Photos from the past...Jim Day's been a close friend of mine since the mid 1950's, a great Velocette man, so lets have a look at an early photo album of his...

Jim Day has been a close friend of mine since around 1956 when his family moved to a house next to where I lived in Maroubra, NSW- he's what I call my closest friend after my wife Judy.....





And he is the typical motorcyclist and well a super enthusiast for motorcycling.... no matter where he rides if another motorcyclist passes in the opposite direction, Jim gives an acknowledging wave.....
Six years older than me, we've ridden many miles together.... he survived a couple of horrendous crashes but there is a lot of time and miles between them...
The last and from which he is still recovering, saw him helicoptered to a hospital when he spent 5 weeks recovering...

But this post, likely one of several on Jim is related to his beginning days of motorcycling...via photos from one of his personal albums....

 Jim's first bike in around 1956....then "he saw the light" as he mentioned and bought a 1948 Velocette MSS...rego number, NSW...ZZ-84

He joined Bankstown-Wiley Park MCC and weekend rides with other Club members followed and longer trip on his annual vacations....

On a Club rune...."derbying with the boys"....

In Feb.1958 he and a friend rode south to Melbourne and shipped their bikes over to Tasmania for their annual work holidays...no roll-on-rool off ferries then, the bikes were craned on in slings...

 Photo below  is titled..."at the end of the earth"...Corinna, Tasmania.

In 1958 he bought a 1956 Velocette MSS from a South Australian truck driver and it was registered in NSW as AX-400....and Jim still has the bike and it has now over 140,000 miles on the speedo....

 

He seemed a bit prone to rear wheel punctures ....

 Lets slip forward to 1966, this is one of my pics....mid summer in Australia, far west NSW, earth road for hundreds of miles and Jim punctured the rear tyre of AX-400 again... pretty hot 115oF in the shade that day....

 Back to Jim's pics...

Jim Abbott from Arizona, USA commented below on his admiration for Jim as a motorcyclist and was resigned to be unable to attach a pic of Jim from the 2012 Velocette OC of North America's Annual Rally and Ride...

But help is at hand....

Emailing me the pic, I've included it below...

 

Jim titled it...

"Jim Day, as good as it gets....."