offers and stick with the WSM, BSAOCNSW website which is fantastic for catalogue images and books like "the gold portfolio" are great for test reports and magazine articles that were done at the time of production.

Bacon's books also suffer from being based on UK factory press releases, few if any US market press releases.

It does have good pictures tho. In the case of my a65s I'm mostly building things I didn't take apart. And other than pictures I take at shows the parts book and service manual have secrets they like to keep, for example coil orientation. So Bacons book has merit there at least. Now that I 'm up to 3 BSA's I should probably look into the owners club. Seems like a good resource.

Gads! How did I end up with 3? It's like they're breeding! I was a lifelong Triumph guy!

Another good series of books is by those of Brad Jones. I’ve been reading the final evolution since I’ve been playing a lot with 70’s OIFs of late I’ve gained quite an interest in them. It is again an excellent resource.

I get asked to contribute tech blogs to our website from time to time, and I wrote one up on some BSA history awhile back. Certainly not a comprehensive book, ala Roy Bacon, but I think it's mostly pretty accurate.
-Dave
https://www.thebonnevilleshop.com/thunderbolts-and-lightning-bsa-motorbikes/