Smooth As Silk? Unravelling The Story Of Another Forgotten Classic British Motorcycle 

I seem to remember that Superbike magazine tested one? I was 16 in 1977, and I thought the Silk was soooo cool. In fact - I still do!!!!

I was offered a job by Silk, in 1975, after visiting the Darley Abbey factory. My father advised me not to go because he reckoned the company wouldn’t last long. Unusually for me, I took his advice and joined the RAF in 1976 instead. They let me fly jets and helicopters, so I got the better deal in the end.

Phill every time i watch this Video i get idea how much i want a Silk ! At almost 62yrs old i have been in love with this Bike since 1976 when i first saw it , in a book . Well just wanted to say HI and i love the Channel. Good luck from Tennessee.

I looked through all my 1970's mags but sadly no Silk motorbikes. Not surprising for Penthouse. Plenty in silk though.

George Silk lived on my street in Sandiacre. I distinctly remember walking past his house to and from school from about 10 to 15 yrs old and there would often be a Silk.or two outside his garage....I always thought they were slightly odd but really very cool looking even as greasy little kid....😊

Another Beautiful motorcycle from Great Britain England has a real nack for making beautiful motorcycles ❤️

Barbers museum has a beautiful example of a Silk. I have a real soft spot in my heart for 2 stroke road bikes and these bikes are gorgeous!

A mate, who rebuilt my Moto Guzzi Le Mans engine, had a Silk 700 on the bench when we delivered my engine. He was doing engine work for the owner in Victoria, Australia. Lovely original patina silver bike, with some really nice engineering touches. My Dad owned a Scott Flying Squirrel after his Ariel Square Four. he sold it to a bloke who wanted to race it as a speedway bike in Adelaide, South Australia…

I drooled over pictures of that bike as a fourteen year old.

Rode a scots squirrel in Canterbury, mid-sixties. Beautiful bike. Sadly I was on a Honda, no oil leaks, electric starter. Where have all the motorbikes gone, long time passing.

My Dad spent 4 years restoring a Scott Flying Squirrel 1947. The engine was smooth and had good power but it was a very heavy bike...the frame/forks and petrol tank were very overbuilt. He got rid of the ancient manually adjusted Pilgrim oil pump and fitted a modern Yamaha throttle controlled oil pump which made a big difference.

I knew both George and Wendy Silk very well at the time - in fact my wife worked in the office at Dale Abbey. George was a member of the VMCC, as were we, and we were part of a crowd who went to the TT (I had a 1932 Scott TT Replica and my wife a 1928 Raleigh 250). Georeg also prepared a Velocette GTP 2 stroke as vintage trials bike which was ridiculously easy to ride - I once borrowed it and won a trial (I never was much of a rider but that GTP was a delight). Things got difficult at Silk when support industries that had once supplied the extensive motorcycle manufacturers shrunk as they fell by the wayside - Lucas for instance. Silks were/are very attractive machines but without a bigger manufacturing base they were toast despite George's hard work and enthusiasm.

I was a motorbike obsessed youth in the 70's and remember reading about the Silk. As you mention, it had a number of very clever features that differentiated from the Japanese 2-strokes of the era. The closest I every got to one was seeing one idling away at traffic lights in the middle of Edinburgh one soggy day. It looked lovely. so compact and beautifully finished. A little more flash than my Suzuki 185.

I always wanted one . Never saw one in person just in Books . I read all i could get my hands on about it . I was not interested in the Small displayment but the Silk 700 S was something i wanted ! Well i can Dream .

Pete Watson wrote a memorable picee about the Silk in Bike magazine, he went on to be the editor of Bike and also of the new Classic Bike magazine.A very influential journalist.

i had a scott flying squirrel 1960 great ride great fun

I was a despatch rider in 1980 Based in Surbiton and distinctly remember seeing a silk parked up on the way into Molesey / junction of Walton Road and Easher Road.

Gorgeous machine, a classic bike that's value kept up with inflation. Even had a race shift pattern before it was trendy. Cheers Phil.

Well what a great little video thanks for sharing. Got to say that looked like a pretty little bike and as for 2 stroke I really miss my 2 stroke days as a young fella. Our bike culture was a bit different here in Australia back in the 70s with big Japanese bikes filtering in and a ready supply of Japanese 2 strokes both road to trail.

Anything framed by Bob Stevenson was brilliant, he could make a can of beans steer

Thank you for this video. I had seen pictures of these but knew nothing about them until now.

I too went to the Silk factory on a tour in the 70’s A friend asked, what he thought was a sensible enough question, ‘ why aren’t you using Allen bolts rather than slotted screws?’ They weren’t impressed at all! 🙄

I had a friend who owned one and let me have a ride on it - that would be back in 1979 if I remember right. At the time I had a yamaha RD250E, and the Silk was 40lbs lighter. Only a 4 speed box so acceleration wasn't sparkling but it went round corners like nothing I'd ever ridden before and it was a true joy to ride. They had a common fault of pin holes developing in the cylinder head, I understand, though I don't know the details.

Mr. Silk seems to be an old school Allan Millyard ... Machining Fabulous Bikes in a shed at home, and an afterward stroll out for a pint , or cup of tea with cake... 😁

As other ex-owners have complained here of lack of performance and overheating & seizing I'll describe what I found when I took my engine apart. First discovery was taking the cylinder head off. After loosing off the bolts and extracting them one by one when time came to remove the last one the head turned around with bolt. Never seen this before, normally some tapping with a soft hammer is needed to break the head-block seal. With the head off the reason was obvious, the head joint was covered with silicone goo not proper head gasket sealant. Worse still the excess had squeezed out half closing the water passages on the inside and presumably being trimmed off the outside. So the thermo-syphon effect was semi-blocked and the engine overheated. Next discovery was examining the cylinder block assembly. The block is an aluminium casting with pressed-in machined liners of either steel or cast-iron (sorry I forget which). The intake and exhaust passages of the cast block and liner did not line up, not misaligned by just a touch but by several millimeters. So the air flow through the intake and exhaust ports was severely compromised, hence the lack of power. I knew the previous owner had done some fiddling with the bike and blamed him for the silicone, but when ordering new parts from Silk I explained what I had I had found and there was a long pause at the other end before the comment about needing to get them out of the door fast. Draw your own conclusions. With the new parts came a recommendation of an engine builder who was sprinting a Silk and he did "blue-print" the engine for me but my heart had gone out of it and I later sold it still in pieces. I'm used to "high maintenance", I love Lotus cars and have had six of them aged from 1950s to 1990s, and Lotus engines in other makes of racing cars. You know their reputation, but I can live with their little foibles for the days when everything is on-song. The Silk, I'm sorry, was a lovely idea, great in principle and to look at, but not to own.

There was a 700S hung on the wall of a bike shop in Gloucester, Cheltnam or Stroud (can't remember which) 40 odd years ago. I thought it looked great.

Interesting , thankyou

My Dad (a Yorkshireman unsurprisingly) was a Scott fanatic, having a number in various states of disrepair in the garage. He crooned over Silks, but having some semblance of common sense and little spare garage space left to maintain it, bought a Suzuki T500 instead.

I was 16 in 1980 and bloke in my village had one all my mates wanted rd's but I wanted the silk still do

Thanks for the video.

My favorite was the Van Veen 1000ocr had it on my wall as a teen it looked good and was really newthinking!

I had a '48 Scott in the 60s - a lot to like about it - but I was never truly happy with the Pilgrim pump total loss oil feed.. It nipped up on me a couple of times - so it was probably my fault that I'd not set the pump correctly - but enough was enough and I sold it. Years later, I read that George Silk was marketing the Silk Scott.. a modern Spondon frame and quality components but with a Scott engine. Finally, with the help of Queens University, Belfast, George made his own engine - but crucially with a Yamaha-style Posi-Lube system - and was now making a complete machine. I bought a '79 Mark 2 Silk in the early '90s but with the limited production run of about 140-odd bikes, the continued availability of spares was always a problem. I had some work done on mine by the late Grahame Rhodes, son of noted Velo enthusiast Ivan Rhodes, and he fitted the last primary chain they had to my bike. It was a custom chain manufactured specially for the Silk.. (I seem to remember that Grahame worked for George at the time) Riding impressions? First of all, at only 306lbs it weighed less than a Honda 250 at the time - but with a watercooled 650cc 2 stroke engine in it! It flew - and it was by far the best handling bike I''ve ever ridden. I was living near the South Downs at the time and it excelled on those roads. Sadly, It had to go - always a question mark about spares. Hats off though to George Silk getting so much right. Think his problem was that he was under-capitalised.

As a youngster, I recall a number of old timers claiming that the Scott was a very prestigious machine. Some of the Squirrel engines were sold to power the `Mignet` aka` The Flying Flea`- a tiny self build death trap of an aeroplane which claimed the lives of several pilots in as many months, before being swatted from the skies by the authorities. It was lethal, literally - indeed a flying coffin - the original pre- F104, `Widow Maker`. Anyhow, and by the way, thanks for the nice video on Bob `Hawkwind` Calvert

Had no idea about , about this Silk, just thought after Scott there wasn't anything. Love Scott and larger 2 strokes.

I had a number of two strokes back when I first started riding including a Yamaha RD 350 and Kawasaki H2 750..very different ride than our current bikes. Sad to see them go. We are seeing the same with air cooled bikes now, slowly disappearing. Progress.

A friend of mine had an original Flying squirrel and it’s quirky party piece was going into reverse if you stalled it then re started.

In the mid eighties Yamaha had a concept 750 4cylinder 2stroke, Kawasaki had a concept 750 square4 2stroke, Suzuki had their Kettle 750 triple and Silk the 700s. Only Honda left out in the cold. But imagine if all these bikes went into production!!!! An absolute 2 stroke paradise!

At a local pub bike meet recently, there was a Scott (possibly a Squirrel) present which got me thinking, just yesterday, that I ought to look up the Silk. Lo and behold, in one of those eerie internet coincedences, this pops up in my feed. I know those algos are good, but blymey!

Really enjoyed this.

Always been a bike to dream about. (Yes: I am THAT old!)

There’s one on display in Derby Museum of Making that’s actually set in an old silk mill.

I'd followed the Silk marque since they appeared on the UK market in the mid 70's. Someone in my home town had a Mk1 and used to leave it parked outdoors near Molesey lock. I'd see it and hear it from time to time, tearing along what was known as Murder Mile. The stretch of road that skirts Bushey Park in Surrey and culminates at Kingston Bridge. It sounded amazing, 'Like a sheet of galvanised tin roofing being torn in half', was how one journalist described it. Many years later, I went to see one in Banbury with a view to buying it back in the early 2000's. It was mint in black with gold pinstripes. This was a beautiful and clearly hand-built bike, packed with British bike pedigree. The owner let me start and ride it around his local streets. I returned slightly underwhelmed by the experience. I was expecting Yamaha performance with Brit bike looks. Allied to the fact that at £3k, it was a grand more than my budget. Foolishly I declined the opportunity. To this day I regret not finding that extra £1k. There was a period of time in the late 90's early 20's when this limited production run of bikes were being bought and sold weekly. They were a good price, around three times the original factory price by then. It bought you a piece of British motorcycle history for ordinary Japanese superbike prices. They rarely come on the market now, and when they do they're pricey, even as dilapidated project bikes.

I knew a motorbike fanatic from Birmingham called Silk, and I always wondered whether there was a connection.

Wow 1000cc two stroke triple that must have been a wild ride on drum breaks and single ply tires

In the early 70s I went to Silk Factory in Derby, with a club probably BSA owners club? ( I've been to bed since then ) It was very interesting

The enclosed chain looks like it's borrowed directly from Bultaco. My Metralla had it. I've long been surprised why they weren't more universally adopted. The only other mass produced bike I can think of that had a similar system to the Bultaco was the Yamaha V-twin, XV1000 from memory.

interesting ! I'd never heard of Silk Bikes before. Okay I was only just about getting rid of stabilisers on my pedal bike made for infant school children in 1975 , but still !

I’ve a vague recollection a one off was made as a competition prize for a bike mag in the earlier 80s. The company who owned the rights then(whose name escapes me, well it was 40+ years ago) were better known for industrial metal stitching and high pressure steam leak sealing in situ. Furmenite was the company.

My husband worked there and built the engines for these.

Regarding Scott`s use of the name "Squirrel", I have a very dim recollection of a schoolboy being informed by an ancient one, that the name related to the smokey exhaust trail of the two stroke, as it shot off into the distance. This being akin to a Squirrel`s tail. Concerning Alfred Scott himself, he seems to have been a bit of a "Renaissance Man", having apparently been an Artist, Musician, Cave explorer and willing to try out diverse Engineering ideas. Pity he went prematurely. Seems like an interesting guy.

'Hanging by a thread' Ouch! I'm sure there are more squirreled away somewhere...

Wonderful and a housed chain. No dirty bike and trousers anymore.

Not forgotten I wanted one, never had the money. I still don't have the money 😞

I did a movie stunt on a Scott in a WWI battlefield scene after first attempting it on a '03 Kerry. Unfortunately the handlebars became detached on the Kerry after a weld let go, leaving me with 12" steel tubes in each hand. The Flying squirrel had no problem climbing the same deeply rutted, muddy hill, regardless of it's 30 year old tyres. Although I had just bought one of the very first 1977 GS750s in Canuckistan after devouring every motorcycling publication I could find, I don't ever recall hearing about the Silk?

The cooling system works on the thermo syphon system.

I bought what must have been one of the last Silks made in early 1979. It was nothing short of a disaster. The engine wouldn't rev out and the claimed top speed of 105 was pie in the sky. The gear change mechanism included a welded up assembly which cracked leaving the bike stuck in bottom gear. The bike went back to the factory three times in all; piston seizure, the previously mentioned gearbox issue and the complete failure of the electrical system, a layout that could be charitably described as primitive. No fewer than four radiators were replaced in the 15 months that I owned the thing - seemingly incurable engine vibration caused cracking of the mounting brackets despite the rubber mounting to the frame. These were just the highlights, the full list of issues is too long for anyone. When the bike went back to the factory for the third time, I wrote to George Silk requesting that he sell it to the first person looking to buy one. This he did and I used the proceeds to buy a Guzzi Le Mans which gave me 15 years and 145,000 miles of glorious trouble free riding.

The Silk looks very nice.

Remember those and got reminded of Hesketh

May I suggest, that the feeler gauge as the emblem of Scott Motorcycles is the coolest ever & makes the „Squirrel“ or even „Flying Squirrel“ name tag somewhat more bearable?

PPPHIL'S there was a Bike mag with The silk and Heeley(sq4) in it....the Heeley only thou for under a grand.Could have been MCM

I owned one for a few years, Frame 49 & Engine 51. Really superb handling, gearbox was hmmm, adequate, but the engine was a real let-down. Won't catalogue all its problems but after it seized flat-out which turned out to be 90mph on the clock, not 110. When ordering new pistons and liners was told by Silk Engineering that "build quality was compromised by the need to get them out of the door because we needed the money". Thanks to that Spondon frame and suspension it did not throw me off and the engine half re-energised at walking speed to allow me to ride home and not have to walk. Interesting but flawed.

Should take a look at 'Cotton' next 😊

If you read about "Thermodynamic cooling" you will see that all cars had it in the -30 and -40, mostly because it is very simple. Hot water rises above cold water.

The only thing that stopped me buying a Silk was availability. There was a waiting list but I wanted a performance bike _now_ so I bought a Ducati 900SS instead.

I went to the works in the 70s for a test ride and took out the experimental bike . Unfortunately it was a bit of a dog (smoked a lot and felt a little home made) though it handled well. Still have the original catalogue from that visit.

Living in North Yorkshire at the time of Silks hay day, I often saw them around the village in which we lived, as it was home to a famous bike cafe. They were seen as really quite exotic and the owners tended to be aloof. They had a distinctive burbly growl and tended to be licking on quite rapidly. I found them interesting to look at with quite unusual features, which I liked. The cooling system works on the thermosyphon principle, as in hot water rises naturally, so in a closed system will circulate naturally without the need for a pump, this was probably seen as an aid to reliability. However, it wouldn't be adequate in a high performance engine, unless the radiator was massive. Not good for packaging on a bike!

Id forgotten the.Silk.until.now. There was.also a pretty trick British dirt bike called Cotton. Silk and cotton?

remember readng aout it in bike mag. it then not long after vanished from reality which i thought was abit of a shame being as i liked 2 strokes .it did cost a bucket load of cash though

Well l owned the Japanese alternative to the Silk 700 the Suzuki GT750 which despite its 3 cylinder 2 stroke engine it was a very smooth motorcycle to ride and boy did l ride my GT750 including a couple of trips to Adelaide from Sydney a very good touring bike and would so easily cruise at 160kph that's 100mph and the GT750 would do that easily

when i was 15 i saw one and said to myself i will one of them when im old enough three weeks they went skint 😪

Spill the beans on the TRIUMPH Diana.

I only ever saw a couple of the Silks, I thought they were very well made I remember reading a test in one of the bike mags in the 1970s and the tester commented how well it handled compared to the ill handling Japanese bikes at the time, another british bike that should have done well with better investment.

Pretty machine in all colors. Never heard of the 70s roadbike, but did see a vintage "Flying Squirrel" at the Guggenheim traveling motorcycle exhibit. Thought it looked great. Would have loved to ride one of Silks, and I expect it would be silky smooth. Too bad the British motorcycle industry couldn't compete with the Japanese, but glad to see Triumph back on the scene, altho I think that some of their bikes are butt-ugly and impractical.

Enclosed chain drive, we should see more of them.

Thermodynamic cooling just means that when water gets hot it expands, the density decreases, causing it to rise. The converse happens as it cools in the radiator.

The way the gear lever works has nothing to do with the "gears being installed upside down" and they weren't. Gearboxes don't have an orientation , up or down . Gear selection is controlled by the selector drum and a designer is the one that chooses which way he wants it to rotate

There is no thermodynamic wizardry involved in the Silk's cooling, just basic high school science, which was the point. It works because hot water is less dense and occupies more space than cold water, so when the engine heats the water around the cylinders, it naturally rises towards the radiator while the cold water in the radiator naturally sinks towards the cylinders. Et Voila ! water circulation without a pump.

The Racing & Sporting M/c Shows at the RHS showrooms in Greatcoat St . London , were a great draw for me in my early teens . An avid MCM reader and often a contributor to the Tips and Tricks section . I was way too young to hold a licence , but had read and digested Jennings and Bossaglia courtesy of my local library and was already tuning 2 strokes as 2 of my older brothers were riders .I was already familiar with 2 strokes from Ariel , Villiers and in a variety of scooters which I was already porting and tuning , but to see the new British entry at the show was interesting if a little disappointing as this Great British hope had to compete with the cheap Japanese imports already arriving in the UK . At the time we had seen multi cylinder/multi carb Reed and rotary valve engines on the race track and this tech was not present on yet another twin cylinder piston ported 2 stroke . The designers of the engine , to me , had missed the point and clearly failed in producing what the young wage earners wanted at the time , more technology and with that comes more cylinders and more carbs in a package that can be developed into a weekend race bike which would have helped it survive for a while despite the 1974 oil crisis . A great looking frame was not good enough if the engine had limited development capability for racing . It was doomed to fail and fail it did .

Wonder if Allen Millyard could do something with one?? lol

You left out the genesis of the SILK 700, the 636cc Silk Scott special that used a modified and tuned Scott DPY engine, a Velocette gearbox and a Spondon frame. Less than 25 were made. I have number 20.

Thermosiphone, like the model t.

The finest motorcycle ever made.

My grandad had a nasty accident on a Squirrel, the bike not the tree rat.

A friend of mine had a Silk. It couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding.

A modern Scott.

Moose and Skweerille 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You can't understand that warm fluids rise and cool fluids fall to displace them? How are you making a video? Thermosyphon cooling systems are just the primitive systems all early liquid cooled engines had. Other "features" the Silk had was an obsolete crossflow (deflector piston) scavanging system like an old reel type lawn mower with a Villiers engine might use. That's how they managed to get 48 hp and not 70hp from a 650cc two stroke

Those time related value of money calculators are bloody useless. They are always way low

Nice video. Thanks. drop the background music. Unnecessary, just interferes

There were definitely that sort of thing… we know of that type with extra vooom and Grubble, wubble, Dubble... Even if Yorkshire! Who know. We have that sort of stuff, complete with foreign type. Crikey!

JUNK. THE PISTONS WERE FITTED FOR OPPOSITE ENGINE ROTATION. CLATTERED LIKE A DUSTCART

And Heeley

First rd

Sales figures limited due to being overpriced

Gorgeous bike, concept stolen by Yamaha. Hence the LC.

Looks like a very interesting video. Damn shame the music is too loud. Why music at all to something I'm assuming is very interesting?

308lbs? 🤨🤨

stupid ad

That background racket is NOT HELPFUL.

why the muzak?