Britbike forum Forums Buy & sell - private adverts only! Garage sale - The private buy & sell board 1969 BSA Victor For Sale

For sale by a friend of mine (posting especially for KC of SB who has cold turkey from lack of postings).
1969 BSA Victor for sale
Ran when parked 4 years ago.
New carb.
Rebuilt speedo.
Otherwise all original.
Has title.
Looking for $2800 OBO
Please see photos attached.
If interested please respond to me and I will put you in touch with the seller.

That's even a food buy when converted to CDN money.

i am picking one up sunday. idk if it runs though.

Somebody needs to buy the poor thing to rescue it from those ape hangers.

We were discussing those bars at the TSMR. Opinions were about evenly split as to whether those are stock "Western" bars as delivered to Hap Alzina or whether they are aftermarket.... I'd probably change them if it were mine. It's my plan to have a yellow-tanked Victor one day, but I need to get the C15S running first to establish my bona-fides and ability to care for a unit single properly.

Lannis

I'm pretty sure those bars are not stock. That compression release cable looks the right length to put the release lever right up near the grip on stock rise bars.
That's how my '67 B44EA was when I bought it used in 1970. Lower bars and the release lever right under the clutch lever.

Bars aren't "stock," but rest of bike appears so.
I have experience with 441 Victors.

I have two of those in storage, one is completely stock.

Pretty good looking Victor, I think a good price. Close to original... from what is shown, along with the bars it has a non-stock chainguard and seat cover, as well as a choke that has been added. I don't think that is the stock compression release lever for 69, though I've seen that ball end type on earlier years... Doherty?

Looks like the speedo cable is run in a sleeve for a length, interesting way to neaten it up...

I'm TERRIBLE with names, so I cannot remember the name of the guy who rode with us for a while on the TSMR ride Saturday.

He had a very nice-looking and well-sorted Victor, with upgrades like an external oil filter, which started first kick every time and sounded great. It looked and sounded good going down the road just in front of me. I pulled up a chair and sat and stared at it for a while, which is a sign that I'm getting my mind right to get one of my own some day (it worked that way with Rich's Norton).

ALTHOUGH, even though I'm at a svelte 6'1" and 250 pounds, I had comments from people riding behind me about how I absolutely dwarfed the Firebird Scrambler, which is in fact a narrow-hipped compact twin. I'd probably look like a circus bear on a unicycle going down the road fully geared up on a Victor ... ! Too old to let that bother me, though.

Lannis

those aren't really apes. american style bars i would say. tall, but not apes.

Maybe not apes - how about chimp hangers?


In any case, Victor Specials should have braced dirt bars.

Chimp chokers!

mine doesn't.

I will never forget my first off road adventure on a brand new 1968 VS. Southern California desert. 5-6 of us had ridden off (Edwards AFB) to an section of single track. If you've ever been out there.......the place is covered in single track....for miles. So off we go......mostly Asian, one Spanish, a new Desert Master Husky ......and a Victor Special. Well........I'm here to tell you the VS out ran ALL of them.......by a LONG shot.....until the first set of woop te doos. (A wash board set of humps/bumps that you try to ride across the tops of ). The Victor did "okay" for the first few but the stock suspension was useless after that. I'm not really sure what it looked like but somewhere along the line I left the bike while it was still on two wheels....I hit the dirt face first with the bike landing pretty close by. Took a bit for the others to catch up......I was still digging sand out of my mouth. Yea.......I loved that bike but it wasn't an off road racer out of the box like a DT1 or the Husky. A new set of bars cost me $24 and took 6-8 weeks to get.....remember those days?

IMO the bike being offered is a good deal.. But prices have been soft lately and we've seen other unit singles on here offered for good prices that were ignored.

Someone on here gets this one......I have several stock bars and I'll gladly give you one.....just ask.

Hadn't you heard of JC Whitney back then? Made bent bars much less painful...possibly the source of the bars on the featured bike?

JC Whitney was the poverty-stricken young biker's friend and mentor back in the day.

Everything was "CUSTOM FIT". Tires could be had for under $10 each. Every kind of exhaust noise dodge ever made was on sale. "Motor Mender" pills dropped in your gas were guaranteed to stop your engine smoking and raise compression. "Atomizing Magnets" wrapped around your fuel line would double your gas mileage, etc etc.

Since we all rode small bikes that got 60+ MPG (unless you were on a Kaw triple!), and with tires and chains dirt cheap, it really WAS cheaper to ride a motorcycle back then than to keep a car on the road. Unfortunately, now that cars get 40 MPG, a set of car tires lasts 50,000 miles, and car spark plugs last the life of the car, and bikes have gone the OTHER way, it's cheaper to drive a small beater than ride a modern bike.

Those were the days .....

Nice to hear JC remembered and appreciated for what it was, and meant.

Mail order, yow, thank you Sears.

How 'bout Herters?

Kleins?

(Now if they could have taken all those big, bulky catalogs and make them accessible on a little hand-held device... naw, inconceivable.)

Herters, now there's another blast from the past. I have both of George Herters "Bull Cook" books, and a Bull Cook knife.....

Lannis

You mentioned suspension which is absolutely spot on but, don't forget those stupidly heavy wheels too. They don't help one bit.

The Victor I did much of my desert riding on ended up with Husky wheels front and rear, Husky forks with cartridge emulators and NJB rear Shocks. With all that, it was ok to ride for a vintage bike, in fact, I liked it better than the B50.

My 68 has the Western Bars. The rise is 7 inches. Where is this bike located?

Come to think of it, in some parts of the country "JC Whitney" was "Warshawski's" instead ... same catalog, same look, but different trademark .. Maybe that's why some people didn't hear about it....

Lannis

Watching even a little bit of Desert Racing (like the vignette from "On Any Sunday"), that's something I can't even imagine doing. Blasting wide open through the trackless desert, dodging puckerbushes and chollo cactus, not knowing if there's a big rock or huge washout just ahead that you can't stop for ... I wouldn't do it on a bet. Doing it on an old 400-pound Brit with 4 inches of suspension travel in front and 3 in back would be a nightmare to me.

But my impressions must be off somewhat, because I don't read about 15 people being killed or maimed every time they run a Barstow- Vegas or Dakar-type race ....

Lannis