RGM

[alanw]

Ive got Petbur's RGM beeza on the bench at the minute, out of interest anybody got any info on RGM .Who was Rgm how many chasis did they build I know it originally had a 16'' front wheel Peter got the forks with it. Cheers

[Bob B]

RGM - Rose Green Motors of IIRC Luton or thereabouts, used to run a team of three Triumph outfits mid - late 60s. There is an RGM in the States that is now road registered, owner is a forum member.

[Jim Sinnott]

Alan RGM was Rose Green Motors i think, i remember going down to their workshop in the late 60's with Steve and Jim Williamson, i think the deal was they want Steve and Jim to race their outfit but if i am correct Steve thought it a bit flimsy. He later built one that broke going into Quarter Bridge causing them to crash

[dick hawes]

John Judge was the boss of RGM and was an accomplished solo racer, and a really nice guy. I presume
he is still around although I have not spoken with him for a few years.
He helped Arthur Teasedale and others, and Gerry and Nick Boret rode Arthurs outfit in the T T.
I was sponsored by Ken Garret for some time on the Rhombus Imp which was am RGM rolling chassis
with an Imp motor. Laterly it was ridden by Les Langdridge who briefly held the lap record on it at
Snetterton, and rode it in the 1972 TT with a 750cc motor built be Ian Carter

After finishing 10th in the 1969 World Championship on our Seeley outfit Jim Man and myself built an RGM
framed Seeley machine for the 1970 season, but after a shunt at Oulton Park at the Easter International
involving Colin Hornby it caught fire in the garage and was completely destroyed. We were generously offered
the loan of outfits by Bill Boddice and John Tickle but decided to build another RGM and had it ready just in
time for the TT. It was a disaster as it was a standard chassis which for some reason was not compatable
with the Seeley engine. Although Rob North built the RGM frames for John Judge our first one was built as a
special with the Seeley in mind. However the second was not and it vibrated so much that it broke the frame
every time we rode it. We pulled out of the TT after practice.
The only good result was a 10th at the Ulster GP, this time passengered by Alex McFadzean, but the only
way we could alter the balance factor of the frame was to jam pieces of wood between the top and bottom
tubes held in with rope. It was scrapped afterward.

RGM were ahead of their time, and carried spares on the shelf for their bikes which was ahead of the time.
John Judge put a lot of work in but found out, as have so many since, sidecar constucting is a passion not
a profitable enterprise.

Dick Hawes

[DavidCurrell]

Dick I think you should write a book, look forward to being a team mate this year.

Buddha.

[alanw]

Many thanks for info guys, anybody know how many were built. I presume there were also a few coppies built over the years, But I would say Peters is original going by the stamp on the headstock.
Thanks

[RP]

This is our RGM at Snetterton circa 1969 (no.28)

[alanw]

RP dont supose you recall the chasis number do you, Peters is RGM N (presumably Norton) 1332
Alanw

[sidecar bloke]

As I was sat sitting next to the eligibility binder I thought I'd have a rummage whilst waiting for my tea! I started from the back - nothing; loads of really interesting stuff sadly no longer seen, but no RGMs. Then all of a sudden the letters RGM sprung from the page - registered with the club 12 August 2004 with a BSA A65, owned by Tony Wheatley. Then I looked at the chassis number - bugger - N1332 - either they all have the same chassis number or this is the same outfit. So after all that excitement I'm going to have me tea!!

Hold the tea - I've just found another one!! Well, a Mr Tim Turner thought he had an RGM with a Norton Atlas in it, built in 1967. He registered it with us in August 2006. Sadly no chassis number quoted.

They don't look the same, although the Norton does have a 16" front wheel. Due to my IT skills - Jane will put the two photos up tomorrow. Definitely having my tea now!!

[alanw]

Ian
Peter bought the bike from Tony Weatley last year.
Cheers

[petbur]

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/commu ... -id=380565 Found this Alan, would it be worth an email to see if he ever found him.

[LarryC]

I rode an RGM in 73-74 here in the states. Ozzie Auer owned the bike was H-1 Kawasaki powered. Great handeling bike and had very good sucess with it. There were a few here in the U.S. but only one or two left that I know of.

[alan_overton]

Alan RGM was Rose Green Motors i think, i remember going down to their workshop in the late 60's with Steve and Jim Williamson, i think the deal was they want Steve and Jim to race their outfit but if i am correct Steve thought it a bit flimsy. He later built one that broke going into Quarter Bridge causing them to crash

And I remember that visit, too! I was the young lad who built the first half dozen or so outfits for John Judge. Flimsy? We used 1 3/16" diameter cold-rolled mild steel tubing, all sif bronzed. Very strong, but fairly light.

I'd walked out of my apprenticeship at Vauxhall Motors in order to carry out this labour of love at RGM, but eventually yielded to pressure from my parents and left John (on good terms) to return to Vauxhall and finish my apprenticeship. The last rolling chassis I built we took up to Rob North in Bedworth, including all the jigs I'd made, for him to replicate and carry on production for John.

It's easy to distinguish whether an RGM outfit was built by Rob or myself just by looking at the top yoke of the leading link front forks. Rob's were flat, while mine had a sexy bend down to the weld on each fork leg. Dug out a couple of pix from the annals of history and managed to scan and resize them to share here.

One shows Arthur Teasdale and (passenger) Nick Boret rounding Governor's Bridge on the works RGM 725cc Triumph in the 1969 IOM TT. Sadly, they retired on the final lap when the feed from the battery to the fuel pump broke. With all that vibration, we should have used crimped connectors, rather than soldered...

The other piccy is a nearly finished customer order just before being loaded in the van to go to the Brighton Motorcycle Show, probably 1969 as well. I think we got two or three orders from that show.

Here's a link to the street-legal RGM outfit in the States, mentioned above. The are some nice pix in there. It's definately one of Rob North's builds, though, not mine.

http://www.southbayriders.com/forums/sh ... hp?t=23122

Amazing what you can stumble across with a google search. Thanks for awakening some good memories, guys!

Cheers- AL

[alan_overton]

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/commu ... -id=380565 Found this Alan, would it be worth an email to see if he ever found him.

I looked John up in our local Luton directory this morning and found him! Still in Pulloxhill, Bedfordshire, where I last had a couple of pints with him in his local (a few doors away from where he still lives), the Cross Keys. Jeez, that must have been nearly 30 years out of touch now. Shame on me, he's such a decent and friendly guy.

Anyway, by way of an update, I phoned him, and YES, Andy Smith did manage to make email contact a while back, and YES, John Judge is still alive and kicking! At a guess , I'd say he'd be in his mid-seventies now, so it's likely that he's hung his leathers up for good LOL! I gave him this site's URL and told him about this thread, and that I'd posted, so you never know- John might pop in some time and add some input, as to how many RGM outfits in total were ever made. I don't have a clue on that one.

I do know that Rob North was a superb chassis builder, though. Who remembers the Easter Match Races in the 60's, going backwards around Brands and Mallory, UK v USA? With the UK on factory BSA / Triumph 750cc triples - Rob North chassis. Beautiful looking machines. And the Yanks all on Harley Davidsons. Happy days... Just found another pic of Arthur and Nick negotiating Braddan Bridge at full steam in 1969. I was there with them, as mechanic. So was Gerry Boret, who went onto great things with the Renwick outfit afterwards, when they solved how to use the 10" front wheel geometry, instead of the 16" that was par for the course in the 60's...

A couple more memories floated back when studying these pix again. I didn't do the fibre glass stuff. John had a great guy called Laurie in a little village near Luton called Lilley. Laurie used to do all the F/G mouldings in an out building behind his house there. But guess who designed and made the moulds for these items:

1) Making a mould for adding a 'fast back' extension to the old 'tear drop' sidecar wheel fairing, to carry the fuel

2) Making the mould for the oil tank that sits in the nose cone fairing

3) And the mould for the fast-back fairing that sits under the driver's bum and stretches over the rear suspension and wheel. This was supported by a small tube subframe, as it had to carry the full passenger's weight on fast righthanders.

Yep! Yours Truly

[alan_overton]

Talking of the RGM fibreglass work, this evokes a very bad memory...

I remember someone taking advantage of John Judge's honest and trusting nature once. Mick Fiddaman phoned and said he was building a new outfit, and needed a full kit of our fibreglass in a desperate hurry. Cash waiting. He'd seen one of our outfits, and liked the f/g styling.

John asked him his address and what colour he wanted, and drove off to the wilds of Essex that same evening to drop it off. Lame excuse why no money to hand when he arrived, but promise of a cheque in the post the following week, when some awaited funds arrived in his account. So John trusted him.

Poor old John never saw a penny of what MF owed him. That really hurt him; how could anyone ever treat him like that? I hope that the fleas from a 1000 camels infested MF's arsehole from that time on. What an effing toe rag...