Cyril Pullin

[Red]

Photograph held by the Brooklands Museum

Original


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Modified versions added - Dave, 21Dec2023

[Hutch]

Great Picture Roy and one I have not seen before! Thanks for posting it.

Information on the event at Brooklands on the 8th from The Scotsman 10 October 1921 (from British Newspaper Archive)

Cheers

Hutch

[Hutch]

More detailed report from The Motor Cycle 13th October 1921

-Hutch

[cardan]

Nice bike there.

Interesting that there is no mention of the twin carbs in the 13/10/1922 Motor Cycle report of the BMCRC Championships; the first mention I have seen is a month later (10/11/1921) where there is a full description of Pullin's two twin-carb Douglases in a meet at Brooklands, accompanied by a photo of Pullin on a single carb bike!

Most of the pressure balancing hardware is already there, but the variable main jets and other developments were to come.

Leon

Edit: Summary of Pullin's early Douglas adventures: https://www.douglasmotorcycles.net/index.php?topic=7014.msg27566#msg27566

[cardan]

A "spaghetti junction" quiz for Christmas!

Print out the photo, grab a hi-lighter pen, and find the 18 spaghettis:

1. Rear spark plug lead
2. Rear fuel line
3. Rear balance pipe, from fuel bowl to top of air box
4. Rear carburettor throttle cable
5. Rear carburettor air cable
6. Front fuel line
7. Front balance pipe, from fuel bowl to top of air box
8. Front carburettor throttle cable
9. Front carburettor air cable
10. Vertical rod for gear change
(Cables 4,5,8,9 can all be seen passing in front of 10, below the tank rail, on the way up to the double-double-levers on the right handlebar)
11. Valve lifter cable
12. Manual oiling cable, from handlebar lever to oil pump
13. Oil pipe from oil pump to sight glass
14. Oil feed from sight glass to rear of engine
15. Oil feed from sight glass to top of front cylinder
16. Balance pipe from top of air box to tank cap
17. Clutch cable
18. Advance-retard cable to magneto (some imagination required)

Leon

[cardan]

When you see something as "official" as a photo mounted on a card with the typed-up caption, it's certainly tempting to a treat the caption as indisputable fact.

In this case, the claim in the caption that Pullin finished third in the BMCRC 600cc Sidecar Championship on a 3 1/2 hp (500cc) Douglas is verified by the article in the Motor Cycle on 13 Oct 1921. But was this photo taken on the day? Or maybe a month later? This is where it would help to know if the caption was typed up in October 1921, or sometime in the 1960s.

The Motor Cycle article about the BMCRC Championships in 1921 has specific comments about the Douglases that were on the track on the day: "... Pullin had fitted an ingeniously balanced air intake to his sports model Douglas. Bailey and Emerson (Douglases) used metal bridges to steady their engines to the centre of the middle frame tube."

Now I reckon that if Pullin's bike had twin carbs - a rare thing indeed in 1921 - the reporter would have mentioned it. The engine brace described was interesting, but the tech was at least a year old ( https://www.douglasmotorcycles.net/index.php?topic=7014.msg27469#msg27469 ). Pullin's air balance system was probably on the track for the first time, so worthy of mention, but twin carbs... surely worth noting!!

The photo below, from the Motor Cycle 10 Nov 1921, shows "C.G. Pullin, who won the 750 c.c. championship race on a 3 1/2 h.p. Sports Douglas at a speed of 76.49 m.p.h." The bike Pullin is sitting on in that photo is a single-carb Sports Douglas fitted with an early version of the air balance system: no air box, but the balance pipe is there between the carb and the fuel cap. Yet on that day in November, the article notes that "Pullin's Douglas had a large pressure box fitted around the air inlets of his two carburetters."

My guess is that the single-carb bike in photo below is the bike on which Pullin finished third in the BMCRC 600cc Sidecar Championship, and that the caption on the Brooklands photo is wrong.

Maybe someone has the riding numbers at the different Brooklands meets and can weigh in.

Leon